by Gene Michael Stover
created 2026 July 7
updated Sunday, 2026 August 9
original at cybertiggyr.com/tnaj.html
“Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family” is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft. It was first published in 1921. It's also known by other names including “Arthur Jermyn” and “The White Ape”. Wikipedia has a page about the story.
Here are some of my thoughts about it. Here's a teaser: The ultimate horror of the story is one step removed from what is obvious in the story, I think.
Oh yeah: Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers!
Sir Wade Jermyn finds a nearly extinct group of “white apes” during his explorations of Africa. They are not quite apes but not quite humans. I believe the old & misleading term would be missing link. He reports this but is ridiculed.
In secret, he has sex with one of them & produces a son, Philip Jermyn. He brings the mother with them back to England, keeps her more-or-less hidden so that nobody gets a good look at her, & claims she is the daughter of a Portuguese merchant.
Sir Wade's male descendants are sometimes unpleasant, cruel, often handsome & athletic men and sometimes intelligent, introspective, often ugly men.
One of them, Robert Jermyn, performs his own explorations of Africa, retracing Sir Wade's discoveries. He learns the truth, then attempts to kill all of his descendants: his 3 children & his grandson, Albert. Robert fails because his son, Nevil, saves his own son, Albert. However, Robert, Nevil, & Robert's 2 other children are all killed in the event. It's possible that, if Nevil hadn't killed Robert, Robert would have taken his own life, but we don't know for sure. (Remember this for later: One of the Jermyns, Robert, concluded that no Jermyns should exist.)
Albert has a son, Arthur. This is the Arthur mentioned in the story's title.
Arthur is one of the intelligent, introspective, ugly descendants of Sir Wade. He, too, retraces Sir Wade's travels in Africa.
Back in England, Arthur receives the mummy of a long-dead princess or queen of the aforementioned extinct missing link creatures. He examines the mummy in private, screams, & immolates himself.
His remains are not buried, the mummy & evidence connecting it to the Jermyn family are destroyed by the Royal Anthropological Institute, & “some of them do not admit that Arthur Jermyn ever existed”.
It's obvious that Lovecraft intended some kind of genetic contamination as the horror of the story. I've seen it mentioned many times, including on Wikipedia's page about the story.
Here's my take on the ultimate horror of the story. I doubt I would have spotted it if I hadn't been a teen with a relationship to self-harm in the 1980s & when, luckily, it was becoming acceptable (if barely so) to talk about that. I doubt Lovecraft consciously intended this interpretation, though maybe some part of his mind did or he would have ended the story immediately after writing that Arthur Jermyn immolated himself.
Here's a summary of the ending again: Arthur Jermyn is triggered by new knowledge of his family history. Like his great-grandfather, Robert, he's filled with so much self-loathing that he decides he shouldn't exist, should never have existed. After he kills himself, his remains aren't buried, & among people who knew him, “some of them do not admit that Arthur Jermyn ever existed”.
Arthur Jermyn ended his physical existence, & other people helped erase social memory of his existence.
The ultimate horror of the story is concluding one should never have existed & everyone else agreeing.