Product Description
Howard Phillips Lovecraft has been hailed by literary critics as the inventor of modern horror, and a cultivating force behind such modern writers as Robert Bloch, Wes Craven and Stephen King, just to name a few. "The Shadow over Innsmouth" and "Dagon," arguably the most mind-provoking stories by H. P. Lovecraft, are read by Wayne June, bringing to life the horrors from the mind of the Master himself, in a way that only he can. An 1 disc MP3-CD edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

For The Fun Loving Horror Buffs!
This is a fun read for those of us who possess a love for the old "B" rate movies...you know who you are!!I admit i am of fan of the old horror flicks!This guy, as you know, started it all..well other than Mary Shelly with Frankenstien...LOL!Of course there is always that little tinge to his stories..you know the creepy "hey, that could happen..nah...well, perhaps in some remote corner of the Universe."A fascinating romp into the mind of a literary genius horror writer. I'd love to see these in the movies! LOL!A Great read for a stormy night...when the lights go out! ... Read more

Product Description
The famed Horror-Fantasy novelist H.P. Lovecraft composed many short stories, poems, and essays in his day. Lovecraft has gained a cult following and is most known for his fiction. Lovecraft's nonfiction is often ignored, yet much of it is truly remarkable analysis of the English Language. This is many of the Essays of H.P. Lovecraft. It includes the "Supernatural Horror in Literature." This is Lovecraft's most well known essay which chronicles and critiques the writings of Gothic, horror, and fantasy. This essay is an excellent survey of horror writers in the 19th and 20th century. This E-book has a working table of contents and each poem is formatted correctly. It includes:

Supernatural Horror in Literature

> Introduction
>The Dawn of the Horror-Tale
>The Early Gothic Nove
>The Aphex of Gothic Romance
> The Aftermath of Gothic Fiction
> Spectral Literature on the Continent
>Edgar Allan Poe
> The Weird Tradition in America
> The Weird Tradition in the British Isles
>The Modern Masters

The Allowable Rhyme
At the Root
Cats and Dogs
The Despised Pastoral
Metrical Regularity
... Read more

Product Description
The collected correspondence of H.P. Lovecraft and Arkham House co-founder Donald Wandrei. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

a correspondent's dream team
Mysteries of Time and Spirit is a superb and wholly interesting collection of letters between H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) and Donald Wandrei (1908-1987), the latter being one of the co-founders (with Auggie Derleth) of Arkham House.In this book, we find Necrophilis and Ghost-Eater Lovecraft--so named in an 1927 letter by Wandrei--and the young Melmoth himself (one of HPL's names for Wandrei)--in a long series of eloquent, erudite letters which give the reader an in-depth look at the lives and interests of both men from late 1926 up to the time of Lovecraft's death from intestinal cancer in 1937.There's much epistolary greatness here, and as I was reading, I found myself envious of the relationship of these two men of letters.How I wish I could have been a correspondent of either of them.

I highly recommended this book to Lovecraft & Wandrei fans, weird fiction enthusiasts or historians, or anyone interested in epistolary greatness.

A worthy addition!
H.P. Lovecraft was at the hub of a small circle of weird fiction writers, artists and enthusiasts.Even the most casual note sent in by a fan of his work would often receive a wonderfully long and detailed letter by way of thanks.Were it not for HPL's mammoth correspondence, writers like Frank Belknap Long, Clark Ashton Smith, E. Hoffmann Price, August Derleth, and Donald Wandrei would never have gotten to know one another and, very possibly, might not have persued writing careers with nearly as much fervor and creative imagination.

This book is a record of the friendship that developed between HPL and Donald Wandrei who, as a 19-year-old University of Minnesota student in 1926, one day decided to write a fan letter. For the next ten years, the two men would exchange views on everything from the "weird" influence on art and literature to the woes of trying to get Hugo Gernsback, editor of WEIRD TALES, to pay for the stories he bought.

Readers will also find interesting Wandrei's hitching odessey in the Summer of 1927, when he went from St. Paul to New York City to Providence, Rhode Island (bumming lifts all the way) in order to visit HPL from July 12-29.

There is also a great deal of humor to be garnered from these letters, especially HPL's near obsession with a cheap eatery called JAKE'S (where you could get a complete meal for 25 cents) and a precursor to Baskin and Robbins called MAXWELL'S, where HPL would take visitors and stage ice cream eating contests.

The only truly sad notes were HPL's consistent failures to secure a steady writing job and his persistent racism (also shared by Wandrei, at least while he explored New York).While certainly a blot on their characters, it does add to rendering a more complete picture of two creative people: one a neophyte, the other a rather weary and disillusioned veteran.

Fantastic glimpse into the life of Lovecraft!
This must surely be one of the most fascinating books published on Lovecraft in a very long time. The book contains nearly all of the correspondance between him and Donald Wandrei, a horror/sci-fi writer in his own right, as well as upcoming co-founder of Arkham House. What makes this volume particular fascinating, is that it not only contains Lovecrafts letters, but also Wandreis, making this volume so much more exciting to read because of the ping-pong effect it gives. A lot of other letter-books tend to be slightly boring because the letters seem out of place due to the missing answers.
The two talk about their life, their writings, their authorfriends and what they read, giving a wonderful glimpse into the lives of two struggling writers who never made the big jackpot!
Of course the book will mainly be enjoyed by the hardcore-Lovecraft-fan, but even the more casual reader will be entertained by this book, that also gives a glimpse into the way life was lived in the beginning of the last century!

On top of that, the publisher has done a wonderful job in producing the book; smythsewn binding, fine paper and highquality printing!!
The book is the first in a series of books containing letters of Lovecraft, and I already look forward to the next volumes!
Highly recommended! ... Read more

Product Description
Nearly half of all Americans believe in the existence of extraterrestrials, and many are also convinced that aliens have visited earth at some point in history. Included among such popular beliefs is the notion that so-called ancient astronauts (visitors from outer space) were responsible for historical wonders like the pyramids. Shocking new evidence proves that the entire genre of ancient astronaut books is based upon fictional horror stories, whose author once wrote that he never wished to mislead anyone.

In this entertaining and informative book, Jason Colavito traces the origins of the belief in ancient extraterrestrial visitors to the work of horror writer H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937). This amazing tale takes the reader through fifty years of pop culture and pseudoscience highlighting such influential figures and developments as Erich von Däniken (Chariots of the Gods), Graham Hancock(Fingerprints of the Gods), Zecharia Sitchin (Twelfth Planet), and the Raelian Revolution. The astounding and improbable connections among these various characters are revealed, along with the disturbing consequences of Lovecraft’s "little joke" for modern science and public knowledge.

Beyond documenting Lovecraft’s influence on ancient astronaut theories and Raelian cloning efforts, Colavito also argues that the appeal of such modern myths is a troubling sign in an age when science is having its greatest success. He suggests that at the dawn of the 21st century Western society is witnessing a deep-seated erosion of Enlightenment values that are the basis of the modern world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Interesting but uneven
I have mixed feelings about this book.It is well written and thoughtful, but sometimes the reasoning is a bit strained.Like many of the "ancient astronaut" folks that he is debunking, Colavito seems to think that showing a possible connection (i.e., between Lovecraft and ancient astronaut theory) is proof of a connection.
As the previous reviewer said, this book is almost like two books, one about Lovecraft and one about the "ancient astronaut" theorists.The author has an obvious passion for Lovecraft, and he does a good job showing how Lovecraft drew on the pseudo-scientific pop culture of his day (Blavatsky, Charles Fort, etc.) as a source for his fiction.In other respects, what he has to say about Lovecraft is not new or original.

His debunking of "extraterrestrial pop culture" is convincing and well researched, but the connections he draws with Lovecraft are a bit strained.

The strength of this book is its description of the broader cultural milieau from which both Lovecraft and the "ancient astronaut" theorists drew - a blend of pseudo-science, science fiction, alternative religion and popular culture which has influenced everything from the X Files to UFO cults to supermarket tabloids to movies such as "Stargate."The book's weakness is that its central thesis, that Lovecraft is the main source of all this, is way oversimplified.But in spite of its flaws, Colavito's book is worth reading.

Large sections, but not all, are very enlightening
The Cult of Alien Gods is really two books in one. First of all it's an introduction to master writer H.P. Lovecraft and especially the mythos about the sinister extraterrestrial known as Cthulhu, but it's also a study of the rise of the ancient astronaut movement along with the ideas about lost civilizations, where authors such as Erich von Däniken, Graham Hancock, and Zecharia Sitchin became the most famous representatives.

According to Colavito, it's Lovecraft - the somewhat still mysterious gentleman from Providence - and his stories about extraterrestrials visiting Earth aeons ago that the entire genre later known as ancient astronauts is based upon. Proponents of this genre claimed that sometime way back in ancient history, Earth was visited by extraterrestrials who were mistaken for gods and among other things helped build the amazing Egyptian pyramids. For people who don't know anything about Lovecraft Colavito - himself a fan of Lovecraft - offers a nice introduction to the mysterious man and his ground-breaking penmanship, details where he picked up his influences, how his literary masterpieces were received by his peers, and much, much more.

Now this introduction is perfectly fine, and Colavito definitely deserves some praise for his tribute to Lovecraft. But, the main thesis behind the book is not quite as convincing. Colavito insists that Lovecraft and his fiction is indeed what von Däniken and the rest based their respective works upon, and even though he on several occasions shows how something that Lovecraft had written decades earlier were later taken as genuine facts, he still never manages to actually prove that without Lovecraft there would have been no ancient astronauts.

But that doesn't really matter, since large sections of the book aren't about Lovecraft anyway. Instead Colavito focuses on debunking what he himself once upon a time believed wholeheartedly in. However, over the years he became more and more skeptical to the amazing claims that von Däniken and his allies put forth, and thus the book contains numerous exposures of how the "evidence" that millions of people all over the world chose to believe in, and still believe in, is by and large erroneous. Sometimes they are even straight out lies and hoaxes. This exposure is, though, to be completely honest, not that great of an accomplishment, since the proponents of the ancient astronauts have been debunked time and again by a multitude of professional scholars. Still, Colavito is apparently on a vendetta against the ones who mislead him, and the passion behind his words makes the well worth reading..

The criticism never really digs deep and only chosen parts of the authors' books are criticised, but the purpose of this exposé is to show how the theories behind the ancient astronauts collapse as soon as they are thoroughly investigated, and this Colavito does with a vengeance. At the end of the book Raël - or His Holiness as he prefers to be addressed as these days - and his Raëlian Revolution makes an appearance, and again Colavito is highly successful in his debunking.

The Cult of Alien Gods failed to convince me that Lovecraft is the founding father of the ancient astronaut theory. Fortunately, however, the book contained a whole lot more than that, and when it was all over I had truly enjoyed reading the book.

I therefore have no other choice but to congratulate Colavito for a debunking-job well done.

Lovecraft's influence on 50 years of pop culture
Fans of fantasy/horror writer H.P. Lovecraft must add THE CULT OF ALIEN GODS: H.P. LOVECRAFT AND EXTRATERRESTRIAL POP CULTURE to their reading lists: it traces the origins of the belief to Lovecraft's writings in the late 1800s, surveying fifty years of pop culture and including the works of Von Daniken and other alien speculators as it documents Lovecraft's influence on these theories. Jason Colavito is a freelance writer who has written for Skeptic Magazine and others: his study reveals some important connections.

That is not dead which can eternal lie . . .
. . . And with strange aeons even death may die.

In this interesting book Jason Colavito answers a question I've wondered about ever since I first read H.P. Lovecraft. (Question: What's the golden age of science fiction? Answer: Thirteen. But that's not the question I'm talking about.)

What I wondered was, why did I like Lovecraft's own stories but rarely enjoy any of the fiction of "the Lovecraft circle" - - people who corresponded with Lovecraft and wrote stories in his Cthulhu mythos. (The only collection of "Lovecraftian" stories I've ever really liked is the anthology Cthulhu 2000.) Why are storytellers and literary scholars like Joyce Carol Oates (she edited an anthology of Lovecraft recently) still moved by Lovecraft's stories? Why did the Library of America (who've published Mark Twain and Philip Roth) just publish a volume of Lovecraft?

Colavito describes Lovecraft's loose conception of "the Old Ones" or "the Elder Gods" (alien creatures of immense power, not as strictly defined or set in a hierarchy as they later became), as opposed to the alien creatures in the stories of Frank Belknap Long, August Derleth, and others. (These later stories always struck me as mostly comic-book horror.)

Unfortunately now Lovecraft's work is now mostly a source of humorous or insider references like "Arkham Asylum" in Batman comics and movies. (I have to admit I'm juvenile enough to have laughed the first time I saw a Campus Crusade for Cthulhu ad.)

Colavito brings out a connection to Lovecraft that never occurred to me. Normally Lovecraft is categorized with Edgar Allan Poe and other nineteenth-century horror writers. But he may also have influenced high-tech Cold War science fiction, like John W. Campbell's story "Who Goes There?" and the movie Howard Hawks made from it, The Thing from Another World.

Campbell published Lovecraft in the magazine he edited, Astounding Stories, and "Who Goes There?" is similar to one of Lovecraft's best stories, "At the Mountains of Madness." Both are set in the Antarctic. In "At the Mountains of Madness" a man finds remnants of an alien civilization, and in "Who Goes There?" scientists and military types uncover a flying saucer and the thing from another world that it brought to Earth tens of thousands of years before.

You can make another interesting connection - - from Lovecraft to Campbell to Howard Hawks to John Carpenter. Carpenter has always been fascinated by The Thing from Another World (it's the movie Laurie Strode and the children she's baby-sitting watch on TV in Carpenter's slasher classic, Halloween). And Carpenter himself remade the HowardHawks film as The Thing, one of Carpenter's best films. But Carpenter's The Thing had the bad luck to be released at the same time as Steven Spielberg's E.T. And in the early eighties Americans wanted cuddly salvation-bringing aliens that could be cross-merchandised with fast-food chains and candy companies, not shape-changing flesh-eaters whose message was that our technology might not save us.

The British director Nigel Kneale (Quatermass and the Pit) and Howard Hawks are two of Carpenter's biggest influences. (Carpenter has remade Hawks's Rio Bravo every possible way EXCEPT as a western - - see Assault on Precinct 13, Escape from New York, Escape from L.A., and Ghosts of Mars).

But Lovecraft is another of Carpenter's influences: Carpenter's film Prince of Darkness shows a realm of evil that intrudes on our universe, and In the Mouth of Madness nearly steals Lovecraft's title and definitely appropriates his mood (with a touch of Stephen King).

The Cult of Ancient Gods is even more interesting as social history than as literary history. Colavito shows how he thinks Lovecraft's ideas influenced people like Erich von Daniken (Chariots of the Gods) and Graham Hancock (Fingerprints of the Gods), who saw evidence of "ancient astronauts" all over the world. Colavito sees a connection between Lovecraft and the Heaven's Gate cultists who committed suicide in 1998 when the Hale-Bopp comet appeared, and another connection to the Raelians (another UFO religion) that claimed to have cloned a human baby a few years ago.

Personally, I think Lovecraft influenced fiction more than he did "alternative scientists" like Graham Hancock, but ideas in (often bad) science fiction were there to be appropriated by fantasy writers and conmen both. The Heaven's Gate cult died in uniforms meant to look a little like Star Trek costumes. The original Battlestar Galactica TV show in the late seventies took images and ideas from Erich von Daniken.

There was one thing about Colavito's perspective I disagreed with - - a criticism of what he calls "the Age of Relativity," where "[e]verything was open to interpretation" and "[e]very group was now entitled to its own history: black history, women's history, and gay history. There was no longer human history." It's sounds as though Harold Bloom had been reading Weird Tales instead of the Western Canon.


Again quoting Colavito: ". . . Indeed as the education system gradually broke down in the twentieth century, ever-larger numbers of people were leaving school ignorant of methodology and indoctrinated only in diversity and political correctness. They lacked the tools to understand or to think, and they resented the educated elite who told them what was right or true. . . ."

I think the current fad for criticizing "political correctness" is often an excuse to return to old kinds of racist or sexist discrimination. (Colavito is not a racist or sexist. He makes that clear in his book.)

But two points on the above. (1) This is the end of a paragraph where Colavito describes how "ancient-astronaut" theory popularizers like Graham Hancock can bamboozle people without any scientific education. And when you see how many people believe in so-called "intelligent design" - - to the point where school boards are willing to sabotage the education of their own children - - you can't argue.

But (2) being "indoctrinated . . . in diversity" means that we teach our children that other cultures ARE just as valuable as the Europeans who founded the United States on the genocide of the indigenous people and slavery of black Africans. And "political correctness" means IT IS NOT acceptable to demean women, minorities, gays, or anyone else who's different from you because you're in the majority. Blacks, women, and gays do have histories of their own. The Trent Lotts of the world really do think things would have been better if the Voting Rights Act hadn't been passed and if blacks had been kept out of colleges and if women were kept in their place.

I almost put the book down after reading Colavito's first, biographical, chapter, describing how Jacques Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence influenced him, and showed him how the "rot had set in shortly after" the revolutions of the eighteenth century. But I'm glad I kept reading. The history is fascinating and the writing style is very entertaining.

Just as the rationalist H.P. Lovecraft didn't mean for people to take his "Yog-Sothothery" seriously, maybe Colavito is throwing out ideas for us to chew on. (Remember: "Cthulhu saves - - in case he gets hungry later.")



... Read more

Product Description
Presents horror legend HP Lovecraft's short prose piece "Nyarlathotep". This book presents Lovecraft's original poem in its entirety and also features a visual interpretation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent stylized illustrations of the Crawling Chaos
Boom Studios has recently made quite a name for themselves in the field of Lovecraftian comics.The still ongoing Fall of Cthulhu is easily the best single story arc series in HPL comics, Necronomicon was a 4 issue series well worth finding for collectors and Cthulhu Tales is a respectable series of self contained stories.Nyarlathotep carries fascination for most Lovecraftians (in fact, I think Fall of Cthulhu: Nemesis is supposed to be about his origins).This book represents something of a new direction for Boom.It consists of the text of HPL's prose poem, Nyarlathotep, lavishly illstrated by Chuck BB.I must admit I am unfamiliar with Chuck BB's other work.Nyarlathotep is a very nice cloth bound hardcover with an intriguing painting on the slipcover.Page count is 32 but the text and illustrations run from 5-27.List price is $14.99 but Amazon discounts to $11.69.I did not compare the text of Nyarlathotep with any of Joshi's definitive editions.

While I have found the prose poem mesmerizing for many years, the reason to by this book is for the illustrations and production values.If you like the image on the slipcover, you will certainly enjoy the rest of the book.Counting the cover illustration, there are 11 full page, full color illustrations, each representing some passage from the text.While I may have wished for different passages to be illuminated I was very impressed with Chuck BB's skill.The muted color palate enhanced the peculiar mood conveyed by the text.Sample this if you can before you buy, but I certainly was impressed and will be dipping again into its pages periodically.I hope Boom Studios will give us more illustrated versions of HPL's originals. ... Read more

Product Description
Lovecraft's writings in the realm of literary criticism are unfailingly acute and cover a surprisingly wide range. Besides his authoritative early essay on "The Literature of Rome" (1918), other works condemn free verse and simple spelling, and devote attention to neglected poets. Discovering weird fiction as his chosen field, he produced such scintillating essays as "Lord Dunsany and His Work" (1922) and "Supernatural Horror in Literature" (1927), along with essays on Frank Belknap Long and Clark Ashton Smith. Late in life Lovecraft codified his grasp of weird literature by writing such trenchant pieces as "Notes on Writing Weird Fiction" (1933) and "Some Notes on Interplanetary Fiction" (1934). One of his last writings, "Suggestions for a Reading Guide" (1936), is a comprehensive discussion of world literature.

H. P. Lovecraft has belatedly received world renown as the twentieth century’s premier author of supernatural fiction; but during his lifetime he wrote far more essays than stories. This edition gathers Lovecraft’s complete nonfictional output for the first time, arranged in broad thematic groupings. S. T. Joshi, the world's leading authority on Lovecraft, exhaustively annotates all texts, also providing critical and bibliographical notes. ... Read more

Product Description
Considered by many to be one of the greatest horror fiction writers of all time, H. P. Lovecraft was certainly a pioneer of the genre. Contained here are 24 of the author's classic stories. This collection includes the following tales: The Alchemist, The Beast in the Cave, Memory, The Picture in the House, Beyond the Wall of Sleep, Dagon, The White Ship, The Statement of Randolph Carter, The Doom That Came to Sarnath, Poetry and the Gods, Nyarlathotep, The Cats of Ulthar, Polaris, The Street, Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family, Ex Oblivione, The Crawling Chaos, The Terrible Old Man, The Tree, The Nameless City, Herbert West: Reanimator, The Tomb, The Music of Erich Zann, and Celephais. ... Read more

Product Description
S. T. Joshi s award-winning biography H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (1996) provided the most detailed portrait of the life, work, and thought of the dreamer from Providence ever published. But that edition was in fact abridged from Joshi s original manuscript, and this expanded and updated edition restores the 150,000 words that Joshi omitted and, in addition, updates the texts with new findings.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born to a well-to-do family in Providence, Rhode Island. As a child, he revealed remarkable precocity in his early interests in literature and science. Ill-health dogged him in youth, rendering school attendance sporadic; and in 1908 he experienced a nervous breakdown that rendered him a virtual recluse for several years. In 1914 he discovered the world of amateur journalism and began slowly emerging from his hermitry. He wrote tremendous amounts of essays, poetry, and other work; in 1917, under the encouragement from W. Paul Cook and others, he resumed the writing of horror fiction, and his career as a dream-weaver began anew.

In 1921 Lovecraft met his future wife, Sonia H. Greene, at an amateur journalism convention. It was at this time that he began expanding his horizons, both geographical and intellectual: he traveled widely, from New England to New York to Cleveland; and he absorbed such literary and intellectual influences as Lord Dunsany, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Arthur Machen. In 1924 he and Sonia decided to marry, and Lovecraft moved to New York to pursue his literary fortune. But, as the first volume of this biography concludes, his metropolitan adventure would be bittersweet at best.

As the second volume of S. T. Joshi s comprehensive biography of H. P. Lovecraft begins, we find Lovecraft dwelling in misery in a one-room apartment in Brooklyn Heights: his wife, Sonia, has had to move to the Midwest for work, and he must rely on the companionship of the Kalem Club, the informal band of friends in the New York area. In 1926, in part through the intervention of his close friend Frank Belknap Long, Lovecraft finally decided to return to his native Providence, Rhode Island, effectively ending his marriage. That return spurred the greatest spurt of literary creativity he would ever experience: in less than a year, such works as "The Call of Cthulhu," The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, and The Colour out of Space would emerge from his pen, establishing Lovecraft as the leading weird fictionist of his generation.

In spite of his increasing poverty, antiquarian travel occupied much of Lovecraft s time, and he gained an impressive knowledge of such oases of antiquity as Charleston, Quebec, St. Augustine, and Richmond. These voyages both renewed his connection with the past and infused his literary work, as such later tales as The Whisperer in Darkness and The Shadow over Innsmouth drew ever more profoundly upon his far-flung travels.

Intellectually, Lovecraft evolved as well. Recent developments in science confirmed his materialism and his atheism, and the onset of the Great Depression gradually caused him to reassess his political and economic theory; he emerged as a moderate socialist and advocate of the New Deal. Late in life he became a giant in the world of fantasy fandom a development that foreshadowed his worldwide fame in the decades following his early death. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Entire Biography At Last!
S. T. brought me a set of this fabulous two-volume work when he came earlier this month to drive me to Portland for the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival, and we discuss'd this newly-publish'd version of his biography on my YouTube channel.Those who have the single volume of this work publish'd by Necronomicon Press may wonder if they need, now, to buy this expanded version.I want to encourage people to buy it, naturally, but if you have the single volume version, H. P. LOVECRAFT--A LIFE, that version is substantial; and that single volume edition is still available at the Necronomicon website, so be wary of paying outrageous out-of-print prices for it here and elsewhere.

For this new edition of the book, S. T. Joshi has restored over 150,000 words of text that had to be edited from the single volume edition.However, S. T. spent a lot of time going over the complete text and fine-tuning it, bringing everything up-to-date (there has been much new information regarding Lovecraft's life and works since the single volume edition was first published in 1996), correcting mistakes that oozed their way into the first version, &c.The final chapter of the book, discussing Lovecraft's influence of the weird tale genre after his death, the emergence of Arkham House and the Cthulhu Mythos, &c, has been completely reworked and expanded for the second volume of I AM PROVIDENCE.And this new two-volume edition is illustrated with photographs of Lovecraft, his family & friends.I am nearly finish'd with my first reading of Volume 1, and I know that this is a work to which I will return time and again (I've order'd a second set to keep down here at my work table, for I know that I will constantly return to dipping into the book).

One of the features that I really love about the book is the in-depth study of Lovecraft's life as a weird phantasist, with detailed accou8nts of his tales and critical discussions of them.I love that kind of thing so much!Many thanks to S. T. Joshi, who has worked so diligently to bring us Lovecraft's Corrected Texts, and now presents us with an honest and intelligent examination of Lovecraft's remarkable life and mind.

One of the most refreshing aspects of S. T. Joshi's biography is that it is the only one of which I know where Lovecraft is not presented as some kind of morbid Outsider freak of nature.I have just started reading Donald Tyson's THE DREAM WORLDS OF H. P. LOVECRAFT (a well written and well-researched book), and found this on page 5:
"For one thing, he was odd--not odd in the usual sense, but truly alien from the rest of the human race. ... Lovecraft had no interest in other human beings, and very little use for them."This is not true to the point of absurdity.Joshi's book shews that, for one who suffered such peculiar upbringing, Lovecraft turned out as normal as any regular Joe.He did not spend his life in shadow, shunning daylight and walking the night.He loved warm weather and did much if not most of his writing out of doors in sunlit parks or sitting on boulders along the Seekonk whenever he could.As for not needing or wanting humanity, his steady social life, huge correspondence, and activity in the amateur press (he often attended gatherings outside of Providence) reveal a man who had an intimate relationship, social and intellectual, with other women and men.He was a ordinary guy with an extraordinary imagination.That imagination, and the daily activities of a very human being, are superbly recorded and understood in this magnificent biography, I AM PROVIDENCE. ... Read more

Product Description
"Those who love life do not read. Nor do they go to the movies, actually. No matter what might be said, access to the artistic universe is more or less entirely the preserve of those who are a little fed up with the world."In this prescient work—now with an introduction by Stephen King—Michel Houellebecq, the author of the novels Platform and Elementary Particles, focuses his considerable analytical skills on H.P. Lovecraft, the seminal, enigmatic horror writer of the early 20th century. Houellebecq’s insights into the craft of writing illuminate both Lovecraft and Houellebecq’s own work. The two are kindred spirits, sharing a uniquely dark worldview. But even as he outlines Lovecraft’s rejection of this loathsome world, it is Houellebecq’s adulation for the author that drives this work and makes it a love song, infusing the writing with an energy and passion not seen in Houellebecq’s novels to date. Indispensable reading for anyone interested in Lovecraft, Houellebecq, or the past and future of horror.

"[Houellebecq] is fearless, vivid, and astringently honest." — Los Angeles Times ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Lovecraft the philosopher
I always liked Lovecraft, but I couldn't really say why.French novelist Michel Houellebecq (a favorite of Iggy Pop, btw) gives you all the reasons why a closeted, racist hack-writer that failed professionally is actually brilliant.Plus the book has three classic stories by Lovecraft himself.Too expensive though.

An Immoral Book.
When I was given a copy of this book I was thrilled; as I read it I grew impatient, then frustrated, and finally angry. Mr. Houellebecq is a good writer and an interesting if not rigorous thinker. Thus I am obliged to give the book two stars rather then the one I suspect it actually deserves.

Simply put, in this book Lovecraft is subjected to an extremely biased and in the end insulting reading in order to justify Mr. Houellebecq's preconceptions and asinine philosophy. In the end, the book comes across as the expression of extremely juvenile negativity masked in in a load of pretentious mumbo-jumbo. There is good and valuable French hyper-intellectualism -- this is a prime example of the other kind.

Despite what one reviewer wrote, Lovecraft's correspondence was far more central to the man himself than his fiction -- not to diminish the importance of his fiction, but when trying to understand Lovecraft it's important to consider what he expressed to those he cared for in addition to the works harvested from his exquisite fantasy life.

Lovecraft's letters reveal a man with a genuinely sweet nature, one who was lonely and in desperate need of human contact. The racism so frequently commented on is negated implicitly by his behavior and explicitly in his letters toward the end of his life. Lovecraft was a man who clearly dealt with many physical and emotional ailments and he grew as a human being throughout his life in spite of and in reaction to those difficulties.

To use Lovecraft as the poster child for callow nihilism (there is nihilism I can respect; I did not find it here) is either the result of incompetent research, malice, or a sort of moral laziness in which one's intended statement is more important than the facts at hand -- and in which the truth about a worthy man who spent his life struggling with his limitations is regarded as collateral damage.

I suspect the latter.

this is one to buy
I could have done without the comments of Stephen King who wouldn't recognize a tight story line if one fell on his head...and I would have chosen The Terrible Old Man and The Color Out of Space even though they are not "great texts"...but this is by far the best mini-biography on Lovecraft yet.It reminds me of Lovecraft Remembered, a series of vignettes by the people who knew him, and it avoids the Derleth whitewash that followed his death in 1937.Lovecraft is proto-horror, and my main regret with him has always been that he spent so much time writing letters to the detriment of his story output.If he hadn't, though, we might never have gotten Conan the Barbarian or Psycho, who knows?

Lovecraft: 20th Century Poe
Michel Houellebecq is the ultra-hip author of fashionably deconstructive modern French novels, so what interest would he have in a dead American writer consigned by many to the despised catgory of "pulp"?It turns out that Houellebecq is a big fan of American horror; among the writers he cites in this excellent short book are Richard Matheson and Robert Bloch, two disciples of Lovecraft."H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life"is a very satisfying read.Houellebecq escapes the jargon and theory of most modern literary criticism and simply delivers the goods: a passionate explication of Lovecraft's life and work which makes sense and gives you a new appreciation for the Bard of Unnameable Terror.It's fitting that Stephen King provides the introduction, because this book is very much in the spirit of his own landmark book Stephen King's Danse Macabre.

Houellebecq asserts that Lovecraft's kindly, reclusive, poverty-stricken life was "exemplary" because it was integral to the vision of his work.That is, he wrote as a protest against life as we live it, the old "human condition".Someone once said "the negative, by contrast, suggests the other" and Lovecraft's dark mythology is a satire of, and pessimistic comment on the mythologies we live by.Included in this volume are two of Lovecraft's more mind-blowing stories; "The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Whisperer In Darkness."If the "cult of Cthulhu" was a twisted opposite of, and challenge to Christianity, then reading these stories makes you rethink exactly what it is you believe in and why.Lovecraft shouted "No!" to the seeming cruelty of the cosmos, and as King argues, gave space for attentive young readers to lick their wounds before engaging once again in the next battle of life.Houellebecq deals with Lovecraft's racism and Antisemitism, revealed in his letters published after his early death, by comparing him to Louis-Ferdinand Celine, the great French black comedy novelist who was also guilty of bigotry.Houellebecq demonstrates that fear was at the heart of their similar world views, not merely fascism, and that fear sharpened their work."Those who love life don't read books or see movies" is a questionable statement by Houellebecq, but it contains a grain of truth.We read in part to take us out of this world and into alternative ones.Lovecraft is tremendously influential; the movie "Alien" is mostly an elaboration on his themes and method of attack.Houellebecq's little, readable book is a welcome addition to the small list of really enjoyable contemporary literary criticism.

Flawed, but exhilarating
Very rarely do we see the likes of a Michel Houllebecq--darling of the 21st century's aggressive postmodern nihlism, controversial writer both in the United States and France, champion of the "new" hedonistic revolt (is there really such a thing?)--join hands with the decomposed but very much alive likes of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, the legendary misfit of Providence.

"Life is useless and disappointing", writes Houellebecq, and beginning from this premise attempts to tie such morbidly sacred short stories as "The Call of Cthulu" and "The Whisperer in the Darkness" in with what he envisions as the call of the true poet, "the creation of an entirely alternative world to this one".Championing Lovecraft's life (more than his work) as an example of unparalleled existential defiance, he sees similarities between himself and the pulp writer who told us quite directly that we are nothing but floating electrons, gaseous entities destined to perish in a meaningless universe.It goes without saying that Lovecraft himself was never as outspoken as Houllebecq, and that his quiet skepticism regarding all human hope is at almost complete odds with the French icon's exhibitionism.

Still, there is something to be found here that is not to be found at all in the miles of scholarly toilet paper and mediocre biography heaped up HP since his death.This is an impassioned attempt to understand the man who, like Kant, was suspected of not being fully human.Lovecraft's tragic and reclusive plight in life, composed mostly of literature and his own doomy imaginings is in Houllebecq's eyes worthy of the most profound veneration.Rather than saying the great Nietzschean "Yes" To Life", Lovecraft uttered a "No" without weakness or complaint.His racism is recognized by Houellebecq for what it really was: a reviling of ALL things human, particularly that which sticks out from the standard heaps of flesh with any marked characteristic.How everything went wrong almost consistently for Lovecraft in every aspect of his external life is given excruciating exposure.I'd call this less of a "study" and more of a manifesto for hardline misanthropes.(The introduction by Stephen King seems out of place at first glance, but strangely enough fits right in as one gets into the meat and potatoes of Houllebecq's rant.)Included are what Houllebecq considers Lovecraft's most telltale work: "The Call of Cthulu" and "The Whisperer in the Darkness". ... Read more

Product Description
Selected and Introduced by M.J. Elliott
That is not dead that can eternal lie And with strange aeons even death may die Millenia ago, the Old Ones ruled our planet. Since that time, they have but slumbered. But when a massive sea tremor brings the ancient stone city of R'lyeh to the surface once more, the Old Ones awaken at last.
The Whisperer in Darkness brings together the original Cthulhu Mythos stories of the legendary horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. Included in this volume are several early tales, along with the classics The Call of Cthulhu, The Dunwich Horror and At the Mountains of Madness.
Arm yourself with a copy of Abdul Alhazred's fabled Necronomican and prepare to face terrors beyond the wildest imaginings of all save H.P. Lovecraft. ... Read more

Product Description
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) was an American author of horror, fantasy, and science fiction, known then simply as weird fiction. His major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: the idea that life is incomprehensible to human minds and that the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. He has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of Enlightenment, Romanticist, and Christian humanism. Lovecraft’s protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality. Although Lovecraft’s readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades, and he is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Am I missing something?
From an objective point of view, this propably is not so (just look at all these reviews), but *I* though this was weird, could not decide whether to be badly quasi-scientific or just supernatural, and could not possibly frighten me to the least because I was being too busy thinking it was stupid. There were some (potentially) good elements, they were just buried deep beneath all the crap. Oh well, maybe I should read it again.

Gruesome tale for a vugar magazine
"It is uncommon to fire all six shots of a revolver with great suddenness when one would be sufficient, but many things in the life of Herbert West were uncommon."

Originally written in serial form forthe weird-fiction pulp magazine "Home Brew," Lovecraft consideredthis to be his poorest work.Thousands of readers, myself included, havedisagreed with him ever since.

Herbert West, Re-animator definitely has adifferent flavor than many of Lovecraft's tales.It is more of a straighthorror story and lacks elements of cosmic horror.It relies on gore forit's chills, but still retains Lovecraft's use of language and "justout of sight" horror.

The story is told "Watson-Style"by Herbert West's assistant.It takes place over 17 years, and details theexperiments of a brilliant young medical student and his quest for there-animation of dead flesh.Herbert West's drive for a fresher and freshercorpse is chilling, as is his slow descent into madness.

From thebeginning, we know nothing good will come of this.But that is why we readH.P. Lovecraft

Herbert West--Reanimator: An underappreciated story
This work by H.P. Lovecraft is definitely one that should get more attention. Not only does the story have a great blend of dark humor and science, it also contains pure terror, which will keep you up in bed at night, frantically wondering what that noise was in the hall. The originalstory is without a doubt much better than the 1985 movie, which had almostnothing to do with it at all. The story had more moments of suspense andintellectual processing, while the movie replaced all that with gore andviolence. Go out and get this story, if you're a Lovecraft fan, as well asa fan of the movie. ... Read more

Product Description
Discovering the amateur press in 1914, Lovecraft immediately flooded the many small papers of his friends and colleagues with contributions discussing the nature, purpose, and future of amateur journalism. He also edited his own magazine, The Conservative (1915-23), filling it with additional essays. In these articles Lovecraft discusses the conflict between the United and the National Amateur Press Associations; the "halcyon days" of the amateur movement (1885-95); and the "needs and betterment" of the amateur cause. We read of Lovecraft's bitter feuds with his fellow amateurs; his exhaustive critiques of their writing; and, most poignant of all, his touching affirmation of "What Amateurdom and I Have Done for Each Other," in which he concludes simply: "What Amateur Journalism has given me is—life itself."

H. P. Lovecraft has belatedly received world renown as the twentieth century’s premier author of supernatural fiction; but during his lifetime he wrote far more essays than stories. This edition gathers Lovecraft’s complete nonfictional output for the first time, arranged in broad thematic groupings. S. T. Joshi, the world's leading authority on Lovecraft, exhaustively annotates all texts, also providing critical and bibliographical notes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Amateur Journalism
Amateur journalists originally wrote prose and poetry for "journals" which they set in type, printed, and exchanged with others. Lovecaft wrote his essays as Editor or Critic for an amateur journalism association in the period (1914-1925) before the printing press was supplemented and gradually replaced by other means. Still in the future were the copy machine, computer word processor, and "Blogging," which combine to wheedle some amateur writers and printers away orto the production of "e-journals" which are not yet fully accepted. His essays as Amateur Journalism Critic will be of interest to historians, current amateur journalists (Association names are on the Web), and Lovecraft aficionados) Lovecraft essays on other topics are in four volumes by the same publsher.

The Complete Lovecraft Non-Fiction Vol. I
The first in a series of Lovecraft's "complete nonfictional output" (it would seem likely there is something out there yet to be rediscovered, but if anybody would have found it by now it would be editor S.T. Joshi).A beautiful book, painstakingly collected and annotated, I'm hesitant to voice any criticisms, but... I will say this might be the least interesting of the series in MY eye as I have no knowledge of the amateur press scene in HPL's day or of many of the participants discussed.

This volume seems the most specialized of the series which, when complete, will also include Literary Criticism (Vol. 2); Science (Vol. 3); Travel (Vol. 4); and finally Philosophy; Autobiography and Miscellany (Vol. 5).And while I can't recommend this first volume to readers not already HPL fans, I can say to those who are fans (like me), this is a wonderful book to own, if only to delve into bit by bit, now and again.

As Amazon doesn't list the contents, I'll do so below.

Introduction, by S.T. Joshi

A Task for Amateur Journalists
Department of Public Criticism (November 1914)
Department of Public Criticism (January 1915)
Department of Public Criticism (March 1915)
What Is Amateur Journalism?
Consolidation's Autopsy
The Amateur Press
Editorial (April 1915)
The Question of the Day
The Morris Faction
For President-Leo Fritter
Introducing Mr. Chester Pierce Munroe
[Untitled Notes on Amateur Journalism]
Department of Public Criticism (May 1915)
Finale
New Department Proposed: Instruction for the Recruit
Our Candidate
Exchanges
For Historian-Ira A. Cole
Editorial (July 1915)
The Conservative and His Critics (July 1915)
Some Political Phases
Introducing Mr. John Russell
In a Major Key
Amateur Notes
The Dignity of Journalism
Department of Public Criticism (September 1915)
Editorial (October 1915)
The Conservative and His Critics (October 1915)
The Youth of Today
An Impartial Spectator
[Untitled Notes on Amateur Journalism]
Little Journeys to the Homes of Prominent Amateurs: II. Andrew Francis Lockhart
Report of First Vice-President (November 1915)
Department of Public Criticism (December 1915)
Systematic Instruction in the United
United Amateur Press Association: Exponent of Amateur Journalism
Introducing Mr. James Pyke
Report of First Vice-President (January 1916)
Editorial (February 1916)
Department of Public Criticism (April 1916)
Among the New-Comers
Department of Public Criticism (June 1916)
Department of Public Criticism (August 1916)
Department of Public Criticism (September 1916)
Among the Amateurs
Concerning "Persia-in Europe"
Amateur Standards
A Request
Department of Public Criticism (March 1917)
Department of Public Criticism (May 1917)
A Reply to The Lingerer
The United's Problem
Editorially
The "Other United"
Department of Public Criticism (July 1917)
Little Journeys to the Homes of Prominent Amateurs: V. Eleanor J. Barnhart
News Notes (July 1917)
President's Message (September 1917)
President's Message (November 1917)
President's Message (January 1918)
Department of Public Criticism (January 1918)
President's Message (March 1918)
Department of Public Criticism (March 1918)
President's Message (May 1918)
Department of Public Criticism (May 1918)
Comment
President's Message (July 1918)
Amateur Criticism
The United 1917-1918
The Amateur Press Club
Les Mouches Fantastiques
Department of Public Criticism (September 1918)
Department of Public Criticism (November 1918)
News Notes (November 1918)
[Letter to the Bureau of Critics]
Department of Public Criticism (January 1919)
Department of Public Criticism (March 1919)
Winifred Virginia Jordan: Associate Editor
Helene Hoffman Cole-Litterateur
Department of Public Criticism (May 1919)
Trimmings
For Official Editor-Anne Tillery Renshaw
Amateurdom
Looking Backward
For What Does the United Stand?
The Pseudo-United
The Conquest of the Hub Club
News Notes (September 1920)
Amateur Journalism: Its Possible Needs and Betterment
Editorial (November 1920)
News Notes (November 1920)
News Notes (January 1921)
The United's Policy 1920-1921
What Amateurdom and I Have Done for Each Other
News Notes (March 1921)
The Vivisector (March 1921)
[Letter to John Milton Heins]
Lucubrations Lovecraftian
News Notes (May 1921)
The Vivisector (June 1921)
The Haverhill Convention
News Notes (July 1921)
Within the Gates
The Convention Banquet
Editorial (September 1921)
News Notes (September 1921)
A Singer of Ethereal Moods and Fancies
News Notes (November 1921)
[Letter to John Milton Heins]
Editorial (January 1922)
News Notes (January 1922)
Rainbow Called Best First Issue
News Notes (March 1922)
The Vivisector (March 1922)
News Notes (May 1922)
[Letter to the N.A.P.A.]
President's Message (November 1922-January 1923)
President's Message (March 1923)
Bureau of Critics (March 1923)
Rursus Adsumus
The Vivisector (Spring 1923)
President's Message (May 1923)
Lovecraft's Greeting
President's Message (July 1923)
[Untitled Notes on Amateur Journalism]
The President's Annual Report
Trends and Objects
Editorial (May 1924)
News Notes (May 1924)
Editorial (July 1925)
News Notes (July 1925)
A Matter of Uniteds
The Convention
Bureau of Critics (December 1931)
Critics Submit First Report
Verse Criticism
Report of Bureau of Critics
Bureau of Critics Comment on Verse, Typography, Prose
Bureau of Critics (June 1934)
Chairman of the Bureau of Critics Reports on Poetry
Mrs. Miniter-Estimates and Recollections
Report of the Bureau of Critics (December 1934)
Report of the Bureau of Critics (March 1935)
Lovecraft Offers Verse Criticism
Dr. Eugene B. Kuntz
Some Current Amateur Verse
Report of the Executive Judges
Some Current Motives and Practices
[Letter to the N.A.P.A.]
[Literary Review]
Defining the "Ideal" Paper

Appendix
[Miscellaneous Notes in the United Amateur]
Official Organ Fund
[Untitled Note on Amateur Poetry]
[On Notes High and Low by Carrie Adams Berry]
A Voice from the Grave

Index
... Read more

Product Description

Stephen King wrote that H.P. Lovecraft "has yet to be surpassed as the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale." Now enthusiasts and newcomers alike have the opportunity to enjoy five of Lovecraft's best tales in a unique package. Included are four short stories of unrivaled terror--"The Rats in the Walls," "Herbert West--Reanimator," "The Colour Out of Space," and "The Dunwich Horror"--as well as the complete text of his eerie novella of ancient alien life in the Arctic, "At the Mountains of Madness."

Augmented by hundreds of fascinating annotations by scholar S.T. Joshi, and illustrated with photographs and artwork depicting Lovecraft's life and work, this rich and varied volume is destined to become, like its author, a classic.Amazon.com Review
This attractively packaged collection, edited by preeminent H.P. Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi, is a treat for long-time enthusiastsand newcomers alike. Joshi provides newly corrected text and footnotesfor three superb stories--"The Rats in the Walls," "The Colour out ofSpace," and "The Dunwich Horror"--as well as the novella "At the Mountains of Madness,"acknowledged as Lovecraft's masterpiece. Heexplains the origins of place and character names, tracks influencesfrom Lovecraft's reading, defines unusual words such as "nefandous"and "cyclopean," and clarifies which of the cited occult texts arefictional and which are real. The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft alsoincludes a biographical introduction, comments from contemporaryhorror writers, excerpts from letters presenting Lovecraft's owntheories about weird fiction, a critical summary of Lovecraft movies,a select bibliography, and numerous black-and-whitephotographs. Don't make the mistake of thinking that The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft is just anotherLovecraft collection: Joshi has distilled decades of learning intowell-chosen observations that are a delight to read. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (29)

Solid introduction to HPL
S. T. Joshi, a noted Lovecraft scholar, is to be commended for this annotated collection of four stories. In addition to being a decidedly acquired taste, reading Lovecraft can be a monumental chore. Lovecraft has many times confounded this reader with his cryptic language, obscure references to early 20th Century scientific speculations and inside references to fellow authors. Editor Joshi tracks down all these lemmings and confirms that they are in fact cryptic and obscure BUT interesting. One would speculate that Lovecraft had little interest in "popular" success but wrote for his own pleasure and the favor of his correspondents and friends.

The four stories in this collection are: "The Rats In the Walls", "The Colour Out of Space", "The Dunwich Horror", and "At The Mountains of Madness".The editor does not discuss his selections of stories. In my opinion "At The Mountains of Madness" which runs for 152 pages is so repetitious in it's descriptions and exclamations Lovecraft could of reduce it by 100 pages and it would have been a much more effective story. I found it an endurance test to read. I would have preferred my favorite Lovecraft story "Shadow Over Innsmouth" in its place.

S.T. Joshi included some nice "extras" in this volume: 22 photographs, a bibliography, short essays about HPL by other authors, HPL on Weird Fiction and HPL in the Media.

Anyone interested in Lovecraft's fiction would by advised to read this excellent book. I would also recommend the Necronomicon Press annotated edition of The Shadow over Innsmouth.

Why read Lovecraft? Well this quote sums it up for this reader:
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation of flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. -HPL "The Call of Cthulhu" 1926

A Delightful Edition of H P Lovecraft
S. T. Joshi has worked diligently to make the writings of H. P. Lovecraft accessible to Lovecraft's ever-expanding audience.We have the hardcover editions from Arkham House, the Del Rey trade pb and mass market editions, the Penguin Classics editions, various editions from Hippocampus Press, the wonderful one-volume edition from Barnes & Noble (soon to be reprinted in a corrected 2nd Edition), and the historic edition from The Library of America.The two Annotated editions from Dell (this edition from 1997, and MORE ANNOTATED H. P. LOVECRAFT FROM 1999) are still wonderful editions of Lovecraft's fiction, and if you are coming to Lovecraft's fiction for the first time, these are excellent introductions to the man and his weird tales.This first volume is especially captivating, for not only do you get some of H. P. Lovecraft's most famous and beloved stories ("The Colour out of Space," "The Dunwich Horror," and "The Rats in the Walls") but you get a fully annotated text of the short novel, AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS.I had difficulty appreciating this lengthy work of fiction when I was young -- but returning to it again and again made me come to love it as one of Lovecraft's finest works, a fantastic tales with moments of chilling eeriness.The one review that mentions that reading the novel in this edition "ruined" it for him strikes me as absurd.I wish I had had these annotations available when first I read AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS -- they serve a wonderful purpose.

But there are other features that make this a very enjoyable introduction to Lovecraft.Included is a lengthy introduction by the editor, S. T. Joshi, who also includes wee introductions to each tale.We also have short quotes concerning Lovecraft from other genre writers such as F. Paul Wilson, Ramsey Campbell, Tom Ligotti and others.Especially delightful is a chapter entitled "Lovecraft on Weird Fiction," with excerpts from Lovecraft's letters relating to his fictive art; and an Appendix about "Lovecraft and the Media."The book has a number of photos, a reprinting of a WEIRD TALES cover and more.The look of the volume is very attractive, print is easily read.All in all, this is a charming and entertaining introduction to H. P. Lovecraft.

The one real mistake, as had been pointed out elsewhere, is that the book lacks a table of contents.But all is all, this is one of the finest introductions to the Works of H. P. Lovecraft, and if you are coming to him for the first time, these two volumes are a fine place to start.Of course, all three of the Penguin Classics editions of H. P. Lovecraft are also completely annotated -- but they lack the extras that make these two Dell volumes so much fun.


However, it is the second volume in the series, MORE ANNOTATED H. P. LOVECRAFT, that is the better introduction to those coming to Lovecraft for the first time.The book, published in 1999, was co-edited with Peter Cannon (the author of the Twayne biography of Lovecraft, and the author of the wonderful novel concerning Lovecraft's life if he had not died when he did, THE LOVECRAFT CHRONICLES).Although there are a couple of stories that I would have rather seen in this book (I would have exchanged "The Music of Erich Zann" for the boring "The Horror at Red Hook"), the stories in this second volume shew Lovecraft as a Master of Gothic Horror, with such tales as "The Haunter of the Dark," "Pickman's Model" and the delicious "The Hound.""The Call of Cthulhu" is here as well -- and it is one of Lovecraft's masterpieces.(Despite Neal Gaiman, who called the story, in the DVD THE ELDRITCH INFLUENCE, "...a crap story."Wonderful as he may be as a writer of fantasy, Gaiman is extremely perverse in his views concerning Lovecraft.His explanation for Lovecraft's continually popularity is "Lovecraft is rock and roll," a statement that is utterly absurd.)"The Thing on the Doorstep" is also included, and it is a fascinating if not entirely successful Lovecraft tale.I love the little hints in it that are never explained but which taunt the imagination, such as "the pit of shoggoths."

Together, THE ANNOTATED H. P. LOVECRAFT and MORE ANNOTATED H. P. LOVECRAFT serve as splendid introductions to the world of Lovecraft's cosmic imagination.Highly recommended!

Eldritch delight!
Great communication, extremely fast delivery, product exactly as described.I highly recommend this seller!

Great ideas, awful prose: Annotated!

This is not an introductory work; rather it is an examination of some of Lovecraft's more popular long pieces and how he contributed to the creation of "weird fiction." It proves interesting to any reader of this type of fantasy and delves into how it evolved in the work of one of its originators. The real intriguing aspect of this book is I had forgotten just how bad a writer Lovecraft was, having read these stories a number of years ago.
What was wrong with Lovecraft as a writer?His prose is stilted, characters that are mere sketches instead of fully rendered, he was an elitist who often presented racist attitude, and he used vocabulary that was dated (even for the early 20th century) and redundant. (How many times did Lovecraft use the word "Cyclopean?"That would be an interesting annotation.)
So why is he still read? It is the ideas behind all the dreadful storytelling. Lovecraft's concept of "Old Gods," who are not evil; just so different from our comprehension was a new way to approach dark fantasy. Humans were beneath the notice of these beings and Lovecraft's stories of human encounters with these creatures were novel and a concept that has been thoroughly mined for new story concepts ever since Lovecraft and his contemporaries first created them. The annotations that S.T. Joshi makes in this volume add a great deal to understanding where Lovecraft came up with his ideas and locations, how Lovecraft demonstrated his admiration for many of his contemporaries like Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith by mentioning books and places named in their stories as part of his work, and explains (sometimes repetitively) the definitions and usages of Lovecraft's often archaic vocabulary. Lovecraft, did create some of fantasy's most memorable creatures and his work is worth examining for that aspect. If you're a fan of Lovecraft this would seem to be required reading, but any fan of the dark fantasy that Lovecraft and his contemporaries originated will find this an interesting work

Excellent Collection
This book and its companion (More Annotated H.P. Lovecraft) are an excellent source for fans of the genre and of Lovecraft.Both taken together include most of his major works.The only stories I wish had been included that were absent were:The Outsider, In the Vault, The Silver Key, The Music of Erich Zann, The Whisperer in Darkness, The Shadow over Innsmouth, The Shadow Out of Time, and The Dreams in the Witch House.Seems like a long list, but seriously, these two volumes do include the major works, and annotations, while at times a bit tedious and annoying (Mr. Joshi is a little full of himself), are helpful and provide a lot of background and insight in Lovecraft as a man and the New England of his youth and stories.They also reference and link stories to one another.In all, probably the best single collection I've seen, at least the best that is available for regular purchase. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

This is Horror?
I'm with the other 1 star reviewer in that the few stories I made it through may have been freightening in the early 1900's and Lovecraft may have opened the door for other horror writers, but I became bored rather than scared half-to-death.

The Dunwich Horror was an incomprehensible mish-mash of silly back-woods vernacular with unnecessary misspellings, such as "dew" for "do". (Both words sound exactly the same so if you are writing dialog phonetically, why not just write "do"?)a bunch of characters telling you that you should be shocked and afraid, but not really telling you why and a smattering of Sci-fi. ( I actually found the beings from another dimension idea interesting.)

I made it half-way through The Call of Cthulhu before I just didn't care anymore and the one about the Terrible Old Man was a real snoozer.

I do wonder about Lovecraft's facination with tentacles though. Was he terrified at a young age by a fierce rampaging octopus or is it a metaphor for firece rampaging male genitalia or Horror of Horrors!!! a combination of both!!!!

I don't care for the modern idea that horror is synonymous with gruesome bloodfests of knife wielding maniacs. I like good psychological horror, but I didn't find that in the Lovecraft I read.

An Excellent Collection of Classic Horror
Some of the editions here are not the one pictured.The book saw its first edition, edited by Derleth and published by Arkham House, in 1963; the book had additional printings in 1966, 1970, 1973 and 1981.The texts were then corrected by S. T. Joshi, and these Corrected Text editions have been the one published since 1984.As is stated in his notes on this latter edition, in SIXTY YEARS OF ARKHAM HOUSE:"The first of the revised editions of Lovecraft's tales edited by Joshi, from consultation of manuscripts (most of them at the John Hay Library, Brown University) and early publications.In the process, thousands of textual and typographical errors that had crept into successive Arkham House editions of these works were eliminated.Although for copyright reasons the new editions were labeled 'corrected printings,' they have been entirely reset.Bloch's introduction is taken from the collection The Best of H. P. Lovecraft (New York: Ballantine, 1982)."My copy is the Corrected Tenth Printing with its magnificent jacket illustration by Raymond Bayless.The newer editions have jackets by, I believe, Tony Patrick -- and I find them awful, cartoonish and insulting to the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft.Arkham House was created by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei in 1939, for the purpose of publishing Lovecraft's weird tales in hardcover editions.Their first book, THE OUTSIDER AND OTHERS, now sells for a fortune (here at Amazon copies sell anywhere from $1,200 to $9,000!!!).Derleth is a controversial figure in the history of publication of Lovecraft's Works, but it is primarily because of his Arkham House editions of the fiction, poetry and (especially) Selected Letters that Lovecraft became the world-renown figure he is today.

Despite the awful dust jacket illustration, this new hardcover edition is an excellent introduction to Lovecraft's weird tales (although the Library of America edition, which sells for around the same price or less here at Amazon, includes twice as much material).Lovecraft's fiction revolutionized the horror genre, and his tales continue to influence modern writers of supernatural horror.We have many books of stories by other writers who were influenced by Lovecraft, beginning with Derleth's superlative TALES OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS to Ellen Datlow's delightful recent anthology, LOVECRAFT UNBOUND.S. T. Joshi himself has edited an anthology of modern Lovecraftian tales, BLACK WINGS, and it will see publication this year.I began to read Lovecraft because of my friendship with Robert Bloch, who has a wonderful introduction in this hardcover edition.Two of the tales in this volume, "The Picture in the House" and "The Colour Out of Space," so affected my younger self when I first read them, so depressed me by their awful relentless power, that they put me off reading more of Lovecraft's fiction for a little while.For sheer narrative power, I think "The Colour Out of Space" is Lovecraft's greatest success; and in that tale he creates a denizen from outer space that is alien in every way.This edition also includes my favourite tale by Lovecraft, "The Haunter of the Dark" (Lovecraft's last story, which he dedicated to Robert Bloch) -- I love this story for its thrilling Gothic atmosphere, for its evocation of Lovecraft's beloved Providence, and for its portrayal of the horror writer Robert Blake.Lovecraft has often been chided by critics for his supposed inability to create realistic or interesting characters, but I find the opposite to be true.His characters live for me, and some of them (Wilbur Whateley, Erich Zann, Richard Upton Pickman) are wonderful and unique within the realm of fictive horror.

The editing of Lovecraft's works continues.The version of "The Shadow Out of Time" published here has become outdated, for Lovecraft's original manuscript of the story, given as a gift to Robert Barlow, was discovered and arrived at John Hay Library on January 17, 1995, giving the world this story, considered by many as Lovecraft's supreme masterpiece, exactly as Lovecraft penned it.The tale was published in a handsome single edition, edited by Joshi and David E. Schultz, by Hippocampus Press, and then was included in the third and final edition of H. P. Lovecraft's tales edited by Joshi for Penguin Classics, THE DREAMS INT HE WITCH HOUSE AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES, where it is extensively annotated.The text has also been published in The Library of America edition of Lovecrafts Tales, and in the single volume of all of Lovecraft's original stories that was published by Barnes & Noble.

am I reading the same book everyone else is reviewing?
Maybe these were great stories for 1935, but for 2009 this was a pretty awful book.I forced myself to read a few stories while commuting.
I am puzzled why everyone who has revioewed this book rates it so highly.Perhaps they like the authors writing style.I found the stories to just be not very good.

For example - there is a story about a weirdo painter who's works are considered disturbing.The narrator goes to visit him, and is shown a huge pit in his basement, and his art studio room.There is a disturbing picture of a monster and a note pinned to it.As he is examining it, he makes some noise and wakes up some monsters in the piot.The artist goes to deal with them, and the visitor looks at the note on the painting of the monster.
Its a photograph of the real monster.And thats how it ends.
Wow! I was so scared.LOL

It would be scary for 10 year olds I guess.The other stories were not as good.Needless to say, I put it down after reading 4 stories.

Great collection
This is part of a (3?) volume set of corrected Lovecraft texts from Arkham House. Either this, or del rey's "tales of horror and death" is a good way to start if you've never read Lovecraft, although Dunwich Horror primary focuses on one side of his writing (poe-ish) and the other on the dunsday-ish. As far as the book iself, it looks like the publisher picked the best of materials, texts, and fonts, and then did a slapdash job of gluing it together :(

The ultimate HP Lovecraft volume
This is the ultimate book by Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937), being part 1 in a 4-volume series completing the editing and publishing of his entire known prose work, not including his poems. All you really need to know about this book is the names of a few of the tales included, we're talking the best of the best of horror, sci-fi & weird tales here, in my opinion; "The Colour out of Space", "The Music of Erich Zann", "The Call of Cthulhu", "The Dunwich Horror", "The Whisperer in the Darkness", "The Shadow over Innsmouth" and "The Shadow out of Time" among others. These tales represent some of my decidedly favourite literature, and I've been returning to these tales again and again for more than 10 years now. It is kind of hard to summarize the book, since it is mostly shorter stories, but Lovecraft takes you on a journey from the deepest bottom of the ocean to the highest mountainpeak, from distant planets and solarsystems to remote, dark valleys and towns, from the darkest parts of the inner earth to the fringes of the human mind, among other places.

Lovecraft is really experiencing a renaissance these days, and it is well deserved. Never really acknowledged in his living days, he is finally taking his place among the ranks of the great US authors. The tales are not dated at all, but paint a very vivid picture of Lovecraft's own period of time. Though you often "see" the ending coming before you finish a tale of his, you still get pulled into the tale, unable to close it before finding out the terrible and magnificent end you have in store for you. As I said, these tales are really the prime of his writing, although his two longer tales are to be found in one of the other 4 volumes, also sold here on Amazon, which I'll review in due time.

Film-versions of some of his tales have started popping up from time to time, recently some of them of quite well-made quality, which makes me recommend readers to read the tales, and then watch the films, a lovely experience. Joshi has done a great job editing the tales into what I assume will be the standard edition of the texts, as close to Lovecraft's original intent as possible. The introduction to the book by the liberal Jewish author Robert Bloch I found to be a worthless introduction that twists Lovecraft's mode of thought into something quite different from what he would have enjoyed. Yes, Lovecraft was a staunch racialist and conservative, but so what? Who can say he was wrong today, with the direction the West is taking, well on its way to its own death, as he foresaw.

To summarize; one of my decidedly favourite books, in a sturdy hardcover with glossy quality dustjacket written well before the madness of "political correctness". Give Lovecraft a spot on your shelf, you won't regret it. Highly recommended! ... Read more

Product Description
H.P. Lovecraft has a large body of 20th Century stories.
This ebook is wonderfully formatted with a functional a table of contents that links to individual stories for quick navigation with Kindle and other ebook readers. This ebook contains the second volume of selected horror short shorts by Lovecraft, including The Moon Bog, The Nameless City, and The Other Gods (just to name a few). ... Read more

Product Description
This full-color volume collects the best art from Fantasy Flight's acclaimed Call of Cthulhu collectible card game, as well as from 25 years of Chaosium's legendary line of Call of Cthulhu role-playing game products. In these pages are glimpses of the most terrible beings ever to exist, whose very names are spoken of in whispers, if at all: Mighty Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth the Crawling Chaos Nyarlathotep and He Who Shall Not Be Named. Strange and alien races swarm here: the Fungi From Yuggoth, the star-headed Elder Things, the slithering Formless Spawn and awful chthonians. The Art of H.P. Lovecraft's The Cthulhu Mythos contains hundreds of full-color pieces of art, from fan favorites such as Patrick McEnvoy, Michael Komarck, Jean Tay, Thomas Denmark, John Gravato, Aaron Acevedo, James Ryman, Felicia Cano, Linda Bergkvist and dozens more. Once you see these blasphemous visions, you will never forget them. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

AWESOME!
Quite possibly the most awesome SCARY picture book in the world! I always find something new when I open the pages. Not for children!

Excellent work..but be advised
While I did enjoy the technical expertise displayed in most of the artwork, I have to admit that I found many of the images more disturbing than I would have liked. I will not pass judgement on the artists who serve as the vehicle of this particular variety of depiction, but I might offer a word of caution regarding the orign of one's creative inspirations. This is not to say that that this book is evil, not at all. My own experience has taught me to use my own intuition as to what is good for one's psyche to absorb. Again, the work was technically very good, but I did not feel right keeping the book in my personal collection.

Disappointing. 80% filler
When I think of Lovecraft, the first thing I think of is of course his nightmarish creatures. Unfortunately, while there are some great paintings of them in this book (including the amazing cover art!), I was very disappointed to find that most of this book was in fact uninteresting paintings of flappers and gangsters and such. -- In other words human secondary characters created for the Call of Cthulhu CCG.

I was expecting much more in the way of monsters and cults, etc., but the vast majority of the paintings have little to do with this.

Still, the ones that I did like were so good (my fave was the painting of Shub Niggurath) that the book still earns a passing 3-star rating from me.

If buying this book, be prepared to get only a very minimal creature fix, along with a large dose of the irrelevant.

A Precise Approach
This is a clear and succinct collection of well-organized and presented art. Make no mistake. The printing quality and obvious layout work that has been demonstrated by this book is almost flawless; and well worthy of the tribute it is.

However, even in the knowledge that much of this art comes from a TCG, and in the face of obvious streamlining as far as direction and theme are concerned; some fans of the mythos, such as I, could easily find themselves alienated in the almost 'cartoony' quality of the art itself.

I will, however, give this four stars; as it clearly pulls across a great degree of scope; covering many more aspects of the Cthulhu mythos than i thought possible or likely. The sheer variety is impressive in it's own right.

A committed and beautifully presented artifact - even if not as dark, disturbing and violent as it could have been.

Not what it SHOULD have been
Considering the increasing public awareness of HP Lovecraft and his infamous Mythos, I fully expected an 'art' book having a much wider variety of Cthulhu Mythos creatures represented as I had found in the Barlow's Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos (I think I may be a bit off on the title but I also think this book is out of print).
In any case, a suprising number of the prints offered are of normal humans, presumably characters in a Mythos role playing game (I'm basing this assumption on the credits given to each picture). The painting/drawings of the Mythos creatures range from the nicely done to the uninspired with the later being the most frequent. I really can't see myself recommending this book unless you happen across it in a 1/2 off bin. ... Read more