Written: Nov 1920

Published: May 1922 in Rainbow

Another story in the dream cycle.

A man named Kuranes dreams of a strange and beautiful city called Celephaïs in the Valley of Ooth-Nargai beyond the Tanarian Hills. He becomes obsessed with the city and returns there in dreams again and again until one day he cannot find the city again. Kuranes (we learn that this is not his real name, but the one he uses in dreams) becomes utterly uninterested with the mundane life and after a time begins using drugs to induce longer and more vivid dream and to be able to once again visit Celephaïs. Unfortunately despite all his efforts he is unable to do so.

Eventually Kuranes runs out of money, his estate goes to ruin and he ends up wandering the streets homeless. As he ponders the tragedy of his life he encounters knights from Celephaïs. They take him to his city of dream and explain that he has created the place with his dreams and because of it they’ll make him the ruler and god.

This is a beautiful and fascinating story and introduces many interesting elements into the Dream Cycle and the Cthulhu Mythos. First of all the city of Celephaïs is featured in the later dream cycle novel The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath where the protagonist Randolph Carter actually meets Kuranes. Second of all the mysterious and horrible plateau of Leng is first mentioned in this story and is firmly tied to the dreamland. In later stories, both proto-mythos e. g. “The Hound” (1924) and mythos proper e. g. “The Whisperer in Darkness” (1931) Leng and it’s inhabitants are also spoken of as existing in the real world implying that the mysterious plateau is perhaps a gateway between worlds.

“Celephaïs” is the first story to mention the yellow robed priest dwelling in a stone monastery in Leng. Later on this mysterious figure was perhaps used by HPL as a tribute or nod to Robert W. Chambers and his The King in Yellow though he has since become much more then that. In “The Return of Hastur” August Derleth mentions a mysterious and ominous Lama dwelling in Tibet. In “Behind the Mask” his sequel to Derleth’s story Lin Carter calls this mysterious figure the Tcho-Tcho Lama of Leng and describes his yellow robed appearance, thus definitively tying together all these various loose ends.

One last bit of trivia: “Celephaïs” actually mentions the half-deserted coastal village of Innsmouth with it’s Ivy-covered towers though its implied that this Innsmouth probably resides in England. I wonder if Lovecraft merely thought the name was good enough to warrant re-using (in “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”) or if he actually wanted to retcon this aspect of the story.