''The Lake'' is a short story by American author

Ray Bradbury Ray Douglas Bradbury (; August 22, 1920June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of modes, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and r ...

. It was first published in the May 1944 edition of ''

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 ...

'', and later collected in Bradbury's collections '' Dark Carnival'', ''

The October Country ''The October Country'' is a 1955 collection of nineteen macabre short stories by American writer Ray Bradbury. It reprints fifteen of the twenty-seven stories of his 1947 collection '' Dark Carnival'', and adds four more of his stories previou ...

'', and ''

The Stories of Ray Bradbury ''The Stories of Ray Bradbury'' is an anthology containing 100 short stories by American writer Ray Bradbury, first published by Knopf in 1980. The hundred stories, written from 1943 to 1980, were selected by the author himself. Bradbury's work ...

''. In an article written by Bradbury called "Run Fast, Stand Still" which was later collected in his book Zen in the Art of Writing, "The Lake" was written in two hours and led to him believing it was the finest story he'd ever written at that point in time.

Plot

The story focuses on a young man named Harold and his recollection of a traumatic experience from his childhood where a close friend of his named Tally drowns in the lake where they often played together. Her body was never found. Visiting the lake once more as an adult alongside his newlywed wife, he finds that a lifeguard has recovered the wet corpse of a child who is soon revealed to be that of his beloved Tally.

References

* http://www.lghs.net/ourpages/auto/2013/3/1/55741734/The%20Lake.pdf * https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0683220/ * http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/b/bradburys-short-stories/summary-and-analysis-the-october-country/the-lake

External links

*
"The Lake"
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

1944 short stories Short stories by Ray Bradbury American short stories {{1940s-story-stub