The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath and other Mysteries by H.P. Lovecraft

This feels like an ambitious attempt by Lovecraft to bring together the sum of his universe in one journey, and I believe he succeeded in making it a worthwhile trip down memory lane, especially for those who are familiar with his other works. Even the city of Kadath is mentioned numerous times in other stories, such as The Other Gods and At the Mountains of Madness. We get to see Richard Pickman from Pickman’s Model, the cities of Ulthar and Celephais, the Crawling Chaos Nyarlathotep, Azatoth, and that’s just to name a few. Speaking of those mythical lands, I found one of the funnest parts of this story was the way in which various threads from the Lovecraft mythos intersected with each other. While there are definitely a few twists along the way as well as horror elements peppered throughout the plot, they never feel prevalent to Randolph’s exploration of incredibly-described mythical lands. In this sense, The Dream-Quest of Kadath certainly distinguishes itself from the rest of the author’s works, resembling an adventure fantasy more than a short horror. When it comes to Lovecraft, we are generally used to shorter stories with some form of dramatic twist at the end, a clear payoff which has been continuously set up from the very start. Thus, Randolph Carter lies down to sleep one more time, and begins his long journey through the planes of the Dreamlands in hopes of finding the unattainable.

Nevertheless, Carter remains resolute to find his way to the wondrous city of Kadath, a place none have ever seen or been to, in hopes of beseeching the gods in person. His prayers to the Gods go unanswered, and as if cruelly mocked by fate, his dreams come to a stop. In any case, our protagonist is introduced to us as a man who keeps having dreams of a majestic city, taunted by the fact he can’t see it up close, nor does he know its location. Though technically it wasn’t the first published story featuring Randolph Carter, chronologically-speaking this posthumously published work does contain the man’s first adventure as he rubs shoulders with the wonders of the Dreamlands. The Dream-Quest of Kadath (Completed in 1927, Published in 1943)

The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath and other Mysteries by H.P. Lovecraft