"The Street" is a short story by American

horror fiction Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, or disgust. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which is in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J ...

writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in late

1919 Events January * January 1 ** The Czechoslovak Legions occupy much of the self-proclaimed "free city" of Pressburg (now Bratislava), enforcing its incorporation into the new republic of Czechoslovakia. ** HMY ''Iolaire'' sinks off the c ...

and first published in the December

1920 Events January * January 1 ** Polish–Soviet War in 1920: The Russian Red Army increases its troops along the Polish border from 4 divisions to 20. ** Kauniainen, completely surrounded by the city of Espoo, secedes from Espoo as its own ma ...

issue of the ''Wolverine'' amateur journal.

Plot

The story traces the history of the titular street in a

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 ...

city, presumably

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, from its first beginnings as "but a path" in colonial times to a quasi-supernatural occurrence in the years immediately following

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. As the city grows up around the street, it is planted with many trees and built along with "simple, beautiful houses of brick and wood", each with a rose garden. As the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

runs its course, the area degenerates into a run-down and polluted

slum A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inh ...

, with all of the street's old houses falling into disrepair. After World War I and the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...

, the area becomes home to a community of Russian immigrants. Among the new residents is the leadership of a "vast band of terrorists," who are plotting the destruction of the United States on

Independence Day An independence day is an annual event commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or more rarely after the end of a military occupation. Man ...

. When the day arrives, the terrorists gather to do the deed, but before they can get started, all the houses in the street collapse concurrently on top of each other, killing them all. Observers at the scene testify that immediately after the collapse, they experienced visions of the trees and rose gardens that had once been in the street.

Inspiration

The Boston Police Strike of September–October 1919 inspired Lovecraft to write "The Street," as he declared in a letter to

Frank Belknap Long Frank Belknap Long (April 27, 1901 – January 3, 1994) was an American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. Though his writing career spanned seven decades, he is best known ...

: The terrorism was also real, and had been going on since 1914 in a series of parcel bombs. In 1919 two campaigns of mail bombing were discovered. In 1920 there would be a major terrorist bomb attack on

Wall Street Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for t ...

. The (real and unreal) news of the anarchy occurring during the Russian and German revolutions would, along with the story of

Peter the Painter Peter the Painter ( lv, Pēteris Krāsotājs), also known as Peter Piaktow (or Piatkov, Pjatkov, Piaktoff; lv, Pēteris Pjatkovs), was a member of a gang of immigrant Latvian anarchists in London in the early 20th century. After supposedly fight ...

, also have effected a market for the story. The story's anti-immigrant stance echoes such earlier xenophobic poems by Lovecraft as "New England Fallen" and "On a New-England Village Seen by Moonlight."

Reception

An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia ''An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia'' is a reference work written by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz. It covers the life and work of American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. First published in 2001 by Greenwood Publishing Group, it was reis ...

'' describes this story as "manifestly racist." According to Daniel Harms, author of ''

The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana ''Encyclopedia Cthulhiana'' is a reference guide to the invented places, beings, and concepts from the Cthulhu Mythos developed by H. P. Lovecraft and others. It was published by Chaosium in 1994. Description ''Encyclopedia Cthulhiana'' is a 40 ...

'', "If someone came up to me and said, 'Hey Daniel, I think H. P. Lovecraft was a wordy, overly-sentimental bigot whose stories don't make much sense,' this would be the last story I would hand to him to convince him otherwise." S. T. Joshi called ''The Street'' "probably the single worst tale Lovecraft ever wrote".

References

Trevor Conan Kearns, Jennifer L. Weber. ''Key Concepts in American History: Terrorism''. Chelsea House, 2010. p.67. Charles Howard McCormick. ''Hopeless Cases: the hunt for the red scare terrorist bombers''. University Press of America, 2005. H. P. Lovecraft, letter to Frank Belknap Long, November 11, 1920; cited in

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Street, The 1920 short stories Short stories by H. P. Lovecraft Works originally published in American magazines