The Cats of Ulthar - Background

Background

Lovecraft outlined the plot to his friend Keiner in May 1920 and wrote The Cats of Ulthar on June 15, 1920, five months after completing his previous tale, The Terrible Old Man. Conceived during the author's early period, Lovecraft was influenced by the writing of Anglo-Irish writer Lord Dunsany and attempted to mimic his style. Among the literary aspects that Lovecraft borrows are the "vengeance motif" and the "ponderous tone" of Dunsany. Dunsany's influence is evident on the surface of the text as well: wanderers, similar to the ones portrayed in The Cats of Ulthar, appear in Dunsany's earlier tale Idle Days on the Yann.

Prior to The Cats of Ulthar, Lovecraft had penned several tales in the style of Lord Dunsany, including The White Ship, The Street, The Doom that Came to Sarnath, The Terrible Old Man, and The Tree. His next Dunsanian tale, Celephaïs, was considered by Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi to be "one of his best and most significant". The Cats of Ulthar was first published in the literary journal Tryout in November 1920, and later appeared in Weird Tales in February 1926 and 1933, as well as being privately reprinted in a forty two-copy run in December 1935.