H. P. Lovecraft: Tales (Library of America) [Hardcover]

H. P. Lovecraft (Author), Peter Straub (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Two of H.P. Lovecraft's Fungi from Yuggoth sonnets appeared in the Library of America's American Poetry: The Twentieth Century, Vol. I (2000). Now Lovecraft (1890–1937), the most important U.S. horror writer since Edgar Allan Poe and a big influence on nearly every major figure in the genre after his day, has been honored with a volume of his own in this prestigious series. Drawing from scholar S.T. Joshi's definitive texts, Peter Straub, the bestselling author of In the Night Room, has selected 22 works of fiction, ranging from such traditional ghostly tales as "The Outsider" and "The Rats in the Walls" to such lengthy cosmic narratives as "The Call of Cthulhu" and "At the Mountains of Madness." This edition represents the latest scholarship, including a recently discovered missing passage from "The Shadow Out of Time" and a few new minor corrections. Some may quibble over the inclusion of the pulpish "Herbert West—Reanimator" and the even worse "The Lurking Fear," though they're of interest as rare examples of Lovecraft aiming to please an audience other than himself. Still, all the best fiction is here in a book sure to help reinforce Lovecraft's place in the American literary canon.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 850 pages
• Publisher: Library of America (February 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931082723
• ISBN-13: 978-1931082723
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #34,675 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #78 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Collections & Readers

More About the Author

H. P. Lovecraft was born in 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island, where he lived most of his life. He wrote many essays and poems early in his career, but gradually focused on the writing of horror stories, after the advent in 1923 of the pulp magazine Weird Tales, to which he contributed most of his fiction. His relatively small corpus of fiction--three short novels and about sixty short stories--has nevertheless exercised a wide influence on subsequent work in the field, and he is regarded as the leading twentieth-century American author of supernatural fiction. H. P. Lovecraft died in Providence in 1937.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

226 of 234 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The essential one-volume Lovecraft collection, February 24, 2005

By 

A reader (Indiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: H. P. Lovecraft: Tales (Library of America) (Hardcover)

The Library of America is to be commended for publishing this splendid collection of H. P. Lovecraft's fiction. I have been a major fan of Grandpa Theobald's "junk" (as he liked to call it) for something like 35 years now, and this is easily the best one-volume Lovecraft collection I have ever seen. It beats the socks off the "bloodcurdling" Del Rey volume - not only because it's in hard cover, but also because it contains Lovecraft's two longest fictional works: "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" (never published in HPL's lifetime) and what is probably his masterpiece, "At the Mountains of Madness". In fact, ALL of the Old Gentleman's truly great fiction is here in one volume, for the first time in my lifetime. A desert island book, for sure.

I know, I know - there have been some complaints because the editor (Peter Straub) also selected some of HPL's not-so-great fiction for this collection. I refer to some of the stories Grandpa penned specifically for a pulp magazine audience, such as "Herbert West: Reanimator", "The Lurking Fear", and "The Horror at Red Hook". Why, some readers wonder, sully such a classic collection with stuff that would cause HPL's ghost to die of embarrassment (if ghosts can die)? Well, the eldritch and hideous truth (as Lovecraft might put it) is simply this: Peter Straub was given an 800-page maximum limit for the collection by the Library of America, and there just ain't 800 pages worth of truly classic Lovecraft fiction in existence. I assume Straub was determined to put in as much stuff as possible - right up to the limit imposed on him - and after including all of the great stories, he still had 100 pages or so left over. He chose to fill the space with some of HPL's more "pulpish" efforts. I might have chosen a bit differently, myself, but the point is: including these inferior pieces doesn't crowd out any of the good stuff. ALL the classics are here. And if you don't like the lesser works, don't read them - but buy the damned book anyway!

Actually, I find something like "Herbert West" rather rip-roaring, grisly fun, since Grandpa Theobald obviously had his tongue firmly implanted in his cheek when he wrote it. It tends towards self-parody, and refutes all those readers who believe that Lovecraft had no sense of humor (they must never have read any of his letters!).

Perhaps the only surprising omissions (to me, anyway) are "The Picture in the House" and "In the Vault" (both of which are included in the Del Rey collection). I would probably have traded "The Horror at Red Hook" to have these two (admittedly minor) stories included - but this is such an insignificant quibble that I'm almost ashamed to bring it up. GET THIS BOOK!!!

80 of 89 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent collection, July 7, 2005

By 

Henry W. Wagner (Rockaway, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: H. P. Lovecraft: Tales (Library of America) (Hardcover)

Although I consider myself well read in the horror genre, I have to confess that, until recently, I had never read an H. P. Lovecraft story all the way through. Yes, despite numerous attempts beginning in my teens, I had never finished a single story by one of the most influential horror writers of the early twentieth century. Oh, I owned many of the myriad Lovecraft collections that had been issued over the years, including those beautiful Arkham House editions, but all they did was accumulate dust. And yes, I knew what the word "Lovecraftian" meant, having read many of the pastiches, takeoffs, satires, homages, etc. that have been published over the years. Thus, I knew to shudder at the mention of Cthulhu (even if I didn't know how to spell it), or to laugh knowingly when someone mentioned old Howard Philip's excesses as a writer. Sadly, it was all a sham. To paraphrase Woody Allen, it was a mockery of a travesty of a sham of two mockeries of a sham.

Thinking, like Seinfeld's Cosmo Kramer, that I had "missed my chance" (I held the opinion that Lovecraft was one of those writers one had to embrace in his teens or not at all), I had reconciled myself to the fact that I probably would never read the old master.

Enter Peter Straub and S.T. Joshi.

I list Straub first because he served as the editor for the Library of America volume on Lovecraft, the one that intrigued me enough to start thinking about sampling Lovecraft again. But it was S.T., a Lovecraft scholar's Lovecraft scholar who actually coaxed me to read it.

I contacted S. T. (whose corrected HPL texts were used in the book) seeking a nudge, and a nudge I got. Still subconsciously looking for a way out of it, however, I asked whether Lovecraft was somebody best sampled in one's teens, kind of like the way you have to read Thomas Wolfe's LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL at eighteen to enjoy it properly (look it up, it's a law). S. T. reacted with righteous disdain, replying:

"I would dispute the belief that one has to read Lovecraft at an early age to get a "kick" out of him. As I progress in years and reread his work, I find new things to appreciate in it. Perhaps the overwhelming emotional effect is not there at my advanced age of 46, but then I'm not sure that I get an overwhelming emotional effect from *anything* I read these days.... My admiration of Lovecraft as an artist continues to grow the more I learn about him."

Well, when a reknowned expert like Joshi says something like this, it just has to make you curious. So, I read, and...well, it wasn't like Saul on the road to Damascus or anything, but hell, I had a pretty good time. Working through Lovecraft's dense, outdated prose was tough, but ultimately rewarding (although if I read one more time that some narrator can't describe something because it's so mind boggling, so foul or so corrupt that it defies description, I might puke, more in a fit of pique rather than out of disgust ). As Lloyd Rose, writing about this volume in the May 15, 2005 issue of the Washington Post said, "No doubt about it, Lovecraft had a vision."

The book itself is a thing of beauty, a thick, distinguished, perfect bound volume that anyone would be proud to have on his or her book shelf. Straub did an excellent job in selecting the twenty two stories featured, including such recognized classics as "The Outsider", "The Rats in the Walls", "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward", "At the Mountains of Madness", "The Lurking Fear", and the wonderfully campy (but somewhat racist) "Herbert West: Reanimator", while also including less "canonical" works such as "Cool Air." I think that even aficionados like Mr. Joshi would agree that the tales that made the final cut arguably represent the best of Lovecraft.

If you're at all like me (and, for your sake, I hope that's not the case) The Library of America edition of Lovecraft's tales will probably whet your appetite for more of the old master. It's weird, but...the Arkham Lovecraft books on my bedroom shelf seem to be...calling out...to me...I feel compelled to...to...it's just too horrific to describe...tentacles, and eyes...goodbye...

105 of 129 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nightmare masterpieces, February 15, 2005

By 

Charlus "charlus" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: H. P. Lovecraft: Tales (Library of America) (Hardcover)

It is best to first read Lovecraft when young; after all, he mainly wrote for the horror pulps which had a large (predominantly?) immature readership. At that time in one's life, vocabulary and phrases such as "eldrich", "ichor", "the putrid, dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation" seem perfectly appropriate. It is only when one is an adult that his endless litanies of attempts to describe the indescribable starts to seem more than a little over-the-top. His most powerful stories remain those wherein he merely makes a few choice suggestive phrases, such as Arch Obler did in his radio show "Lights Out"-trusting that the imagination is better at supplying the grisly details than any catalogue of gorey descriptors.

What remains for the adult reader who chooses not to prematurely dismiss Lovecraft's purple passages is an imagination that remains unsurpassed in tapping into the nightmare realm of the subconcious. The darkside of the dreamlife, reminiscent of the "Black" paintings of Goya, are conjured on the page with an obsessive richness that one would have to go back to Poe to find the equal. And Lovecraft is willing to go beyond Poe's gothic to a mythic cosmology that opens up from the claustrophobic dimensions of a tomb to a supradimensional realm of monstrous gods.

My favorite Lovecraft stories are all included here in this beautifully bound compilation: "Pickman's Model", "The Thing on the Doorstep" and my initial introduction to his work, "The Haunter of the Dark" (which resulted in an excessive expenditure of wattage for the subsequently imperative nightlight).

If approached with an open mind, these tales will haunt your dreams,too.