Celephaïs

"Celephaïs" is a fantasy story by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in early November 1920 and first published in the May 1922 issue of the "Rainbow".

The title refers to a fictional city that later appears in H. P. Lovecraft´s Dream Cycle, including his novella "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" (1926).

Inspiration

Like many of Lovecraft's stories, "Celephaïs" was inspired by a dream, recorded in his Commonplace Book as "Dream of flying over city." [Cited in Joshi & Schultz, "Celephais", "An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia", p. 36.]

The story resembles a tale by Lord Dunsany, "The Coronation of Mr. Thomas Shap" in "The Book of Wonder", in which the title character becomes more and more engrossed in his imaginary kingdom of Larkar until he begins to neglect business and routine tasks of daily living, and ultimately is placed in a madhouse. The imagery of the horses drifting off the cliff may derive from Ambrose Bierce's "A Horseman in the Sky" (1891). [Joshi & Schultz, p. 36.]

ynopsis

In the story, Celephaïs is created in a dream by the hobo Kuranes, who slowly slips away to the dream-world. After Kuranes dies, he became the king and chief god of the city. In "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath", Randolph Carter pays a visit to Kuranes, finding that the great dreamer has grown so homesick for his native Cornwall, he has dreamed parts of Celephaïs to resemble the land of his boyhood. Kuranes advises Carter, on a mission to find his own dream-city, to be careful what he wishes for -- he might get it.

The city

Celephaïs is situated in the valley of Ooth-Nargai beside the Cerenerian Sea. Its most remarkable feature is that there is no perception of time here; a person may leave Celephaïs and return many years later to find that nothing has changed.

Important landmarks in Celephaïs are the turquoise temple of Nath-Horthath and the Street of Pillars. Nearby rises snow-capped Mount Aran, whose lower slopes are replete with ginkgo trees.

Galleys from the port of Celephaïs go everywhere in the Dreamlands, but especially to the cloud-kingdom Serannian, reaching its harbor by sailing into the sky where the Cerenerian Sea meets the horizon.

References

*cite book|last=Joshi|first=S. T.|authorlink=S. T. Joshi|coauthors=David E. Schultz|title=An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia|year=2001|location=Westport, CT|publisher=Greenwood Press|id=ISBN 0-3133-1578-7

* Lovecraft, Howard P.
** [1934] cite book|title=Dagon and Other Macabre Tales|chapter=Celephaïs|editor=S. T. Joshi (ed.)|year=1987|edition=9th corrected printing|publisher=Arkham House|location=Sauk City, WI|id=ISBN 0-870-54039-4 Definitive version.
** [1926] cite book|title=At the Mountains of Madness, and Other Novels|chapter="The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath"|editor=S. T. Joshi (ed.)|year=1985|edition=7th corrected printing|publisher=Arkham House|location=Sauk City, WI|id=ISBN 0-870-54038-6 Definitive version.

Notes