Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Chartwell Books (2016), Edition: F First Edition, 1112 pages
Description
Collects the author's novel, four novellas, and fifty-three short stories. Written between the years 1917 and 1935, this collection features Lovecraft's trademark fantastical creatures and supernatural thrills, as well as many horrific and cautionary science-fiction themes. Includes such horror classics as The call of Cthulhu, At the mountains of madness, The Dunwich horror, The colour out of space, along with other works.
User reviews
LibraryThing member hermit_9
It is nice that Barnes & Noble went to such great lengths to reproduce the typos that characterized Lovecraft’s early publications in the non-professional press. Or maybe they just introduced new ones. Either way, Lovecraft’s work has always been better than his publisher’s
LibraryThing member Spoonbridge
Over the past decade or so, perhaps with the advent of the Internet, the works of H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) have become more and more a major fixture of "geek" culture, which has itself fused into the mainstream. "Cthulhu," a malevolent, octopoid alien "god" has been popping up as a meme, in
The "Cthulhu Mythos" is, I guess, my area own area of geeky fandom, the one unabashed "nerd love" I allow myself in spite of its problems and flaws. In any case, I must admit I still have a soft spot for Lovecraft's creepy, surreal, intellectual short stories and novellas, collected in "The Complete Fiction." There were stories I had never read before as well as some favorites I had not visited for a few years. As the "Mythos" meme grows, I had been meaning to revisit these tales, so having everything nicely gathered together was a great way to read through Lovecraft's entire body of work.
Barnes and Noble's handsome, almost art-deco inspired faux-leather tome collects all of H.P. Lovecraft's fiction in one hefty volume, including a selections of surviving stories from his childhood, some drafts, and his long essay on supernatural horror literature. It does exclude the work that he ghostwrote or revised (or completely rewrote) for other writers, however, with a few exceptions. Arranged chronologically by the month and year it was written, 1905-1935, the most interesting part of the collection, for me, was to see how Lovecraft's writing styles changed and evolved throughout his life from mere Poe pastiches to influence from Dunsany, to his own fully conceived style of weird fiction. The introductory notes on each story by eminent Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi are also very informative.
As for the style, I have read of some who opine that Lovecraft was "actually a horrible writer with great imagination," as if he were a mere hack, which I feel is a bit dogmatic. For me, Lovecraft's writing creates impeccable atmosphere and, if unconventional, really draws the reader into the detached yet fraught emotional state of his typical academic narrator thrust into horrific circumstances. Most effective through the first person voice, often through journal entries or letters explaining how a character happened to go mad, this detached, academic style gives the terrible events of the stories a hint of realism, of a found document or historic account. On the other hand, some criticism is understandable; Lovecraft's style is full of pages of exposition, overwrought descriptions, and he simply did not do dialogue. However, for me the style is well suited for the subject matter of totally unknown alien elements intruding on a once comfortably understood world.
It is Lovecraft's philosophy of telling his weird tales that I most appreciate, however. Written from a materialist perspective in which the "supernatural" are simply forces in the universe that humanity does not and can not understand; no comfortably understandable depraved vampires, angry ghosts, or seductive demons here, the cosmos is infinite, cold, ancient, and totally unconnected to human emotions and ideas; this I find far more chilling than, say, serial killers. As someone who craves knowledge, I am sure that I too would succumb to learning too much about our minute and tenuous place in the universe.
In stories such as "The Colour Out of Space," "The Whisperer in Darkness," and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," Lovecraft's mastery of evoking dread and fear of the unknown as strange and alien influences converge horribly in small New England towns, bringing madness to unlucky folklorists, students, and artists. In the more dreamlike, fantastic tales like "The Doom that Came to Sarnath," "The Cats of Ulthar," and "The Strange High House in the Mist," illustrate Lovecraft at his most surreal and beautiful. Not every story is at these high levels, however; the "cat in the room" for some of these stories was Lovecraft's virulent racism and xenophobia which in a few tales virtually drip off of the page making them unpleasant to get through, to say the least. A few of these dragged on, along with some of the more turgid dream pieces but other stories are masterpieces of atmosphere and setting.
While "The Complete Fiction" may not be the best place for someone new to HPL's style to start, it is a great resource for a devotee to refer to Lovecraft's body of work.
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various stages of ridiculousness, all over the place. Oftentimes, even referencing the name Cthulhu is a joke in and of itself. From obscurity to a major influence on horror and science fiction, the 1910s-1930s fictional creations of Lovecraft are reaching a cultural awareness never seen before. The "Cthulhu Mythos," the loosely linked "shared world" that the followers of Lovecraft, such as Derleth and others, propped up after his death has now appeared in movies, TV shows, and (of course) video and board games. While the fiction of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, citizen of Providence, R.I., copious letter writer to kindred spirits across the country, racist, atheist, and literary commentator has started to be critically respected, I sometimes get the feeling that his ubiquity in Internet culture has drowned his ideas under a sea of pop culture pablum like the waters of the Pacific over the sunken city of R'Lyeh. Okay, maybe that's a bit much. After all, Lovecraft himself enjoyed a good literary in-joke and I can't help but speculate how he, with his love of correspondence, would respond to the Internet. The "Cthulhu Mythos" is, I guess, my area own area of geeky fandom, the one unabashed "nerd love" I allow myself in spite of its problems and flaws. In any case, I must admit I still have a soft spot for Lovecraft's creepy, surreal, intellectual short stories and novellas, collected in "The Complete Fiction." There were stories I had never read before as well as some favorites I had not visited for a few years. As the "Mythos" meme grows, I had been meaning to revisit these tales, so having everything nicely gathered together was a great way to read through Lovecraft's entire body of work.
Barnes and Noble's handsome, almost art-deco inspired faux-leather tome collects all of H.P. Lovecraft's fiction in one hefty volume, including a selections of surviving stories from his childhood, some drafts, and his long essay on supernatural horror literature. It does exclude the work that he ghostwrote or revised (or completely rewrote) for other writers, however, with a few exceptions. Arranged chronologically by the month and year it was written, 1905-1935, the most interesting part of the collection, for me, was to see how Lovecraft's writing styles changed and evolved throughout his life from mere Poe pastiches to influence from Dunsany, to his own fully conceived style of weird fiction. The introductory notes on each story by eminent Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi are also very informative.
As for the style, I have read of some who opine that Lovecraft was "actually a horrible writer with great imagination," as if he were a mere hack, which I feel is a bit dogmatic. For me, Lovecraft's writing creates impeccable atmosphere and, if unconventional, really draws the reader into the detached yet fraught emotional state of his typical academic narrator thrust into horrific circumstances. Most effective through the first person voice, often through journal entries or letters explaining how a character happened to go mad, this detached, academic style gives the terrible events of the stories a hint of realism, of a found document or historic account. On the other hand, some criticism is understandable; Lovecraft's style is full of pages of exposition, overwrought descriptions, and he simply did not do dialogue. However, for me the style is well suited for the subject matter of totally unknown alien elements intruding on a once comfortably understood world.
It is Lovecraft's philosophy of telling his weird tales that I most appreciate, however. Written from a materialist perspective in which the "supernatural" are simply forces in the universe that humanity does not and can not understand; no comfortably understandable depraved vampires, angry ghosts, or seductive demons here, the cosmos is infinite, cold, ancient, and totally unconnected to human emotions and ideas; this I find far more chilling than, say, serial killers. As someone who craves knowledge, I am sure that I too would succumb to learning too much about our minute and tenuous place in the universe.
In stories such as "The Colour Out of Space," "The Whisperer in Darkness," and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," Lovecraft's mastery of evoking dread and fear of the unknown as strange and alien influences converge horribly in small New England towns, bringing madness to unlucky folklorists, students, and artists. In the more dreamlike, fantastic tales like "The Doom that Came to Sarnath," "The Cats of Ulthar," and "The Strange High House in the Mist," illustrate Lovecraft at his most surreal and beautiful. Not every story is at these high levels, however; the "cat in the room" for some of these stories was Lovecraft's virulent racism and xenophobia which in a few tales virtually drip off of the page making them unpleasant to get through, to say the least. A few of these dragged on, along with some of the more turgid dream pieces but other stories are masterpieces of atmosphere and setting.
While "The Complete Fiction" may not be the best place for someone new to HPL's style to start, it is a great resource for a devotee to refer to Lovecraft's body of work.
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LibraryThing member WeeTurtle
I'm not sure what to say except that it's Lovecraft and if you're looking at the collection, chances are you already have some idea of what his work is like. If not, Eldritch, horrors, and all things beyond the ken of the human mind.
This collection covers all the fiction that I've ever encountered,
The rating I gave it is more for content. I've yet to find someone to surpass Lovecraft in the realm of "weird" fiction. "Lovecraftian" is a term for a reason. I started reading his works to understand just what that term really referred to, and I'm only sad that we won't be seeing any more of it.
This collection covers all the fiction that I've ever encountered,
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both short things and longer, multi-part works, but no poetics. The book is a little more square than the picture shows, and it quite light for a hardcover. The quality seems reasonable, though not as elaborate as some, but if you intend to read from the book it's a manageable book for lap reading, and the text isn't cramped. It's not a book I'd break the bank for, but it's good pick for those that want a collection.The rating I gave it is more for content. I've yet to find someone to surpass Lovecraft in the realm of "weird" fiction. "Lovecraftian" is a term for a reason. I started reading his works to understand just what that term really referred to, and I'm only sad that we won't be seeing any more of it.
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LibraryThing member misanthropicnonsense
love every story, Lovecraft is the king of science fiction
LibraryThing member StephenBarkley
Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an odd soul. He was born in 1890 and lived 47 years only to die in sickness and poverty, questioning the merits of his work. In hindsight, Lovecraft is considered one of the masters of the horror genre. During his lifetime, however, he struggled to sell his stories and
The first thing you notice when reading Lovecraft is the descriptive quality of his writing. Although it can feel plodding at times, it forces the reader to slow down and enter the terror of the situation. Any page will yield an example of this. Here's the beginning of The Outsider:
"Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness. Wretched is he who looks back upon lone hours in vast and dismal chambers with brown hangings and maddening rows of antique books, or upon awed watches in twilight groves of grotesque, gigantic, and vine-encumbered trees that silently wave twisted branches far aloft" (164).
If you are willing to exit the furious pace of modern storytelling to enter Lovecraft's high-resolution stories, the details will linger in your mind.
Lovecraft's stories share a common theme: terror at the inconceivably other. He continually relates the mind-shattering terror one feels when one encounters cosmic beings that dwarf the categories of our human minds. For Lovecraft, humans are insignificant in the grand scale of the cosmos.
I can't help but process Lovecraft's themes in light of my Christian worldview. He was right—the cosmos is grander than we can possibly understand. A Judeo-Christian reflection on this leads to poetry:
"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him" (Psalm 8:3-4 ESV)?
Where Lovecraft differs from Christianity is not the scale of cosmic otherness: it's that for Christians, the Other is invested personally in humanity.
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novellas to Weird Tales.The first thing you notice when reading Lovecraft is the descriptive quality of his writing. Although it can feel plodding at times, it forces the reader to slow down and enter the terror of the situation. Any page will yield an example of this. Here's the beginning of The Outsider:
"Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness. Wretched is he who looks back upon lone hours in vast and dismal chambers with brown hangings and maddening rows of antique books, or upon awed watches in twilight groves of grotesque, gigantic, and vine-encumbered trees that silently wave twisted branches far aloft" (164).
If you are willing to exit the furious pace of modern storytelling to enter Lovecraft's high-resolution stories, the details will linger in your mind.
Lovecraft's stories share a common theme: terror at the inconceivably other. He continually relates the mind-shattering terror one feels when one encounters cosmic beings that dwarf the categories of our human minds. For Lovecraft, humans are insignificant in the grand scale of the cosmos.
I can't help but process Lovecraft's themes in light of my Christian worldview. He was right—the cosmos is grander than we can possibly understand. A Judeo-Christian reflection on this leads to poetry:
"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him" (Psalm 8:3-4 ESV)?
Where Lovecraft differs from Christianity is not the scale of cosmic otherness: it's that for Christians, the Other is invested personally in humanity.
Show Less
LibraryThing member DanielSTJ
This was a solid set of tales by the master of horror. There is much to like, though I preferred his short pieces- whose language bordered on the purely literary and astounded me with its power. Nevertheless, the longer stories are still highly readable and interesting and the entire collection is
4 stars- well earned!
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well worth it. It's on Amazon for 0.99c, which is a steal considering how much you can get out of it. I recommend it for all lovers of American literature, horror, and classics of the time.4 stars- well earned!
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LibraryThing member Indrit
This author/book was my introduction to the American Gothic. Halfway through reading this volume and so far my favourite is The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, a fantastical story of a "cold place" out of this world where no one has ever dared to go before. And The Call of Cthulhu? It has spawned a
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completed mythos of its own. Show Less
LibraryThing member TobinElliott
I really vacillated on the score of this one. The earlier stories are rough, and it's obvious how much better a writer Lovecraft was toward the end. On the other hand, he didn't vary too much from the
1 - Meet a tortured soul
2 - Get vague hints as to why he's tortured (and it's always a "he")
3 - A
4 - Find out either he, or a peer has been dabbling in the dark arts
5 - Get a mention of their impressive occult library, including the Necronomicon
6 - Find out which particular indescribable horror is responsible for the torture
Yes, I understand some of the stories do, at times, leave this well-trodden path, but not a lot of them. On the other hand, there are times when it just all comes together and clicks, such as in The Shadow Over Innsmouth, or The Dunwich Horror, or The Haunter of the Dark, or my personal favourite, The Colour Out of Space>.
I think what I admired most about reading all these stories over the past year--and make no mistake, there's no way I could have read them back to back to back--was the ultimate universe the man created. It's more the idea of the Lovecraftian Cthulhu Mythos than the actual execution of it. He's not the best of writers, focusing more fascination on the buildings and architecture than the characterization. However, the naming of his various Old Ones and the other beasts of his stories is wonderful and the language of the Old Ones is amazing.
And his influence goes without question. Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch, Stephen King...and so many more have borrowed and built upon his creations.
So, overall, while I can't say I was knocked out by the stories most of the time, I definitely walk away from his collection of stories humbled and impressed by what he was able to accomplish.
1 - Meet a tortured soul
2 - Get vague hints as to why he's tortured (and it's always a "he")
3 - A
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lot of description of architecture4 - Find out either he, or a peer has been dabbling in the dark arts
5 - Get a mention of their impressive occult library, including the Necronomicon
6 - Find out which particular indescribable horror is responsible for the torture
Yes, I understand some of the stories do, at times, leave this well-trodden path, but not a lot of them. On the other hand, there are times when it just all comes together and clicks, such as in The Shadow Over Innsmouth, or The Dunwich Horror, or The Haunter of the Dark, or my personal favourite, The Colour Out of Space>.
I think what I admired most about reading all these stories over the past year--and make no mistake, there's no way I could have read them back to back to back--was the ultimate universe the man created. It's more the idea of the Lovecraftian Cthulhu Mythos than the actual execution of it. He's not the best of writers, focusing more fascination on the buildings and architecture than the characterization. However, the naming of his various Old Ones and the other beasts of his stories is wonderful and the language of the Old Ones is amazing.
And his influence goes without question. Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch, Stephen King...and so many more have borrowed and built upon his creations.
So, overall, while I can't say I was knocked out by the stories most of the time, I definitely walk away from his collection of stories humbled and impressed by what he was able to accomplish.
Show Less
LibraryThing member JHemlock
What can we say about HP Lovecraft. Racist?....No. Misanthropic would be better term. It is far too easy to say he was a product of his generation. That would be an easy way out. We have to use our brains and understand just how he viewed the world. For as educated as he may have been; he was
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stunted socially. The language and attitude he used in his work came mostly from the fact that he really and truly never left his back yard. But I do believe as he approached the latter years of his life he began to see the world through a broader lens. Either way. His work, storytelling and the central idea of mankind being a small blip on the rear of the cosmic detail works. We are humans, we are small. Brilliant, flawed and special...but not impervious to the grand scheme that all must fall victim to. Is this really a review of a book...well yes it is. It is his world. This volume is very well put together. Nice thick and full of cosmic grief. Show Less
LibraryThing member aadyer
A superb collection of HP Lovecraft fiction. Brilliantly narrated with great gusto by the HPLS. This works well on many levels and is both gripping, intriguing, and exciting. If you’ve not heard HPLovecraft read before then you are in for a treat, and even if you have the version that is
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performed, here is extremely good. For any mythos, Lovecraft, or horror fans, this is a must. Show Less
LibraryThing member lukeasrodgers
I read this pretty much straight through. By the time you are several hundred pages in, you start rolling your eyes a bit at yet another reference to "cyclopean" architecture.
Awards
Locus Award (Nominee — Collection — 2009)
Locus Recommended Reading (Collection — 2008)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1916-1959 (original publication)
Physical description
1112 p.; 7 inches
ISBN
0785834206 / 9780785834205