Dr Herbert West's modest ambition is to revive the dead.
A gifted vivisector, he obtains some early successes with guinea pigs, rabbits, cats dogs and cute little monkeys, but when it comes to people the problem is FRESHNESS. The human brain, as it turns out, can never be fresh enough. Along the long and troubled road to eventual success, his more resounding failures include a college Dean who is brought back to life as a savage mockery of academic excellence, a champion heavyweight boxer is transformed into a quadrupedal cannibal, and finally there is the egregious Sir Eric Moreland Clapham-Lee D.S.O., who's brilliant telepathic head and superb athletic body are fully revived - separately.
Of course, when the average dearly departed corpse is buried in the normal fashion, it is scarcely liable to be very fresh and ABSOLUTE FRESHNESS is of paramount importance when utilizing the good doctor's "vaccine". Thus West has no choice but to obtain ABSOLUTE FRESHNESS by manually removing mere natural life from one of his specimens before injecting his miracle cure as quickly as possible. The result is satisfactory and at long last Herbert proves his theory, although some stick-in-the-muds might cluck their tongues and wonder whether his scientific triumph didn't involve the heinous crime of murder. But anyway, this incredible victory over death comes at a heavy cost,,
A number of his reanimated specimens, monsters indeed, have eluded Herbert's Smith and Wesson .45 (his favourite instrument for administering euthanasia) and naturally he is haunted by the looming spectre of their unspeakable vengeance. So, the outlook looks pretty grim. Or does it? Perhaps, just perhaps Herbert's biographer and intimate friend, Howard, who narrators this rollicking, if grisly tale, is nothing better than a drooling lunatic, contaminating the innocent page with obscene horrors spawned by his own addled cerebellum. All of it written in Mad-Doctor Latin too.
But who is really insane?
Is it Dr Herbert West?
Is it Howard Phillips Lovecraft?
Or is it you, Dear Reader . . . ?
Only time will tell.
