The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft

I found the footnotes and forward in this edition to be a welcome addition to one of my favorite author's stories. The last mini biography I read on Lovecraft was bland, but this one was well researched. The collection of stories was a fair offering, too. One minor complaint was that there could have been some better captioning for the photos.In addition to a biographical foreward there are footnote annotations on the pages of the stories.Overall, it's a good choice for people who like the Lovecraft stories and would like to learn a little more about the author, and his intents.

I've been a Lovecraft fan for decades, ever since I was a kid, and I loved this book. Joshi has taken some of Lovecraft's best works and illuminated each with the bright light of his scholarship. There is a problem, however: Lovecraft appeals to a certain type of reader (IMO), and I think that the footnotes might detract greatly from the enjoyment of the stories for just such a reader; I know they did for me. Because of this, I feel that this is a great book for the already established Lovecraft fan, but might not be so appealing to someone who has just picked up Lovecraft for the first time. I could certainly be wrong about this, but I personally prefer to read Lovecraft's stuff in a different format, sans footnotes. However, despite my misgivings, I ended up giving this book a five star rating based on Joshi's immaculate and voluminous scholarship. After all, the footnotes ARE the point here, illuminating, as they do, Lovecraft's eerie and unique prose.I wouldn't have missed this one for the world.

The term "must have" is often overused, but here it can be honestly applied. Remember in At the Mountains of Madness where the narrator repeatedly refers to the frozen landscapes looking like some obscure painter's works? Here you can finally find out who that painter was, and see some of his works! For that alone this book is great, but the rest of the annotations are excellent. Luckily, there is a sequel.

I wish I had written The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, but I was happy someone did and was very interested in reading it. The stories included in the volume make a fine introduction to H. P.'s work for anyone unfamilar with his stories, but also offer real interest to those of us who have read these stories numerous times. Now we can find out what some of H. P.'s more obscure references meant, definitions to scientific terms he used, as well as insight into his inspirations for the stories. The book has a few pictures of some of the actual sites that Lovecraft used as scenes in his tales and how he got place and charactor names. Contents include "Rats in the Walls", "Colour Out of Space", "Dunwich Horror" and "At the Mountains of Madness". The only complaint I have with this book is there could have been even more annotation.