The People of the Pit
| "The People of the Pit" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by A. Merritt | |
 Cover to Amazing Stories, March 1927 | |
 Text available at Wikisource | |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Fantastic horror |
| Publication | |
| Published in | All-Story Weekly |
| Publisher | Frank Munsey |
| Media type | |
| Published in English | January 5, 1918 |
The People of the Pit (1918) is a short story by American writer A. Merritt.
Plot
[edit]Two gold prospectors are in Alaska to investigate a mountain range known as The Hand, which is supposed to have gold running down the middle. One night, when it is in sight, a beam of light shoots into the sky, and an injured man crawls into their camp. He was also a prospector, and tells them a fantastic tale of his experience with the People of the Pit.
Setting
[edit]The story is set "three hundred miles above the first great bend of the Kuskokwim toward the Yukon", in the Kuskokwim Mountains.
A travel book titled In the Alaskan wilderness had been published the previous year by George Byron Gordon, with maps and photographs of the region.[1]
Influence
[edit]The story has been cited as a possible inspiration of Lovecraft's novella At the Mountains of Madness.[2]
Publishing history
[edit]- All-Story Weekly, January 5, 1918
- Amazing Stories, March 1927, illustrated by Martin Gambee.
- The Third Omnibus of Crime, 1935
- The Fox Woman and Other Stories, 1949
- Masterpieces of Science Fiction, 1966
- The Fantastic Pulps, 1975
- Masterpieces of Terror and the Unknown, 1993
References
[edit]External links
[edit]- The People of the Pit title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
The People of the Pit public domain audiobook at LibriVox- The People of the Pit at Project Gutenberg Australia
