The Terrible Old Man

This audiobook is narrated by an AI Voice. In the ancient seaport town of Kingsport, an impossibly old man lives alone in a sagging house on Water Street. He was a sea captain once, in the days of the clipper ships, and nobody remembers a time when he was young.

The neighbours leave him alone. They know about the strange collection of bottles in his window, each with a small lead pendulum inside, and about the way he speaks to them by name as if answering. They know about the garden of oddly arranged stones. Three thieves, newcomers to the town, know none of this. They only know he is rumoured to keep a fortune in Spanish gold, and that he is old, frail and quite alone.

Written in 1920, The Terrible Old Man is one of H.P. Lovecraft's earliest Kingsport tales and a perfect, savage little piece of weird fiction, told with grim humour and a sting in the tail.

Listen to the complete, unabridged audiobook of this classic short story by the creator of the Cthulhu Mythos.