The Mound (short story)

Infobox short story |
name = The Mound
author = H. P. Lovecraft (ghostwriter) and Zealia Bishop (original idea)
country = United States
language = English
genre = Science fiction/Horror short story
published_in = "Weird Tales" (Volume 35, Number 6, pages 98-120)
publication_type = Magazine
publisher =
pub_date = November, 1940"The Mound" is a short story H. P. Lovecraft wrote as a ghostwriter from December 1929 through early 1930 after he was hired by Zealia Bishop to create a story based on following plot synopsis:

"There is an Indian mound near here, which is haunted by a headless ghost. Sometimes it is a woman."

Lovecraft did not like this premise of what seemed to be a conventional ghost story. The outline was so brief it allowed for a great deal of license, so he made it into a 29,560 word story about a mound that conceals a gateway to a subterranean civilization, the realm of K'n-yan, which one of the main characters enters and lives in for a while. The story is one of only three by Lovecraft where a non-human culture is described in rich details, the other two being At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Out of Time. It is not as well known as the later two, as it was ghostwritten for another author, but is considered of the same high level of quality and imagination. It is probably the most famous he did as a ghostwriter.

The mound in the story is located in Binger in Caddo County, which unlike the fictional towns and locations in the majority or his works is a real town about 60 miles southwest of Oklahoma City. He places the mound about a third of a mile west of Binger, an area where there are no mounds, which seems to make this geographic detail the only fictional part of its location.

There are several mounds in the area, but not as described in the story. One of them is called the Ghost Mound and according to a local legend is haunted by ghosts. It is located closer to Hydro, rather than Binger. It does not look like how Lovecraft described it, and is a natural formation. This is most likely the mound that inspired Zealia Bishop to present her story idea to Lovecraft. It is possible a second nearby mound, known as Dead Woman Mound, may also have inspired her. Unlike the first, there is no ghost story connected with it, though it gained its name when the buried body of a dead woman was found there.