Customer Reviews

Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft (Commemorative Edition)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Those who have spent time researching H.P. Lovecraft are undoubtedly aware that the story collections edited by S.T. Joshi are considered vastly superior to all others. This edition, unfortunately, does not fall under that category, but opts to include the stories as they were originally published. Just the same, do not quickly dismiss this collection, for it still has a number of merits.

To start things out, here is the list of the works it includes:
"Night-Gaunts" (A great sonnet from "Fungi from Yuggoth")
"Dagon"
"The Statement of Randolph Carter"
"The Doom that Came to Sarnath"
"The Cats of Ulthar"
"The Nameless City"
"Herbert West--Reanimator"
"The Music of Erich Zann"
"The Lurking Fear"
"The Hound"
"The Rats in the Walls"
"Under the Pyramids"
"The Unnamable"
"In the Vault"
"The Outsider"
"The Horror at Red Hook"
"The Colour out of Space"
"Pickman's Model"
"The Call of Cthulhu"
"Cool Air"
"The Shunned House"
"The Silver Key"
"The Dunwich Horror"
"The Whisperer in Darkness"
"The Strange High House in the Mist"
"The Dreams in the Witch-House"
"From Beyond"
"Through the Gates of the Silver Key" (with E. Hoffman Price)
"At the Mountains of Madness"
"The Shadow over Innsmouth"
"The Shadow out of Time"
"The Haunter of the Dark"
"The Thing on the Doorstep"
"The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"
"The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath"
"To a Dreamer" (A final Lovecraft poem)
Afterword: A Gentleman of Providence by Stephen Jones

As can clearly be seen, this is quite a hefty and impressive collection, and it comes with a number of excellent illustrations that go a long way to immersing one in the HPL universe. As such, this collection is ideal as an introduction to the works of Lovecraft, but it isn't without a few shortcomings. Thus, a comparison of it's faults and merits would be:

--Pros--
-One of the largest collections of Lovecraft's works
-Contains a number of superb illustrations
-Enough of HPL's poetry to creat interest
-A very good Afterward on the author himself
-And some very good binding

--Cons--
-Does not include S.T. Joshi's "definitive" versions of the texts
-Contains ONLY enough Lovecraft poetry to wet the appetite
-Finally, "Shambler from the Stars" & "Shadow from the Steeple" by Robert Bloch (prequel & sequel to HPL's "Haunter of the Dark") are not included in this book

Ultimately, if you are truly interested in Lovecraft, you'll need to get more than just this collection. "The Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos" should net you the aforementioned stories by Robert Bloch, and "The Ancient Track: The Complete Poetical Works of H. P. Lovecraft" should satisfy the need for the author's verse, but there are still a large number of HPL's stories missing from this collection. For a more complete collection of Lovecraft's stories, one would do well to purchase the following four "corrected text" editions of S.T. Joshi: "At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels", "Dagon and Other Macabre Tales", "The Dunwich Horror and Others", and "The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions"

In the end, you will be satisfied with this purchase... but if you're really into Lovecraft, you'll probably not be FULLY satisfied with it. It makes a great intoduction to the superb fiction of HPL, but the fabled "Complete Tales and Poems of H.P. Lovecraft" has yet to be published. Here's to hoping it someday will be....

PS: I would start by reading:
"The Dunwich Horror" (my favorite), "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", "The Rats in the Walls", "The Silver Key", "The Thing on the Doorstep" and finally "The Whisperer in Darkness" ... but that's just me.

I bought this book in the belief that it was a complete collection of HPL's works (or close to it). Instead it's pretty much just the major stuff found in most big collections, missing a few of my notable favorites (Arthur Jermyn, The Temple, He, The Festival, etc ) as well as missing a lot of the obscure stuff (The Evil Clergymen for instance, plus his really early stuff).

And please note that the description is wrong, it's not over a 1000 pages, it's only 880, including a 50 page essay on Lovecraft. While interesting, I wish that space had been used for some of his missing stories. It could be the regular UK version has more, but Amazon.com seems to be selling the shorter, "Export" edition.

It's got a few stories that the Library of America collection doesn't (but not that many), most notably more of the Dreamlands stuff. But you also don't have any annotations or notes like the Library of America collection. There are some illustrations

This is pretty cheap, but at the same time, it's not the best Lovecraft experience, nor complete. I was really hoping to get all his stories in one big book (as it had been billed in some quarters). But this was a complete waste of my money. The paper and binding is also very cheap.

Only if you are completely new to Lovecraft is it worth a look.

I'm not going to bother reviewing the fiction in the volume. It's by H.P. Lovecraft, it's absolutely fantastic horror fiction that transcends the genre and what's included is all of his best stuff. I will assume, that like any literary type (or horror fan), you are not here to decide - "Should I buy Lovecraft's books?". I'm assuming you know that like Poe, you need a Lovecraft selected (or complete) works on your shelf - the question then is "Which edition is best suited to my needs?"

So, I'm going to focus on why this book is a good purchase - it has 36 stories, including the big ones. It's affordably priced. It looks really nice on a shelf and it's very pleasant to read in the hands and on the eyes. The drawback is it's big and the binding is so-so. The only one-volume competition is really the Library of America "Tales" collection with 22 tales. It has better binding and a better critical apparatus (e.g. footnotes). That one's a bit more expensive though and has some other problems.

I would recommend either this volume or the Library of America to someone looking for a single volume collection. If you're a collector or own the Library of America "Tales" book, this probably isn't worth a purchase because you have most of the stories.

Personally, I prefer this one because the pages are thicker and I find the text easier on my eyes. The Library of America edition is much smaller and has ultra-thin pages with relatively small text. If you have good eyesight, that might be a better choice since physically it's smaller, but I had difficulty reading it. This edition sits like a Bible on the shelf towering above other books. The gold ink on the spine looks very classy and ominous and it's easy to find amongst my bookshelves. The binding is not great, but it's good enough and on par with most oversized mass market paperbacks.

There are better Lovecraft collections out there. I believe the Arkham has Lovecraft in his entirety, there are the Joshi volumes edited from the original proofs rather than the published editions - of note to the purists, but this is the best one for most people, myself included. $18 for 36 Lovecraft stories and short fiction! It's an uncanny deal. It towers, cyclopean, above other such editions at that price.

If you want a shorter volume (admittedly this is quite large physically) - the Del-Rey's might fit your needs. It's cheaper, too. The collectors and completists love the Arkham ones. If you're buying for a library, the Library of America is a better pick, both because of its standard size, because it's bound better and because of the critical apparatus and lastly because of snob appeal - the tales were "selected" by Joyce Carol Oates (the tales selected aren't much different than this volume though).

I think this is the best single volume reading edition because it's easy to read, it has the best selection of stories and it's an attractive volume. Recommended.

I had been trying to obtain a worthy volume of HPL's works for quite sometime. I'm never satisfied with what is out there, to my surprise, I discovered this publication! It's as close as you are going to get to having a 'full' collection, as it includes most of his major works. The cover is impressive for a softcover and the artwork that accompanies each story is fantastic!

'Necronomicon: the complete Weird Tales' of H.P Lovecraft in its hardcover edition is a beautiful book - a bibliophiles dream. Suitably tome-like, all it really needed was a tassel to complete the look. The typeset and illustrations are really appropriate and unlike some I appreciated the biography on H.P Lovercraft contained in the rear of the book. Reviewers have also noted that 'Necronomicon: the complete Weird Tales' is not a complete collection of Lovecraft's work - but it never claimed to be, instead it collects those works written for legendary pulp magazine 'Weird Tales.' At 878 pages there's plenty of material for readers to sink their teeth into, and all the classics, such as 'The Dunwich Horror,' 'The Shadow Out of Time,' and 'Call of Cthulhu' are included.

Buy this book and saraband yourself across aeons of time into the curious, antique world of H.P Lovecraft. Park yourself under a gibbous moon and read these eldritch tales of cyclopean architecture and primordial terrors. You will traverse dimensions of time and space and have an indescribably sinister experience of unspeakable horror.

Received my copy, nice cover for a softcover book and a excellant if incomplete collection of Mr.Lovecraft's works, unluckily due to ownership and rights issue probably the closest we'll ever come to a complete collection of his works. Nice drawing included with each story make for a suitable atmosphere to enjoy the stories with.

Being an owner of the Arkham House collection of his works (which is prolly the closest you'll ever have to all of his published works) I was skeptical of this tome. Most of the ones out there now select some of his better stories and leave others out. So while this one was a temptation, I decided to check it out before buying. Suffice to say, it doesn't come close to the Arkham House collection. So I decided to not buy it. So until a book or collection of books can match the works put out in the 4 volumes that AH puts out, I'll just have to wait. A nice illustrated volume would be fantastic! But, alas, such is life. So I would recommend checking out the Arkham House volumes (all 4). From what I can find, those 4 volumes contain all that Lovecraft published (including his letters, essays, fragments and very early works).

I'll keep this short and sweet.
The Necronomicon is a brilliant first collection of works by Lovecraft, It is my first book of works by him and I am thoroughly loving it.

I got the hardback commemorative edition. I know many people here are complaining about the binding but it doesn't seem all that bad to me. Maybe the UK version (which I have) is different than the version imported to the US. Or maybe the printing company has changed their methods since these issues were raised. It's held up well and hasn't had any deteriorated yet and I've read from it several times already. The story selection is large and really good. I personally would've had some left out and put others in to better fit my personal "Best of" list but I think if any Lovecraft fan if asked would say the same. I love how the artwork on the cover and inside are amazingly done. I do wish they would've fit the story they were placed in more but it's not really distracting. Overall I feel I got my monies worth and then some. A must have if you want just one book with a selection of the Cthulhu and Dream Cycle series.

True, you're likely to get a more "complete" anthology by purchasing the Library of America collection of HP Lovecraft's work.

But if you're new to Lovecraft, this is a great place to start.

I bought the hardcover edition of this book basically on the phrase "bibiliophile's dream" utilized in one review. Now that I have it, I have to say that's not that far from the truth. It's a really great buy for the price and the gold inlay Cthulhu on the cover is a selling point all it's own. In another review, someone made note of the binding. I'm inclined to agree, it's not spectacular binding - particularly for a book this size (900 pages!). That said, I don't feel like I'm going to break it when I hold it. It's weak and not impressive but I think it'll hold.

Images and heavy, bold text (such as on the inner title page) have all imprinted themselves on the immediate pages surrounding them. In my copy, there's no bleeding or anything like that but it's definitely distracting.

Take it into consideration and decide just what it is you're looking for. HP Veterans might not be too impressed but it's a fine buy and I'm very happy with it.

If you do buy the book, I hope it finds you in good spirits. Then corrupts them. All the best.