"He" is a short story by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written August 1925, it was first published in ''

Weird Tales ''Weird Tales'' is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, prin ...

'', September 1926.

Plot

The story's anonymous narrator has moved from

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, and greatly regrets it. One night, while wandering through a historic part of

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

, he happens upon a man dressed in garments from the 18th century. The man offers to show the narrator the secrets of the town. The man brings the narrator into his home. There, he tells him the story of a squire who bargained with Native Americans for the secrets of their rituals concerning time and space, which were practiced on the land where the squire had recently taken up residence. After learning these secrets, the squire killed the Native Americans by giving them "monstrous bad rum". Within a week all of them were dead, and he alone had their secret knowledge. The man shows the narrator visions of the city's past and future so terrifying that he begins to scream wildly. The screams rouse the spirits of the Native Americans to take vengeance on the man, who is the same squire from 1768.

Inspiration

The story "He" was written after an all-night tour of the remnants of Old New York; by 7 a.m. the next morning, Lovecraft had reached

Elizabeth, New Jersey Elizabeth is a city and the county seat of Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.New J ...

, by ferry, where he bought a dime composition book and wrote the story in Elizabeth's Scott Park. Lovecraft had moved to New York City in March 1924 for his short-lived marriage to Sonia Greene. He moved back to

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

in April 1926, having developed a thorough aversion to New York. The opening paragraphs of "He" are believed to be largely autobiographical,David E. Schultz, "Lovecraft's New York Exile", ''Black Forbidden Things'', pp. 52-54. expressing Lovecraft's own feelings about the city: Lovecraft's disgust for New York stemmed in large part from his racist attitudes, which are also reflected in "He"'s narrator: The court off

's Perry Street actually exists; Lovecraft learned of its existence in a ''

New York Evening Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established i ...

'' article of August 29, 1924. The stranger's house is apparently based on a mansion on the block bounded by Perry, Bleecker, Charles and West 4th streets, built as early as 1744 and demolished in 1865. A suggested literary model for "He" is

Lord Dunsany Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany (; 24 July 1878 – 25 October 1957, usually Lord Dunsany) was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist. Over 90 volumes of fiction, essays, poems and plays appeared in his lifetime.Lanham, M ...

's ''The Chronicles of Rodriguez'', in which a wizard displays visions of past and future wars in successive windows.

References

External links

* * * {{Works of H. P. Lovecraft 1926 short stories Fantasy short stories Horror short stories Manhattan in fiction Short stories by H. P. Lovecraft Short stories set in New York City Works originally published in Weird Tales