Showing results for "Celephaïs" in Anthologies & Short Stories

Celephaïs is a fantasy story by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in early November 1920 and first published in the May 1922 issue of the Rainbow. The title refers to a fictional city that later appears in Lovecraft's Dream Cycle, including his novella The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1926). Celephaïs was created in a dream by Kuranes (which is his name in dreams—his real name is not given) as a child of the English landed gentry. As a man in his forties, alone and dispossessed in contemporary London, he dreams it again and then, seeking it, slowly slips away to the dream-world.

Kuranes, an English Nobleman ill-content with his real life, once dreamed of the city of Celephaïs. Many years later, at the height of his discontent, he manages to slip away permanently into his dreams. After a guided recollection of his childhood, he comes upon Celephaïs. While his psyche happily remains guard over the city, his body is found back in the real world, washed ashore on the banks of his family’s land.