The Dunwich Horror and Others

I've been at a loss for a couple of years to find something to read that really grabs me. In fact, I usually find myself bored beyond tears with the recent spate of pulp and sloppy nonsense that gets passed off as literature by most of our contemporary, popular authors. So lately, I've been going back and trying to catch up on the works of acclaimed authors from the 20th Century, focusing on those that I never had the time or opportunity to read before now. This week, I stumbled upon THE DUNWICH HORROR AND OTHERS by H.P. Lovecraft and was introduced to Lovecraft's whole weird and fascinating world of "the Cthulhu Mythos". I was familiar with some of Lovecraft's more popular short stories, mainly from their bad movie adaptations (THE DUNWICH HORROR and RE-ANIMATOR spring to mind), and I've read many times where others among my favorite authors have called him "their inspiration" or "a genius ranking with Poe, Hawthorne, and Conrad". I knew that his mythology provided a backdrop for most everything produced by Anne Rice, Poppy Z. Brite, Caitlin Kiernan, and Neil Gaiman, to the entertaining EVIL DEAD movie trilogy, even to BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and DARK SHADOWS of TV-dom. But I'd never had a chance to read Lovecraft's work for myself until now. I've always loved a good scare and a really creepy story. Trouble is, they're just so damned hard to find! And when you find one that starts out with great potential, it usually degenerates into formulaic banality and clichés by the end. However, I now understand why Lovecraft is so admired. While his writing style is clearly dated, his stories are downright frightening. It's awfully hard for anything, let alone a book, to make my hair stand on end or give me gooseflesh, but I usually get at least one good case of crawling flesh from each of Lovecraft's stories and, in many instances, they delivered so much more. Not since my first reading of Shirley Jackson's THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE have I walked away from a book and had to shake it off physically before I could move on to something else. There are many Lovecraft imitators out there. But if you haven't tried a genuine Lovecraft, you haven't even begun to know horror.

This is the best Lovecraft edition for those who have been acquainted with Lovecraft and like his writings. Definately the best of the Arkham House collections and is the first of the Arkham House books to get. Probably not the best for those unfamiliar with Lovecraft just because of the cost. This collection includes my favorite Lovecraft story "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", as well as the wonderful stories "The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Dunwich Horror". Some of the other better stories include "The Music of Erich Zann" and "Pickman's Model". Robert Bloch's introduction is a nice supplement to Lovecraft's writings. Highly recommended, but I also recommend buying additional Lovecraft because this collection does leave out some Lovecraft gems(i.e. "At the Mountains of Madness").

Because there are so many different Lovecraft collections out there, it may be helpful to prospective buyers to know what's actually in this volume:[By S. T. Joshi:] A Note on the Texts; [by James Turner:] A Mythos in His Own Image [an introductory essay]; [fiction by Lovecraft:] At the Mountains of Madness [novella]; The Case of Charles Dexter Ward [novella]; The Shunned House [short story]; The Dreams in the Witch House [short story]; The Statement of Randolph Carter [short story]; The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath [novella]; The Silver Key [short story]; Through the Gates of the Silver Key [short story collaboration with E. Hoffmann Price]There are two noteworthy features of this book: It's the only Lovecraft collection ever to contain all three of his novellas in a single volume; and it collects all the fiction he ever wrote about his alter-ego character Randolph Carter, namely the last four titles in the contents list.Contains accurate texts to the stories, unlike many other Lovecraft collections. The only major annoyance here is that the stories aren't assembled in the chronological order of their original writing by Lovecraft, inasmuch his fiction is enhanced by experiencing the sequence and continuity of recurring characters, places, and events. (Fortunately, the table of contents gives the year or years of each piece's composition, so it's convenient to figure out that order.) A near-must for serious Lovecraft fans.

In my humble opinion, there are two ways to read Lovecraft. The first, and best, is to get your hands on an original "Weird Tales" or other pulp. There is something about the musty smell that adds to the tale. For true connoisseurs, read them under the covers with a flashlight, late in the evening hours.Realizing that original pulps may be prohibitively expensive, the Arkham House Editions are the next option. These hardback treasures are as much a part of Lovecraft's legacy as the stories themselves. Lovecraft would be all but forgotten if it were not for the small circle of friends who founded Arkham House, with the sole mission of keeping his writings in print. Arkham House is the definitive Lovecraft volume."The Dunwich Horror and Others" contains some of Lovecraft's finest (and most popular) stories. Here is that slippery tale of a town, an ocean, and an undiscovered heritage "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," the eerie and resounding "The Music of Erich Zann," the much-adapted and still classic "The Colour Out of Space," my personal favorite "The Rats in the Walls," the tile story "The Dunwich Horror" and many other chilling tales.And let's not forget "The Call of Cthulhu."

Lovecraft's work does for the horror fiction tale what David Lynch's films do for cinema. It takes the genre into a stratum of the unconscious so abstract and frightening that one finds beauty in the macabre madness that exists there. "The Dunwich Horror and Others" is the ideal starting point for any Lovecraft neophyte. All of Lovecraft's most important and frightening short stories are found in their original forms in this beautiful Arkham House hardcover. There are a few omissions such as "The Lurking Fear" and "The Dreams in the Which House," but these stories and more are easy enough to locate in other Arkham House or Del Rey collections. To sit and read this volume cover to cover is to experience horror fiction at its most dismal and horrific. In "The Dunwich Horror," the reader visits the damned Whateley farm, where an extra-dimensional being has been summoned. In "The Colour Out of Space," a farm in Arkham, Ma. has been hit by a meteorite that carries with it a pestilence that drives the land and its inhabitants to madness and death. The maddeningly eerie "The Whisperer in Darkness" an isolated man describes his encounters with a malign alien colony that has taken residence near his home in backwater New England. "The Whisperer in Darkness" is one of Lovecraft's most potent tales due to the fact that it's narrative is largely drawn from letters, journal entries and even phonograph recordings of the extra-terrestrials themselves.