“The Nameless City” occupies a peculiar and revealing place in H.P. Lovecraft’s oeuvre. Written in January 1921 and first published later that same year in the amateur journal The Wolverine (before appearing Donald Wolheim's Fanciful Tales), it fits comfortably in neither his Dunsanian dream fantasies nor his later cosmic horror tales. Instead, it stands astride both, blending several strands of Lovecraft’s evolving imagination into a single narrative. The result is a story that feels simultaneously archaic and forward-looking, poised between decadent fantasy, pulp archeological adventure, and the nascent Cthulhu Mythos that would soon define his mature fiction.
