Living Deadpan

Hope you don't mind if, again, I'm the "anyone" responding. Personally, I'm quite dubious of most so-called "Mythos" entries, many of which are substandard and/or unwittingly following a Derlethian concept rather than Lovecraftian. It's well explained in S.T. Joshi's THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS. http://books.google.com/books?id=JBx...ed=0CCgQ6AEwAA

I would suggest starting out with a collection of short stories; some that I find interesting are the "Cycle" collection published by Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu Fiction, several you can see here: http://catalog.chaosium.com/advanced...+cycle&x=0&y=0. The way these work are... let's say you choose The Innsmouth Cycle. The collection would include a few older stories that inspired Lovecraft in writing "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," a couple of Lovecraft's Innsmouth-related tales, and then some tales from more recent Mythos writers specifically dealing with the Innsmouth Mythos. These Chaosium collections are a good way to seek out Mythos writings if you find yourself drawn toward any specific mythos. They should be publishing a "Yith Cycle" collection in the near future which I look forward to because "The Shadow Out of Time" is one of my absolute favorites.

Supermallet

I've been reading Lovecraft since high school. I just recently discovered that the versions I had (the three volume collection by Del Rey) are sourced from old proofs containing a lot of errors, so I did some google searching and discovered that the only versions worth getting are the Arkham House editions (which unfortunately in later editions have been cursed with some of the worst covers I've ever seen), or the Penguin editions, which at their time of printing contained further corrections by Joshi that even the Arkham House versions didn't feature (I would imagine that by this point the Arkham House publications also feature the further corrections). The initial printings of the Penguin editions introduced all new errors, but eagle-eyed fans sent them a list of corrections and those have been implemented in all the pressings after the first.

The B&N collection is considered to be practically worthless, containing a whole new set of errors that make the old versions look tame.

Due to this discovery, I picked up all three Penguin editions, as well as the Del Rey reprintings of The Horror In The Museum and Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (which are word for word identical to the Arkham House versions), as well as S.T. Joshi's Lovecraft biography and The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos. And since its influence has seeped deep into the Cthulhu Mythos, I also picked up The King In Yellow by Robert W. Chambers.

I just read The King In Yellow (or, rather, the five stories from that book that contain supernatural elements and thus were an influence to Lovecraft), and found them mainly odd and archaic. "The Yellow Sign" is the only one that actually feels like a horror story (and one can easily find Lovecraft stories that imitated the atmosphere and sense of dread the story cultivates), and could easily stand up to many of the best horror stories of the 20th century. The rest feel more like romances with the odd supernatural element (usually precipitated by the appearance of the eponymous play). Some of them even have happy endings, and most end abruptly, but only "The Yellow Sign" makes this part of the story structure as opposed to a shortcoming.

Edit: Upon further reconsideration, I'd say "The Repairer of Reputations" is also an interesting story, although not as concise or atmospheric as "The Yellow Sign."

Lovecraft was so enamored with the ideas in these short stories that he made reference to the play when listing forbidden tomes (such as his own Necronomicon), and re-used the character name of Hastur (a character from the fictional play) for one of his own creations. Because of these inclusions, the entire mythology of the King In Yellow was incorporated into the Cthulhu Mythos when August Derleth took it over following Lovecraft's death. It's become such a big part of it that there's an entire expansion pack to the Arkham Horror board game just for The King In Yellow.

You can read "The Yellow Sign" here: http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-st...YellSign.shtml

Other than that and The Repairer of Reputations, I can't really recommend reading the rest of the stories.

I'm delving back into Lovecraft now. I've read these so many times, but when I inevitably go back to them I find them as mesmerizing as ever. No, they're not all great, but even a lot of the minor early ones have an interesting feel to them.

Is anyone reading after all that?

Hadrian7

After reading this thread about a month ago I actually did go out to B&N to buy their collection. It seemed like a pretty good deal to get all of Lovecraft's work for 13 bucks. I am trying to read through them in chronological order which I think the B&N collection order is. However, I did skip around to read Call of Cthulhu and At the Mountains of Madness which were pretty good. It does strike me as another poster alluded to previously that a lot of his stories follow a very similar formula which I am still trying to decipher if I like or not. It probably doesn't help if you are reading a bunch of stories in one sitting.

For Supermallet: it does dishearten me to hear that the BN collection isn't as complete as I thought it was. I definitely encountered spelling and grammatical errors but just attributed that to errors from the original texts. Is there any truly important that has been changed/altered?

And honestly going from Otter to the other forums is definitely putting a kink in the ol wallet. Details later.

Supermallet

Those errors were not in the original texts. They were introduced at various points when the stories were reprinted by careless editors who didn't bother to proof what they were printing. However, the errors were corrected by Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi, and those texts were used for the B&N collection. But B&N decided to reset the typesetting for their edition, and doing so introduced all sorts of new errors that were never present before.

It is in fact a very complete collection, but not a terribly accurate collection.

Hadrian7

That eases my mind a bit. I think I shall use this as beginner's version until like yourself I get something better.

Shinobi

I have the B&N volume. I attribute any textual errors to extraterrestrial forces trying to drive me insane.

Living Deadpan

And the Library of America collection. All the texts are from the Arkham House publications, with the exception of The Shadow Out of Time, which is taken from Joshi's corrected text (Hippocampus Press, 2003).

Supermallet

Yes, but the Library of America only offers one Lovecraft book, which is a good primer for newcomers, but is not comprehensive the way the Penguin or Arkham House editions are.

Josh-da-man

Good lord, yes.

I don't know what the fuck they were thinking when they replaced the Raymond Bayless covers with those tacky Tony Patrick atrocities.

Nick Danger

Holy cow, those are rotten covers. What were they thinking?

Supermallet

I cannot possibly fathom what they were thinking. I only hope that in time they'll either revert back to the old covers or switch to a new, more tasteful artist. Until then, I'm sticking with Penguin.

crazyronin

Thanks to August Derleth, not in the United States*. He went PD in the EU in 2008.



*The ones published before 1923 are in the PD.

Strafe

I've been reading Lovecraft through the following website: http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/, does anyone know what the sources for these versions are? The errors in some versions that were mentioned - what sorts of errors are they? I can't imagine they would change the stories at all.

After reading each story, I've been listening to the Lovecraft Literary Podcast. I recommend it.

http://hppodcraft.com/

dmar91

It's pleasing to see people interested in Lovecraft. If you google, you can actually find the full text of all his short fiction online. There's no need to buy any of the books. It's all free to read. The only time you need to part with cash is when you want to read further into the mythos. Most other stories and novels are still protected by copyright.

Shinobi

Barnes & Noble has a new leatherbound Lovecraft book out. I assume the contents are same as their non-leather version.

I like the black and purple color scheme, but I think the image on the B&N non-leather cover looks better.

Josh-da-man

Oh, goddamn, I need that!

brayzie

Both B&N collections have nice covers. My favorite though are the Del-Rey collection covers.

I just looked at the covers for the Arkham editions. The Bayless covers look pretty nice. Not too weird, but the design helps add to add some mystery to what you're about to read. The Patrick ones look kind of mundane. Their cool in their own way, but you have to do something really different to capture the mood of Lovecraft's stories.

The Necronomicon one is pretty good as well but I'm not too crazy about the cover illustration or the lack of it being a hard cover.

Lone Wolf

I picked up the complete Lovecraft from B&N the other day. I haven't had a chance to look it over yet though. What order are the stories in? By release date?

heebiejeebie

They are presented in the order they were written.

dugan

Free Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft for Nook and Kindle – Cthulhu Chick

Living Dead

That's a nicely made file. Anyone have a good one for Poe? I bought a Complete Works from Amazon for three bucks and it's a jumbled mess.

dugan

Have you already looked at Project Gutenberg's offerings?

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/sear...r_id&query=481

Supermallet

I know you're looking for something for the Kindle, but this is the best Poe collection out there at reasonable prices: http://www.amazon.com/Unabridged-Edg...416748&sr=8-26

You can get a used one for under $15.