Tales
H. P. Lovecraft
838 pages
published in 2005

This deceptively slim volume, much slimmer than the similarly titled 1997 Jocye Carol Oates edited collection of Lovecraft stories, turned out to be printed on the kind of paper they use to print those teeny tiny complete bibles with. So what I thought would be a weeks worth of reading actually needed two long train journeys to finish, by the time I was somewhat bored by Lovecraft's eldritch obsessions. After a while all the lurking horrors and dwellers in the darkness start to blur into each other and the descriptions turn from atmospheric into mildly ridiculous. Lovecraft is not a writer you should over indulge in; it's better to read him sparingly story by story.

As a collection this is an impressive book, part of the prestigious Library of America series set up to safeguard America's literary heritage. That H. P. Lovecraft, as first science fiction, horror or fantasy writer is allowed in these hallowed pages as a genre writer, not ust an established literary figure dabbling in these genres, is a good sign of how far these genres have penetrated literary consciousness. You may quibble about Lovecraft as a first choice, but he has slowly evolved from a cult writer into one appreciated as much for his literary qualities as his ability to scare his readers so he's certainly not an undefensible choice.

As I've said before, what I like about Lovecraft is how he took all the developments in science that the Golden Age science fiction writers were so enthusiastic about slightly later and turned them into horror. Instead of seeing a vast canvas for adventure, he saw humanity driven mad when it understood its proper place in the universe. In that context Lovecraft is a much more representative of his period than his more optimistic colleagues in the sf pulps. He takes all the horror and despair of the Great War and turns it into something sublime, yet still horrific. For this reason alone Lovecraft deserves inclusion in the Library of America.

Another reason is his incredible sense of place. He's as much if not more so a New England writer as somebody like Nathaniel Hawthorne is. He manages not just to put the look of all these crumbling seatowns, small villages and dark forest on paper, but much more importantly, their atmosphere.

This Library of America volume is very well prepared. The stories are arranged in chronological order and taken as much as possible from Lovecraft's original manuscripts, rather than from the publised version. The editor is S. T. Joshi, well known as a Lovecraft critic and biographer, with Peter Straub as the selector of the stories. I won't bother to review the individual stories, as I've largely done this in the review of the Joyce Carol Oates collection already.

• The Statement of Randolph Carter [Randolph Carter] · ss The Vagrant May ’20; Weird Tales Feb ’25
• The Outsider · ss Weird Tales Apr ’26
• The Music of Erich Zann · ss The National Amateur Mar ’22; Weird Tales Nov ’34
• Herbert West--Reanimator ["Grewsome Tales"] · gp Home Brew Feb-Jul ’22; From the Dark, ss Weird Tales Mar ’42; The Plague Demon, ss Weird Tales Jul ’42; Six Shots by Moonlight, ss Weird Tales Sep ’42; The Scream of the Dead, ss Weird Tales Nov ’42; The Horror from the Shadows, ss Weird Tales Sep ’43; The Tomb-Legions, ss Weird Tales Nov ’43
• The Lurking Fear · nv Home Brew Jan ’23 (+3); Weird Tales Jun ’28
• The Rats in the Walls · ss Weird Tales Mar ’24
• The Shunned House · nv Weird Tales Oct ’37
• The Horror at Red Hook · nv Weird Tales Jan ’27
• He · ss Weird Tales Sep ’26
• Cool Air · ss Tales of Magic and Mystery Mar ’28; Weird Tales Jul ’27
• The Call of Cthulhu [Inspector Legrasse] · nv Weird Tales Feb ’28
• Pickman’s Model · ss Weird Tales Oct ’27
• The Case of Charles Dexter Ward · na Weird Tales May ’41
• The Colour Out of Space · nv Amazing Sep ’27
• The Dunwich Horror · nv Weird Tales Apr ’29
• The Whisperer in Darkness · na Weird Tales Aug ’31
• At the Mountains of Madness · n. Astounding Feb ’36
• The Shadow Over Innsmouth · na Visionary Press: Everett, PA, 1936; Weird Tales Jan ’42
• The Dreams in the Witch-House · nv Weird Tales Jul ’33
• The Thing on the Doorstep · nv Weird Tales Jan ’37
• The Shadow Out of Time · na Astounding Jun ’36
• The Haunter of the Dark · nv Weird Tales Dec ’36

Read more about:
H. P. Lovecraft, Peter Straub, science fiction, horror, book review