The H. P. Lovecraft Collection: Deluxe 6-Volume Box Set Edition: 3 (Arcturus Collector's Classics, 3): Deluxe 6-Book Hardcover Boxed Set

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It seriously took a publisher how much of a century to title a collection of Lovecraft's stories "Necronomicon"? Like seventy years? Did it really just not occur to anyone? Shouldn't the first collected volume of his stories have been called that? I blame August Derleth. The Call of Cthulhu - come on! You're gonna read Lovecraft and not read about the Great Old One?! That would be unheard of!! Essential Solitude: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth: 1926–1931 ( ISBN 9780979380648) At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels (7th corrected printing), S. T. Joshi (ed.), 1985. ( ISBN 0-87054-038-6) The Lurking Fear is a bit different than others on the list, and consequentially, I found it refreshing. For one thing, it’s less of a frame story. The narrator is the one who actually experienced the events of the story, which grants it a much better immediacy than the other stories. For another, instead of the horrors coming from outside of us, this is more about the horrors that dwell within us.

The Music of Erich Zann: Now this is the type of mythos tale I remember best, with a nightmarish realm adjacent to our own, always threatening, and barely held at bay by brilliantly insane and esoteric means. Eventually, he became obsessed with the spooky place, and the locals, who know about but don't speak of spooky things, shunned him. Antes de enfrentarme a la reseña de este gran tomo, me parece importante señalar para los que no lo sepan que la prosa de Lovecraft se divide en tres temas fundamentales: están las historias de corte más clásico o macabro, las que se relacionan con el mundo de lo onírico, y las que tratan del terror cósmico o lovecraniano, donde se incluiría el famoso ciclo de los mitos de Cthulhu. Missing only one Story which was "In the walls of Eryx" co-written by Lovecraft and Kenneth J. Sterling.The Cats of Ulthar: A must-read for all cat people and fans of poetic justice. Ulthar and its cats is another element in Lumley's version of the Dreamlands; will it be mentioned again later by Lovecraft?

This eerie work of masterful suspense heads up one of the best H.P. Lovecraft books of all time, but it’s by no means the only worthy piece in this anthology! Included among these “weird stories” are seventeen other tales of the mad, mystical, and macabre, each taking a slightly different approach to horror. The Rats in the Walls is a Tell-Tale Heart-esque account of a man who’s plagued by the sound of rats in his family home. However, when he goes to investigate, he uncovers a gruesome truth about his ancestors. Dagon is the testimony of a World War I vet who relies on morphine to ease his tortured mind… but the visions that haunt him are worse than any battlefield violence. There is no purpose, as far as I could tell, for any of the racism present in these stories. They don't advance the plots in any way and the overtly racist characters - like one who calls his dog "niggerman" - are not portrayed as villains. No, they're the good guys. If you want a Lovecraft primer, this is a good start. I'd read all these stories before, but many of them I had not read for years, so I enjoyed going through the classics again even if they don't bring me quite the same feeling of existential horror they did when I was a teenager. Consequently I've come to the conclusion that "The Complete Fiction" by Barnes & Nobles seems to be the one for me, even if I'm also intrigued by the Penguin Classics and Penguin Modern Classics volumes (also these edited by Joshi).S. T. Joshi (2009). H.P. Lovecraft: A Comprehensive Bibliography. Tampa, FL: University of Tampa Press. ISBN 978-1-59732-069-6. Archived from the original on July 25, 2015 . Retrieved July 25, 2015. These sixteen stories, listed as by " H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth", were in fact written almost entirely by Derleth. In most cases, the stories were based on one or more ideas noted in Lovecraft's Commonplace Book; for example, " The Fisherman of Falcon Point" was based on this entry: "Fisherman casts his net into the sea by moonlight—what he finds." Plotting, description, dialogue, characterization, and other elements were entirely by Derleth. As such they cannot be classified as works by Lovecraft. In some instances Derleth incorporated actual prose passages by Lovecraft into his stories. The Lurker at the Threshold (a 50,000-word novel) contains about 1,200 words by Lovecraft, most of it taken from a fragment entitled " Of Evill Sorceries Done in New England" (see B-i-42), the balance from a fragment now titled " The Rose Window" (see B-ii-322). " The Survivor" was based on a comparatively lengthy plot sketch plus random notes for the story jotted down by Lovecraft in 1934. A descriptive passage of " The Lamp of Alhazred" was based on a portion of a letter by Lovecraft to Derleth, November 18, 1936. These extracts or paraphrases, however, have not been deemed significant enough to merit inclusion in this bibliography. THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH is yet another effective horror story set waist-deep in the Cthulhu mythos, and from what I’ve heard, a favorite of many Lovecraft aficionados. Told once again in the first person, the story is about a student (whose name is never revealed) who goes to the ruined seaside town of Innsmouth, Mass., for what he thinks will be a one-day trip. Lovecraft spares no words in describing the cursed town, and we soon understand that the nature of the curse boils down to an invasion of Innsmouth many years ago by the Deep Ones, an ancient people that came ashore from the bottom of the sea. From the town drunk with whom the narrator has a long (perhaps overlong?) conversation, we learn that the Deep Ones used to practice human sacrifices in Innsmouth and also did not hesitate to mate with local women, hence the fishy appearance of many of the inhabitants. The whole thing ends up with a big reveal, which for once isn’t as bad as one might expect for a Lovecraft story, and the author even gives us a long, very-well-written action scene toward the end, which is something rare enough to be mentioned and relished. This is a dumb story, but it's still quite atmospheric, so some of the writing I enjoy from his later stories is here, but it's still a dumb story. All of the stories within being placed chronologically, it is apparent that Lovecraft improved upon both his writing abilities and his cosmological mythos, which is not to say that some of his early stories, in their simplicity, don't hit home just as powerfully. The tales gradually grow longer as one reads through the book, with Lovecraft's three novellas appearing in the middle and end of the book. It was these tales that I found to be the most enjoyable, the most thorough in their ability to draw me in and engage me in the alternate universe that Lovecraft structured. It is also these three short novels that one can use to divide Lovecraft's entire collection of fiction into three categories of theme: men stumbling through the realm of dreams, men meddling in necromancy and dark arts, and men confronting the godless, Darwinian truths of the universe, hints of which lie hidden in obscure corners of the earth.

Lovecraft loved him a fictional New England town full of inexplicable phenomena. The Dunwich Horror follows the development of Wilbur Whateley, a child who matures at a freakish rate, becoming a full-grown man in just a few years. His grandfather, Old Whateley, takes Wilbur under his wing, as Wilbur’s mother is crippled and unstable and his father is mysteriously absent. Old Whateley teaches Wilbur the ways of dark sorcery and witchcraft; the locals fear and avoid them. However, they do take note of the odd circumstances surrounding the Whateleys’ cattle, which occasionally disappear. THE HAUNTER OF THE DARK is my third most beloved Lovecraft story and also the last one he ever wrote (that we know of). Eschewing the first person for the third limited, Lovecraft treats us to a chilling account of what the protagonist, Robert Blake, discovers when, driven by his penchant for the occult, he decides to go and explore a haunted church in the town of Providence, RI. Here again the writing is on point as Lovecraft knows better than anyone how to create an atmosphere of claustrophobia and paranoia, playing unashamedly with the fear of the unknown and impending doom. Deeply steeped in the Cthulhu mythos, this story is a prime example of how curiosity can kill a cat.

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The Nameless City: First appearance of the famous “unexplainable couplet of the mad poet Abdul Alhazred”: That is not dead which can eternal lie,

Lovecraft’s stories often remind me of how nudity was depicted in early film. It was never shown directly. The Hays code didn’t allow it. Instead, you might see a silhouette. Or a dress fall to the ground at the woman’s feet. Or there’d be a bannister in the way. Lovecraft likewise has this propensity to avoid actually describing his cosmic horrors. His characters will instead simply say, ‘I cannot describe it, for my very mind rebelled against grasping such a reality! Mouth and teeth and tentacles!’ or ‘I refuse to share this knowledge, for it will inspire madness in all who hear it.’ It is, frankly, annoying.

H.P. Lovecraft Collection

All right, with this one under my belt, I think I can safely say that I’ve read everything Lovecraft has ever written in his life. I will then skip introducing the author––who doesn’t need any introduction, anyway––and go through a rundown of some of my most beloved horror stories of his, which you can find in this collection.