The Night Ocean (Fantasy and Horror Classics) ; With a Dedication by George Henry Weiss

<p><strong>He stared too long into the darkness where the waves break. The ocean has claimed his mind.</strong></p><p><strong><em>The Night Ocean</em></strong> is a haunting atmospheric short story told through the fragmented journal entries of a man who is living in a remote shack by the ocean trying to recover from a profound mental and spiritual collapse.</p><p>The narrator who has clearly suffered some unspeakable psychic trauma is plagued by bizarre almost hallucinatory sightings on the nearby coast. He becomes obsessed with the vast moonlit ocean which he perceives not as a body of water but as a living breathing entity. He witnesses strange lights hears unsettling sounds and sees indescribable <strong>forms</strong> that rise from the surf.</p><p>As his diary progresses the line between reality and hallucination dissolves. He desperately tries to document the things that occur at night--things he believes are part of an ancient cosmic rhythm carried by the tide--but his entries become increasingly disjointed poetic and steeped in a creeping dread. The sea is not merely threatening him; it is <strong>inviting</strong> him into its own terrible beautiful existence.</p><p>Written by <strong>H. P. Lovecraft</strong> and ghostwritten or heavily revised by his friend and fellow writer <strong>Robert H. Barlow</strong> <em>The Night Ocean</em> is a pure exercise in sublime cosmic horror. It is a slow lyrical descent into madness where the terrible realization is that the universe is not just vast and indifferent but that its great secrets are far more alluring than human sanity.</p><p><strong>Some waves carry secrets that should never reach the shore.</strong></p>