To George Willard Kirk, Gent., of Chelsea-Village, in New-York, upon His Birthday, Novr. 25, 1925 [November 24, 1925] Joshi, S. T. (2009). H.P. Lovecraft: A Comprehensive Bibliography. Tampa, FL: University of Tampa Press. ISBN 9781597320689. This is a complete list of works by H. P. Lovecraft. Dates for the fiction, collaborations and juvenilia are in the format: composition date / first publication date, taken from An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia by S. T. Joshi and D. E. Schultz, Hippocampus Press, New York, 2001. For other sections, dates are the time of composition, not publication. Many of these works can be found on Wikisource. Imprisoned with the Pharaohs is a bit of a fun one to cap off our list, as Lovecraft collaborated on it with Harry Houdini himself! It’s allegedly based on a true story, but Lovecraft (much like his frequently skeptical narrators) believed Houdini’s personal account to be fabricated, and so took a good deal of artistic license as he was writing it. Dagon: An early hint at the later mythos tales that would capture the public's interest. Obviously the name points to later work. It contains story elements that would later be seen expanded in the iconic The Call of Cthulhu.

The Tomb: Another jump to age 27; this is when Lovecraft started writing in earnest. It's a wonderfully creepy story, with only a questionable supernatural element, focused on the narrator's possible madness as he recounts his obsession with a certain abandoned family tomb from his asylum. Que no todo el Lovecraft es malo para nada. El tipo era un excelente escritor. Y punto. Aunque por lo que haya dicho antes no lo parezca. Su grandeza radica más en lo que escribió que en como lo hizo. Impresiona la enorme capacidad y el ingenio de este autor para idear los mundos que creó y conectar cada trama y cada historia de forma coherente, de ahí que se acabe por entender la similitud entre las mismas y los personajes. No daba puntada sin hilo. Me quito el sombrero ante él y ante su inconmensurable talento como hacedor de historias y mundos y narrador. Y ante la capacidad que tuvo de hacer lo que le dió la gana y como le dió la gana, sin ningún tipo de concesión antes de nada y ante ningún estilo. Son obras increíblemente originales incluso hoy en día, sorprende por lo bien que han envejecido y como dentro de ella se aúnan otros géneros literarios como la novela de detectives. Leer las ha tenido algo de cercano para mí por la gran cantidad de obras, cuentos, películas y libros en los que ha influido, y si algo he disfrutado de esta lectura ha sido darme cuenta de que ese o ese otro detalle ya lo había visto en tal o cual obra. This is Lovecraft's last major work, and I can see how several of his ideas, Essential Solitude: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth: 1926–1931 ( ISBN 9780979380648) Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. 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.Dagon was one of his earliest writings, and it's a good introduction to the philosophy behind the Cthulhu mythos. Since I've become so familiar with his work, I have a deeper understanding and appreciation of it. Dagon is more important as a supplement than as a stand-alone. I wouldn't have enjoyed the other Cthulhu stories as much without it. It gives you a taste of what's to come, like deep time and space, the dream world, fish gods, and unimaginable horror. Este volumen contiene algunos de los mejores relatos de Lovecraft. Como el título indica, todos mencionan o incluyen en alguna forma el Necronomicón, un libro ficticio de magia negra y conocimientos prohibidos. Naturalmente, Lovecraft no inventó el concepto de los libros malditos. Ha existido desde hace siglos. Hay varios ejemplos de la vida real: entre ellos, el Codex Gigas, también conocido como Códice Gigas o la "biblia del diablo". Se trata de un manuscrito medieval que pesa 75 kilos y que contiene un dibujo enorme de Satanás, y según la leyenda, fue escrito por el Diablo en persona a cambio del alma de un monje.

I sound like I'm being pretty hard on Necronomicon, but I was totally pleased with it. I like having a single-volume hardcover edition of most of Lovecraft's stories with the single most appropriate title possible. Not all stories are included--notable omissions include "Nyarlathotep" and "Beyond the Wall of Sleep"--but it includes most important works, such as "The Call of Cthulhu", "At the Mountains of Madness", "The Whisperer in Darkness", "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath", and so on. That's really all I ask of a Necronomicon.

The five star rating for this book is not because I think every story (or even most of them) were 5 stars, or because Lovecraft was a great writer (though I do think he was a better writer than he's often given credit for). It's because these stories are essential reading. Like him or hate him, Lovecraft casts a long, dark shadow over all of American fantasy and horror, and in fact, the stories are mostly pretty good, in a very dated way. Yes, Lovecraft wrote purple. Yes, his characterization is usually pretty thin. And yes, he was a horrible racist and it shows in his writing. But no one who touched this genre after him has been untouched by it, and if you have ever been awed or frightened or scared by a tale of eldritch horrors, unfathomable beings from beyond time and space, bubbling squamous obscenities so horrible that the very sight of them will erode your sanity, or vast, alien, cosmic gods inimical to humans and regarding us the way we regard germs... well, that's all Lovecraftian influence. To Mr. Kleiner, on Receiving from Him the Poetical Works of Addison, Gay, and Somerville [April 10, 1918] Adolphe de Castro (revised from “The Automatic Executioner” by Castro, first published 1891 November 14) napomenuti takođe da je u ovu knjigu utkana svaka moguća pažnja, od samog početka odnosno korica knjige, do realističnih i mračnih ilustracija svake priče, preko veoma informativnih beležaka koje Vam upotpunjuju pročitanu priču i na osnovu kojih možete naći filmove i stripove zasnovane na istim. Eventually, he became obsessed with the spooky place, and the locals, who know about but don't speak of spooky things, shunned him.

The final novella is often regarded as Lovecraft's best and most devastating tale, and is one of the primary stories of the third category of his work, the Cthulhu Mythos. "At The Mountains Of Madness" follows a scientific expedition to Antarctica that meets disaster and uncovers evidence of a fully sentient, advanced, societal race of beings that inhabited earth before and during the genesis of the scientifically accepted chain of evolutionary life on Earth. It is this, more than any of the other Cthulhu tales, that references and amends the mythology of all of Lovecraft's previous work, Dream Cycle and necromancy cycle included, recasting everything not as supernatural but as part of a vast, multi-faceted, and purely natural universe in which the "gods" of humanity's religions are merely ancient and powerful creatures from far reaches of our universe, mischaracterized and largely indifferent to us. And again, this novella most of all was most like the sort of sci-fi thrillers we read today, with very competent writing depicting the harsh Antarctic wild and the piece-by-piece revelation of ancient knowledge and terror by human scientists who are only following their instincts and their desire to discover and understand. I found myself surprised by the ultimately sympathetic view the story gives to the Elder Things, the aliens that came before all known earth life, since nearly all other instances of alien encounters in Lovecraft's world casts them as amoral animals to be feared and avoided, at best. Other notable stories in the Cthulhu Mythos cycle are "The Dunwich Horror", "The Whisperer in Darkness", "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", "The Shadow Out Of Time", and, of course, "The Call of Cthulhu". Note that many of the earlier Cthulhu Mythos tales put a supernatural/deity spin on the alien beings encountered, prior to Lovecraft's "retcon" in this novella. Olmstead meets an old townie called Zadok Allen, who provides an, er, interesting explanation for the town’s peculiarities: that its human inhabitants have devoted themselves to a brutal race of fish-like humanoids known as the “Deep Ones,” who have forced humans to breed with them. Those walking the streets of Innsmouth are the resulting offspring — as they mature, they will grow to resemble the Deep Ones, eventually joining them in their underwater cities. The last element of HPL that should be looked at is his myth. Here is the one place where HPL shines. His creation of an ante-diluvian world of races not human on earth and others that came from off of earth is fascinating and worthy of study. Given the amount of fiction and 'fan-fiction' which his 'Cthulian' mythos has generated HPL remains a significant presence in the world of genre fiction--and, yes, there is a difference between genre and literature. For this reason, and this reason alone, HPL remains a writer worth revisiting.Como curiosidad señalar que una de las cosas que más he disfrutado a medida que iba leyendo estos libros ha sido ir buceando en la biografía de Lovecraft, y ver como todos sus traumas, manías e ideas políticas y sociales influyeron en su obra y se manifiestan en la misma. Conocer todos esos detalles ha enriquecido mucho para mí la lectura. Y por supuesto me han permitido ahondar en una figura muy compleja, solo así se explica que ideara y pusiera sobre el papel lo que escribió. Another classic Lovecraft novella, and probably his best-known work after Cthulhu, At the Mountains of Madness describes a failed (to put it lightly) Antarctic expedition as recounted by Professor William Dyer. Upon arriving at their base, Dyer and his colleagues are thrilled to unearth the remains of a previously undiscovered prehistoric species — some specimens of which are in perfect condition. However, their excitement soon turns to terror as they realize that these “specimens” may not be so lifeless after all. A friend of mine has the Barnes & Noble "The Complete Fiction" (ed. S.T. Joshi), which seemed solid enough ... but then I learned that the 1st edition (2008) is riddled with mistakes, as can be read here ( link). Apparently the second "leatherbound" edition (2011) has the mistakes all corrected, so I would in that case go for that one, as I see it still floating about on Abebooks.

In this novella, literature professor Albert A Wilmarth (you’ll notice that many of Lovecraft’s protagonists have such formal names and scholarly professions — likely in homage to the characters of M.R. James) becomes involved in a controversy surrounding strange, seemingly extraterrestrial sightings. A man of logic, Wilmarth naturally sides with skeptics, who claim the “sightings” stem from local legends with no factual basis. But after receiving a letter from one Henry Wentworth Akeley, a fellow academic, Wilmarth opens his mind to the possibilities of extraterrestrial life — only to find that he never should have gotten involved. The Other Gods: Short and meh, but builds a “‘Craftverse” by referencing The Cats of Ulthar. We like continuity. The complete works embodies Lovecraft's progression as a writer and fills his mythos well. The only complaint I could find is some earlier works do not stand the test of time or hold well. However having to find other compilations would no longer be needed. For those into noir horror, epic monsters, and the diminished mind seeing the unspeakable terrors and having to rationalize the fear, this is a great book. With some being into lovecraftian lore from gaming, other authors, or even the creepypasta craze, and not reading the original works: buy it now. No other book covers as much. Every other book will have most of the popular selections, not all. At the price you cannot go wrong.

Customer reviews

Neke sam ocenila sa slabijom ocenom, odnosno Danički užas i Ispod Piramida, naime Piramide jeste da je dobra priča, lepo zamišljena ali jednostavno ima puno istorijskih informacija da mi je došlo da preskočim čitavu priču ali ipak je završih do kraja. Dok Danički užas je na sva zvona nahvaljen, jeste dobra složena priča sa dobrim likovima ali jednostavno meni u trenutku nije prijala, stoga planiram da je u budućnosti ponovo pročitam i možda joj povećam ocenu.