The Road to Madness: Twenty-Nine Tales of Terror

This is an anthology of some of the best works of Howard Philips Lovecraft (HPL), a pulp horror- and science fiction- writer of the 1920s and 30s. Lovecraft had a distinctive style of writing, meant to convey through description an atmosphere of awe and wonder of the universe, which he believed a rational mind would experience as horror. His works have influenced generations of writers including Stephen King, Brian Lumley, Ramsey Campbell, and Robert Howard. The content of THE ROAD TO MADNESS is some of HPLs most evocative, chilling, and enduring tales. And I almost missed them. You see, I thought I had everything by Lovecraft. But I would catch allusions to things like the "Martense kin", "the U-Boat", and Arthur Jermyn. I couldn't find these references in any of my books, when I realized I was missing THE TOMB. Rather than buy this out-of-print book, I picked up ROAD TO MADNESS. It has served me well as a general collection of the most enduring elements of Lovecraft's fiction. The 3 Del Rey collections (ROAD TO MADNESS, BEST OF HP LOVECRAFT, DREAM CYCLE OF HP LOVECRAFT) are pretty comprehensive of HPLs corpus. I am posting below a list of the contents of THE ROAD TO MADNESS under the heading of other sources for the same stories, to let you decide how much overlap it has with other anthologies you might own. AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS AND OTHER TALES "At the Mountains of Madness " "The Evil Clergyman" "The Shunned House" THE DOOM THAT CAME TO SARNATH "The Crawling Chaos" "The Festival" "In the Walls of Eryx" "memory" "Nathicana" "The Tomb" "The Tree" "Under The Pyramids" THE LURKING FEAR AND OTHER STORIES "Dagon" "Arthur Jermyn" "The Lurking Fear" "The Moon-Bog" "The Temple" "The Unnameable" "The White Ship" THE TOMB AND OTHER TALES: "The Alchemist" "The Beast in the Cave" "The Book" "The Festival" "He" "The Horror at Red Hook" "In the Walls of Eryx" "Poetry and the Gods " "The Street" "The Tomb" "The Transition of Juan Romero" "Under the Pyramids" [Possibly no other source] "Cool Air" "Herbert West, Reanimator"

As an avid reader of Lovecraft's Macabre, I couldn't resist picking up this book and the other two in the series (The Best of H.P. Lovecraft, and The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft). And it turned out to be a great addition to my library. The starring attraction is At The Mountains of Madness, which automatically makes the book worth the meager cost. One of the nice things about this collection is that it traces some of the early themes in Lovecraft's work to their later maturity. Although the stories are quite varied, you needn't worry about them straying from Lovecraft's trademark theme: cosmic ignorance is a wonderful commodity. I highly recommend this to addicts and newcomers alike.

The Beast in the Cave, The Alchemist, Poetry and the Gods, The Street, The Transition of Juan Romero, The Book (excerpt), Dagon, The Tomb, Memory, The White Ship, Arthur Jermyn, The Temple, The Terrible Old Man, The Crawling Chaos, The Tree, The Moon-Bog, Herbert West--Reanimator, The Lurking Fear, The Festival, The Unnamable, Imprisoned with the Pharaohs, The Shunned House, He, The Horror at Red Hook, Cool Air, Nathicana, At the Mountains of Madness, In the Walls of Eryx, The Evil Clergyman.

I heard about HP Lovecraft a little while ago, but never read any of his works until about a month ago when I bought the Best Of collection from Del Rey. I loved it, so I bought this book after getting through most of the first one. After reading The Beast in the Cave, I was hooked on this too.The best thing about Lovecraft's storytelling is the way he describes things so vividly, and yet leaves a lot to your own imagination. Although he can drag on at times, the stories always come together in the end. One of my favorites is Dagon, with an incredible introduction and conclusion. My personal favorite was probably Memory. It was one page, and it gives you just a taste of Lovecraft's brilliant imagination.One last note: the cover on this book is incredible. John Jude Palencar is a great artist.

This book is excellent for mature readers 12+. When kids (like me, I'm 14) find that ghost stories start to seem a little childish... these stories are a step up. After I read this book, I would sometimes find myself staring off into space, thinking about one of the stories... this book will put so many ideas into your head, you will look at the entire world differently. Lovecraft is a master author.