H.P. Lovecraft: The Fiction (Library of Essential Writers) » (Special Value)

H.P. Lovecraft (1890-­1937) was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the city where he lived most of his life. He began writing poetry and fiction while an adolescent and contributed significantly to amateur press publications. In 1923, he made his first professional sale to Weird Tales, the pulp magazine that would publish most of his fiction. Five years later, Lovecraft published “The Call of Cthulhu,” a story that crystallized his concept of cosmic horror through its depiction of otherworldly monsters that represent the incomprehensible alienness of the universe to human thinking. In “The Dunwich Horror,” “The Whisperer in Darkness,” “The Haunter of the Dark,” “The Shadow out of Time,” “At the Mountains of Madness,” and other stories, Lovecraft further developed this unique approach to horror fiction, and created an elaborate mythology of alien creatures, forbidden books, and haunted New England towns to give it shape. The Shadow over Innsmouth, the sole book of his fiction published in his lifetime, appeared in 1936. Since his death, Lovecraft has become recognized as the greatest American writer of supernatural fiction after Edgar Allan Poe, and a leading influence on the modern weird tale.

In the 1920s and ‘30s, H.P. Lovecraft pioneered a new type of weird fiction that fused elements of supernatural horror with the concepts of visionary science fiction. Lovecraft’s tales of cosmic horror revolutionized modern horror fiction and earned him the reputation as the most influential American writer of weird tales since Edgar Allan Poe.

This omnibus collects for the first time in a single volume all of Lovecraft’s groundbreaking fiction: “The Call of Cthulhu,” “The Dreams in the Witch House,” “The Haunter of the Dark,” “At the Mountains of Madness,” “The Shadow out of Time,” “The Shadow over Innsmouth,” the full-length novels The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, and many others.

H.P. Lovecraft: The Fiction is part of Barnes & Noble’s Library of Essential Writers. Each title in the series presents the finest works—complete and unabridged—from one of the greatest writers in literature in magnificent, elegantly designed hardback editions. Every volume also includes an original introduction that provides the reader with enlightening information on the writer’s life and works.

Introduction ix
The Beast in the Cave 1
The Alchemist 6
The Tomb 14
Dagon 23
A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson 28
Polaris 33
Beyond the Wall of Sleep 37
Memory 46
Old Bugs 47
The Transition of Juan Romero 54
The White Ship 60
The Street 65
The Doom That Came to Sarnath 70
The Statement of Randolph Carter 76
The Terrible Old Man 81
The Tree 84
The Cats of Ulthar 88
The Temple 91
Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family 102
Celephaïs 110
From Beyond 115
Nyarlathotep 121
The Picture in the House 124
Ex Oblivione 131
Sweet Ermengarde 133
The Nameless City 141
The Quest of Iranon 151
The Moon-
Bog 157
The Outsider 164
The Other Gods 170
The Music of Erich Zann 174
Herbert West-Reanimator 181
Hypnos 206
What the Moon Brings 212
Azathoth 214
The Hound 216
The Lurking Fear 223
The Rats in the Walls 240
The Unnamable 256
The Festival 262
Under the Pyramids 270
The Shunned House 292
The Horror at Red Hook 314
He 332
In the Vault 341
Cool Air 348
The Call of Cthulhu 355
Pickman's Model 380
The Silver Key 391
The Strange High House in the Mist 401
The Dream-
Quest of Unknown Kadath 409
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward 490
The Colour out of Space 594
The Descendant 617
History of the Necronomicon 621
The Very Old Folk 623
Ibid 629
The Dunwich Horror 633
The Whisperer in Darkness 668
At the Mountains of Madness 723
The Shadow over Innsmouth 807
The Dreams in the Witch House 859
Through the Gates of the Silver Key 889
The Thing on the Doorstep 919
The Evil Clergyman 941
TheBook 945
The Shadow out of Time 948
The Haunter of the Dark 999
Appendix: Juvenilia
The Little Glass Bottle 1018
The Secret Cave 1020
The Mystery of the Grave-
yard 1022
The Mysterious Ship [short version] 1027
The Mysterious Ship [long version] 1030
Discarded draft of "The Shadow over Innsmouth" 1034
Supernatural Horror in Literature 1041
About the Author 1099