Four Tales of Cthulhu - Young Readers - Excerpt

Oct 6, 2026

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A curated young-readers collection featuring abridged adaptations of H. P. Lovecraft stories, alongside an original piece by Matthew MacDonald. The excerpt opens with “The Outsider,” portraying a timeless, decaying castle and a solitary narrator shaped by dread, isolation, and instinctive longing. It traces early life without human contact, discovery through library books, and failed escape attempts into a threatening, endless forest.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryStory & Novel

FormatPDF

Pages27

Reading Time42 min

AccessFree to download

Contents

The Outsider

The Cats of Ulthar

The Shadow Out of Time

A Gift From the Deep

Four Tales of Cthulhu H. P. Lovecraft for Young Readers H. P. Lovecraft edited and abridged by Matthew MacDonald Copyright © 2018 by Matthew MacDonald All rights reserved. Published by ProseTech Toronto, Ontario To learn more about our publishing projects, visit [http://prosetech.com](http://prosetech.com) To contact the author, [email](email matthew@prosetech.com)[ ](email matthew@prosetech.com)[matthew@prosetech.com](email matthew@prosetech.com) [2018: First Edition](2018: First Edition) ISBN-13: 978-1-7753737-1-1 The Outsider, The Cats ofUlthar, and The Shadow Out ofTime are abridged versions of stories by H. P. Lovecraft. A Gift From the Deep is an original story by Matthew MacDonald. CONTENTS The Outsider 7 The Cats ofUlthar 25 The Shadow Out of Time 37 A Gift From the Deep 81 THE OUTSIDER I do not know where I was born, only that I lived in a castle that was infinitely old and infinitely horrible. I sat in dark halls that were thick with cobwebs and shadows. I wandered incrumbling corridors, over stones that were cold and sickeningly damp. The smell of mold and decay was everywhere. Thick trees grew around the castle, rising above all but the tallest tower. The trees choked out the sunlight, keeping the castle inan endless night. Sometimes I would light a candle to comfort myself, and watch its tiny flame flicker in the dark. I must have lived years in this place, but I had no way to measure the time. Someone must have cared for my needs, but I cannot remember any person except myself, or anything alive except the scurrying rats and the silent spiders. I think the person that cared for me must have been very old. The first image I have of a living person is someone that looked like me but was distorted, shriveled, and decaying like the castle. I learned about the outside world from the old books in the library. There was no teacher to guide me. In fact, I do not remember hearing any human sound in all those years. I did not even hear my own voice, because I had never thought to try to speak. Nor did I think about my appearance, because there were no mirrors in the castle. But I knew, by instinct, that I was like the young children I saw drawn in the books. Often, I would lie outside, across the putrid moat and under the dark mute trees, and dream for hours about what I read in the books. I would picture myself in happy crowds in the sunny world beyond the endless forest. And then a deep longing would fill my heart to leave the castle and join the outside world. Once I tried to escape by crossing the forest that encircles the castle. But as I went farther from the castle walls, the shade grew deeper and the air became thick and forbidding. I felt a growing fear that I would lose my way in the silence, and that fear rose into a panic, until I ran frantically back to the safety of the crumbling castle. For endless days I dreamed and waited, but I did not know what I waited for. In the castle, there was one black tower that reached above the trees into the unknown sky, but its staircase was crumbling and ruined. The only way to reach the top of the tower was amnesia: a loss of memory, a gap in a person’s memory THE SHADOW OUT OF TIME

FAQs

What does the collection include besides Lovecraft stories?

It includes abridged versions of H. P. Lovecraft stories and one original story, “A Gift From the Deep,” by Matthew MacDonald.

Which story is featured in the provided excerpt?

The excerpt is from “The Outsider,” including its opening description of a forgotten childhood in an ancient, horrible castle.

How does the narrator learn about the outside world?

The narrator learns from old books in the library, then dreams of a sunny world beyond the forest and attempts escape.

Oct 6, 2026

Upload by Franzy