Status
Available
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Collection
Publication
Penguin Classics (2004), Paperback, 480 pages
Description
"Plagued by insane nightmare visions, Walter Gilman seeks help in Miskatonic University's infamous library of forbidden books, where, in the pages of Abdul Alhazred's dreaded Necronomicon, he finds terrible hints that seem to connect his own studies in advanced mathematics with the fantastic legends of elder magic. "The Dreams in the Witch House," gathered together here with more than twenty tales of terror, exemplifies H. P. Lovecroft's primacy among twentieth-century American horror writers."--BOOK JACKET.
User reviews
LibraryThing member wilum
I just want to respond to what some of the others here have written about ye book. I, too, find the character of Gilman rather dull. Lovecraft's need in writing weird fiction was to create mood and paint the weirdness that haunted his mind; the creation of characters was of little importance. He
I fear that whpugmire is COMPLETELY wrong on a number of points--he really shou'd know better. "The Lurking Fear" was NOT "the first story that Lovecraft wrote for a semi-professional journal," that honour being bestow'd on "Herbert West--Reanimator." Pugmire is also wrong in stating that the story is set in Lovecraft's Providence--it is set in the Catskill mountains. How such a devoted Lovecraftian can make such egregious errors, especially concerning a story that he professes to adore (he has written his own version of the story for a magazine called FUNGI) is beyond comprehension.
lorirorke's protest of a "too-frequent appearance of aliens or 'elder' beings" certainly does not pertain to this final collection of Lovecraft's tales from Penguin Modern Classics. The only tale in this book that has such elder things in the extremely excellent "The Shadow out of Time."
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was, for me, able to create some wonderful characters, people and semi-humans who seem almost like icons of horror today. I fear that whpugmire is COMPLETELY wrong on a number of points--he really shou'd know better. "The Lurking Fear" was NOT "the first story that Lovecraft wrote for a semi-professional journal," that honour being bestow'd on "Herbert West--Reanimator." Pugmire is also wrong in stating that the story is set in Lovecraft's Providence--it is set in the Catskill mountains. How such a devoted Lovecraftian can make such egregious errors, especially concerning a story that he professes to adore (he has written his own version of the story for a magazine called FUNGI) is beyond comprehension.
lorirorke's protest of a "too-frequent appearance of aliens or 'elder' beings" certainly does not pertain to this final collection of Lovecraft's tales from Penguin Modern Classics. The only tale in this book that has such elder things in the extremely excellent "The Shadow out of Time."
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LibraryThing member TobinElliott
This, I think, will be a constant refrain as I slowly work my way through these Lovecraft volumes: I love Lovecraft's imagination, but my god, the man's writing really needed some work.
The idea of a late-17th century witch using higher mathematics to break through time and space is just a stunning
All of them are very, very cool.
But when the reader is then forced to uncover these nuggets in Lovecraft's dense prose, the experience is lessened. In this story's almost 50 pages, there's not a single line of dialogue. Not one. Anything that was said was instead told to the reader through narrative. There's so much passive verb use that the whole thing tends to bog down.
And then there's the standard insistence by the protagonist that what he's--and it's always a he--experiencing is so far out of the norm, and usually occurring at night, that it's all a dream. Howard, using it once it a while is fine, but for you, it's a trope.
So, as usual, five stars for concept, and one star for written execution.
I keep thinking how amazing it would be for some author to come along and rewrite each of these stories, hewing to the ideas and storyline, but actually applying some writing sensibility to them.
The idea of a late-17th century witch using higher mathematics to break through time and space is just a stunning
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concept. There's the suitably confused main protagonist, Gilman, the titular witch, the rat-man Brown Jenkins, and the ominous Black Man.All of them are very, very cool.
But when the reader is then forced to uncover these nuggets in Lovecraft's dense prose, the experience is lessened. In this story's almost 50 pages, there's not a single line of dialogue. Not one. Anything that was said was instead told to the reader through narrative. There's so much passive verb use that the whole thing tends to bog down.
And then there's the standard insistence by the protagonist that what he's--and it's always a he--experiencing is so far out of the norm, and usually occurring at night, that it's all a dream. Howard, using it once it a while is fine, but for you, it's a trope.
So, as usual, five stars for concept, and one star for written execution.
I keep thinking how amazing it would be for some author to come along and rewrite each of these stories, hewing to the ideas and storyline, but actually applying some writing sensibility to them.
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LibraryThing member HellCold
H.P. Lovecraft at his best. The story's short, fact-paced, and terrifying to the core. I guess it's that sort of stories that set Lovecraft's name as a trademark of a whole class of horror stories. I won't discuss the story itself, all I'll say is that it's a great success. Try it. You'll thank me.
LibraryThing member whpugmire
This is the last of the three volumes of Lovecraft's tales that S. T. Joshi has edited for Penguin Classics. At 453 pages (including Introduction and Notes), this is an ample sampling of this excellent writer's Work. The tales are published in chronological order, according to the dates on which
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they were composed. As with the other Penguin editions of Lovecraft, this collections shews us the multitude of Lovecraft's genius, the near-perfection of much of his prose, the profound depths of his brilliant and original imagination. Interestingly, the first three tales exhibit aspects of Lovecraft's grotesque and ignorant racism, revealing how he fused his fear of "the other" in his tales of horror. In "Polaris" the narrator fears a race called the "Inutos": "...squat, hellish, yellow fiends..." In "The Doom That Came to Sarnath," the feared race are the monstrous "...horde of indescribable green green voiceless things with bulging eyes, flabby lips, and curious ears..." And in "The Terrible Old Man" the three thieves, Angelo Ricca, Joe Czanek, and Manuel Silva, represent the three major ethnic groups in New England against whom Lovecraft so often railed (Italian, Polish, and Portuguese). In "The Lurking Fear" (the first story that Lovecraft wrote for a semi=professional journal), we have a tale of pure Gothic horror in which the language becomes overheated indeed, revealing the mental state of the narrator. It was one of the first stories to be set in Lovecraft's hometown of Providence, and it was the first of his stories to be rejected by WEIRD TALES. (As Lovecraft aged, more and more of his finest tales were rejected by the magazine, which contributed to Lovecraft's unhappy final years, when he wrote very little and felt himself a failure as an artist.) This Penguin paperback is the first Lovecraft collection to publish the correct text for "The Shadow out of Time," the manuscript for which was discovered by accident in 1995. One of Lovecraft's supreme masterpieces, this story shews his originality in combining the horror tale with then then-new genre of science fiction. It is a remarkable story, and one sighs in sorrow that Lovecraft, who was at the apex of his creative abilities when he died, did not life to write further awesome classics. Show Less
LibraryThing member xuebi
This is the third volume in S. T. Joshi's excellently edited series by Penguin of the collected fictions of the master of weird-fiction, H. P. Lovecraft. As Joshi notes in the introduction, this volume collects much of Lovecraft's "Dunsanian" pieces, ones inspired by Lord Dunsaney's fantasy
These stories, while a departure from Lovecraft's cosmic horror stories, are still enjoyable though coloured by the influence of Lord Dunsaney. Still there are genuine parts of excellent writing, particularly in The Dream Quest and The Cats of Ulthar is a stand-out piece as well.
Of the other stories, the stand-out pieces include The Horror At Red Hook (a horror-infused detective story) and the masterpiece that is The Shadow Out of Time; rightly considered one of Lovecraft's best. This is a fitting conclusion to this volume and to the series by a writer whose own shadow still falls long over fiction today.
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fictions as opposed to the cosmic horrors of the Arkham Cycle. These stories form the Dream Cycle and in this volume include The Other Gods, Polaris, The Doom that Came to Sarnath, The Cats of Ulthar, The Silver Key, Through The Gate of the Silver Key, Hypnos, The Strange High House in the Mist, and the crowning work in the Cycle, The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath. These stories, while a departure from Lovecraft's cosmic horror stories, are still enjoyable though coloured by the influence of Lord Dunsaney. Still there are genuine parts of excellent writing, particularly in The Dream Quest and The Cats of Ulthar is a stand-out piece as well.
Of the other stories, the stand-out pieces include The Horror At Red Hook (a horror-infused detective story) and the masterpiece that is The Shadow Out of Time; rightly considered one of Lovecraft's best. This is a fitting conclusion to this volume and to the series by a writer whose own shadow still falls long over fiction today.
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Language
Original publication date
2004-11
Physical description
480 p.; 7.79 inches
ISBN
0142437956 / 9780142437957