Which Lovecraft story features a lost city in Antarctica?

The Lovecraft story featuring a lost city in Antarctica is “At the Mountains of Madness.” The 1936 novella follows a Miskatonic University expedition that discovers vast, ancient ruins beyond the Antarctic mountains.

The expedition is led by geologist William Dyer, whose account describes discoveries intended to warn future explorers away from the region. The researchers find the remains of the Elder Things, an ancient extraterrestrial species that arrived on Earth long before humanity and built a technologically advanced civilization.

The ruins reveal a disturbing history: the Elder Things created primitive life forms, including shoggoths, and eventually fought wars against them. The explorers also encounter evidence that the Elder Things’ civilization collapsed long before the expedition arrived. A surviving shoggoth becomes one of the story’s most frightening revelations.

The title’s “mountains” are not ordinary Antarctic peaks. They mark a remote boundary leading toward an immense, forbidden city and deeper cosmic mysteries. The story is often confused with “The Shadow Out of Time,” which also involves ancient nonhuman civilizations but is not set primarily in Antarctica.