Beyond the Threshold

"Beyond the Threshold" is a Cthulhu Mythos story by August Derleth, first published in the September 1941 issue of Weird Tales.
== Synopsis ==
A Miskatonic librarian is summoned by a cousin to the house of their grandfather in Wisconsin, who has become obsessed with the papers of his uncle. The uncle had trafficked with the Great Old Ones, and left a warning to "not pass beyond the threshold, for fear of dire consequences." The grandfather finds that the house conceals "a rocky opening leading into the depths of earth"; he crosses that threshold, and is taken away by a Great Old One.
==Setting==
The story takes place in September 1940--three years after H. P. Lovecraft's death. It's set in a "lonely house deep in the forest places of northern Wisconsin," "the old house grandfather owned in the heart of the forest and lake country of northern Wisconsin." It was built in the 1850s by Leander Alwyn, who specified that it have a "curious windowless room" that serves as a study.
The house is near "the village of Harmon, deep in the forest country of Wisconsin—a place of great natural beauty, not far from the shores of Lake Superior."
==Characters== 
*Leander Alwyn: He is "one of the seafaring Alwyns of Innsmouth." He was "afflicted with that curious facial change which overtook so many of the inhabitants of accursed Innsmouth"; his nephew remarks, "There does not exist even a likeness of Uncle Leander, but the old-timers around Harmon told me years ago that he was a very homely man, that he reminded them of a frog.” He was "apparently a wicked man," as evidenced by his willingness to collaborate with "elemental forces of evil." 
*Josiah Alwyn: A nephew of Leander, he is an explorer of "remote corners of the world": "Tibet, Mongolia, the Arctic regions, and certain little-known islands in the Pacific." He is described as "a barrel-chested old man, with a heavy, full face, decorated with a closely clipped moustache and a small beard to soften the hard line of his square jaw. His eyes were dark, not overlarge, and his brows were shaggy; he wore his hair long, so that his head had a leonine appearance." In his early seventies in 1940, so born in the late 1860s.
*Frolin Alwyn: Grandson of Josiah Alwyn, cousin of Tony. In his late thirties in 1940, though he looks a decade younger. Has "hot, intense brown eyes, and a soft, sensitive mouth that belied his inner hardness."
*Tony Alwyn: Grandson of Josiah Alwyn, cousin of Frolin. He is the assistant librarian at Miskatonic University.
*Hough: He and his wife have been Josiah's servants since about 1920.
==Publication History==
After its initial appearance in Weird Tales, "Beyond the Threshold" was reprinted in Derleth's Arkham House collection Something Near (1945). It was then included in the Lovecraftian anthology Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (Arkham House, 1969).
It appeared in the horror anthologies Beware More Beasts (Manor Books, 1975) and A Treasury of American Horror Stories (Bonanza Books, 1985).
The story was featured in The Ithaqua Cycle: The Wind-Walker of the Icy Wastes (Chaosium, 1998). It is part of the Derleth Mythos collections, The Cthulhu Mythos (Barnes & Noble, 1997) and In Lovecraft's Shadow: The Cthulhu Mythos Stories of August Derleth (Mycroft & Moran, 1998).Internet Speculative Fiction Database, "Title: Beyond the Threshold."
== References==
Category:August Derleth works
Category:Lovecraft Circle Works