By work:
"The Loved Dead" (1924)
- Author Phobia: H. P. Lovecraft, Eddy's more famous ghost co-author, was a man obsessed by death who was not only already an orphan at the time of writing; his beloved mother had died within the last three years. It's quite possible that Lovecraft was in part working out his own pain over this event by helping to pen the tale of a necrophiliac orphan.
- Moral Event Horizon: Necrophilia is nasty enough, but when the narrator starts committing murder to obtain corpses, he's lost to even the semblance of decency.
- Squick: The story runs on this. Notable examples are:
- The character first becomes aware of his obsession with corpses by viewing a corpse at a funeral. It's made very clear that this includes sexual arousal: "Wild, wanton soul-satisfying sensuality engulfed me." And the corpse? It's of his own grandfather.
- Five years later, he experiences the same emotions when he is embalming his own PARENTS.
