Customer Reviews

Thing on the Doorstep (Tales of Fear & the Unknown)

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Since there are so many different Lovecraft collections out there, it may be useful to prospective buyers to know what's actually in this one:

[By S. T. Joshi:] Acknowledgments; Introduction; Suggestions for Further Reading; A Note on the Text; [short stories, except where noted, by H. P. Lovecraft:] The Tomb; Beyond the Wall of Sleep; The White Ship; The Temple; The Quest of Iranon; The Music of Erich Zann; Under the Pyramids [a.k.a. Imprisoned with the Pharoahs]; Pickman's Model; The Case of Charles Dexter Ward [novella]; The Dunwich Horror; At the Mountains of Madness [novella]; The Thing on the Doorstep; [by Joshi:] Explanatory Notes

Unlike in THE ANNOTATED H. P. LOVECRAFT and MORE ANNOTATED H. P. LOVECRAFT, also edited and annotated (though in the latter case co-edited and co-annotated) by Joshi, the equally copious annotations here are collected at the back of the book (thereby being what are technically known as "endnotes") rather than placed at the bottom of story pages where they're referenced (known as "footnotes"). And also unlike the "ANNOTATED" volumes, THE CALL OF CTHULHU AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES lacks photographs that highlight the relationships between the subjects in the stories and the persons and places of Lovecraft's life; features smaller print, making it slightly harder to read but meaning more stories can be fit into the volume.

THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES is something of a sequel to THE CALL OF CTHULHU AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES, a similarly produced and arranged collection of Lovecraft fiction, with an introduction and endnotes by Joshi, put out by the same publisher, Penguin. To his credit, Joshi's respective introductions to both Penguin collections are informative and interesting for readers regardless of previous familiarity with Lovecraft, while repeating little of the same content.

Each of these Penguin titles, as well as the two "ANNOTATED" titles published by Dell, presents its selection of narrative fiction in the order written, a practical advantage when reading Lovecraft, and make attractive companion volumes.

If you have never read H.P. Lovecraft before, this is an excellent place to start. Each story gets a brief introduction by the Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi. The stories are the corrected versions, and the presentation is tasteful and classic.

"The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories" is packed with some of Lovecraft's best stories. "The Music of Erich Zann" stands out as one of the best short stories I have ever read. In Paris, in a street that can no longer be found, a student lodger is disturbed by unearthly violin music drifting from the top floors. Who is Erich Zann, and where does he learn these strange tunes?

Other classics in this collection are "The Dunwich Horror," featuring the infamous Necronomicon. "At the Mountains of Madness," Lovecraft's longest story is a mixture of Edgar Allen Poes "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" and his own creatures from beyond. Set in the Antarctic, this has been the inspiration for several films. "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" and "The Thing on the Doorstep" are both excellent. I wish this volume had been around when I first started reading Lovecraft. I am happy to have it now.

"The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories" represents the second of three (to date) collections of H. P. Lovecraft's work edited and annotated by J. T. Joshi and published by Penguin. Like the preceding volume ("The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories") the stories unfold in the chronological order of their writing, allowing the reader to both observe Lovecraft's development as a writer, and the interlinking of his developing mythos. The only substantial differences between this volume and the former are that this one contains more stories within the Cthulhu Mythos, and it also contains Lovecraft's two longest (and to my mind best) works.

The book begins with an introduction from Joshi that readers of the first volume will probably find disappointing as it offers no meaningful difference to that books introduction. It seems odd that someone who has chronicled Lovecraft's life as intently as Joshi has couldn't find a different avenue of consideration, and it is unfortunate that the same facts are repeated, regardless of how important they may be to understanding Lovecraft's writing.

Fortunately, that is the only black mark against Joshi's work as he has provided exhaustive foot-noting of each story. Sometimes whimsical and sometimes critical, these observations open up an entirely new and deeper view of the stories in "The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories". In particular, residents of New England in general and Rhode Island in particular will appreciate the impression that regional history and geography had on Lovecraft's writing.

As for the stories themselves, they are somewhat better generally than the first volume, which may simply be a reflection of my preference for the Cthulhu stories, or may alternately reflect that they are indeed better written (as I would argue). The stand out contributions can be found in the final four entries, "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward", "The Dunwich Horror", "At the Mountains of Madness" and "The Thing on the Doorstep", all of which are noteworthy for both individual and common reasons.

"The Case of Charles Dexter Ward", like all four stories, continues the evolution of Lovecraft's occult mythos, but it is most noteworthy (aside from being the longest piece he ever wrote) for the way that it inverts the traditional Yankee ghost/horror story. Lovecraft removes, or rather reassigns, the supernatural and places it instead within the realm of a vast, seemingly unfathomable but quite literally real hidden world. Likewise, "The Dunwich Horror" plays upon these same elements, but at the same time explores the deep mystery of New England's rural regions, and the dichotomy of the bustling coast and the relatively rural interior.

"At the Mountains of Madness" is my favorite Lovecraft story, and is significant in that it represent the most concrete conveyance of facts regarding the various "Old Ones" who ruled the earth untold millennia ago. It also helped create the adventure/techno-thriller genre which is so prevalent today and which so frequently draws occult imagery and themes (the novels of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child being the best representation of this admittedly mixed bag). Finally, "The Thing on the Doorstep" is interesting in that it offers a sequel of sorts to the well regarded "The Shadow Over Innsmouth".

"The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories" comprises another nice collection of stories by Lovecraft. However, what really makes this edition stand out among other options are the fascinating contributions of Joshi which not only flesh out individual stories, but help place them within the larger context of Lovecraft's body of work, life experience and personal philosophies. As such, this is a book which can be enjoyed equally buy long time fans and new readers alike.

Jake Mohlman

The second Lovecraft collection released under the Penguin Classics imprint, "The Thing On the Doorstep and Other Weird Tales" introduces Lovecraft to a reading population that otherwise would not consider reading his works. Besides the title tale, "The Tomb", "The Dunwich Horror", "At Mountains of Madness" are among the Lovecraft gems included.
Edited by top Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi, the collection includes a wonderful brief biographical sketch of Lovecraft that goes beyond the usual scant information usually seen about the author and marvelously detailed notes that not only discuss references in the story itself but give a short history of each story's publication and further reading suggestions.
The number of stories included the Penguin editions may not be as vast as the recent Del Ray trade paperback editions. However the true Lovecraft devotee and those new to the Providence Gentleman will be thrilled with the vast amount of information contained between the covers.

It was a dark, storm tossed night. Sheets of freezing rain slashed down upon me and peals of thunder crashed like the hammer of Thor above. I staggered, near eyeblind, into a bookstore. No, it wasn't one of those clean, well lit, new Barnes and Noble franchises that sprung up across the land like a plague of locusts. It was a damp, musty used book store. A place where alcoholic street urchins sell ratty vestiges of books for beer money. Piles of unread, unused, unloved tomes reach heavenward as a monument of literary futility. All around them, pasty faced, painfully thin denziens lost in abominable fantasy worlds of their own devising. And the proprietor; lurching about the aisles, slumped behind his counter, his face twisted grotesquely in a surly sneer that he offered all his customers.

It was here that I crossed paths with the very spawn of hell itself.

In a dark, dusty section where horror and science fiction books went to die, I saw it. Its yellowing and moldy cover displaying a painting of a creature so surealistic that only the most demented of minds could imagine such a thing. And the name on the spine that simutaniously summonded and mocked me; LOVECRAFT!

It was then that I learned the horrible truth, the utter unspeakable horror of an unhinged mind hellbent upon writing bizarre pulp fiction!

What fun!

If you enjoyed the first book of Lovecraft's work published by Penguin (The Call of Cthulhu) then you will undoubtedly appreciate this one. As before, it is a nice mix of the three areas of Lovecraft's work: the dream cycle, the Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones cycle, and the macabre tales cycle.

In this book you will find what I consider to be one of the best Lovecraft's story: At The Mountains of Madness. It's a novella (about a hundred pages)that's just one of the best short story he has ever written. Along with this there's also this other novella: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. The latter is equally interesting (although the beginning is slighlty deterring, it quickly changes).

On the whole, I'd recommend this book for anyone interested in Lovecraft; however, if you have never read anything by him I recommend you start with Penguin's first book of his work. Not that it's very important but if you asked me that's what I'd advise you.

This wonderful collection is my favourite of the Joshi-edited/annotated volumes in the Penguin Classics editions. I own three copies -- one for my writing desk, one for my bedside, and one that I carry with me when I go on long trips. The final copy is the one that I carried with me, in October of 2007, when its editor led a wee group of us around Lovecraftian sites in Providence, and I held it as my eyes, wide with wonder, gazed at #10 Barnes Street, where Lovecraft lived when he wrote so many of his finest stories and poems.

The book collects many of Lovecraft's finest works, and some few of his "minor" tales. "Pickman's Model" has been called minor by many, and Joyce Carol Oates calls it "trashy" (in the introduction to her volume TALES OF H. P. LOVECRAFT); and yet this wee tale continues to be a favourite among Lovecraft fans and has served as a source of inspiration for those of us who write modern tales of Lovecraftian horror. (In S. T. Joshi's forthcoming anthology of such fiction, BLACK WINGS, there are at least three stories inspired by "Pickman's Model.") It is a story in which almost nothing happens, and yet it is pregnant with that sinister mood that has become known as "Lovecraftina." An early story, of which critics are in disagreement, is the beautifully expressed "The Music of Erich Zann." Of this tale, S. T. Joshi has written, in his splendid biography of Lovecraft, "Lovecraft in later years was aware that 'The Music of Erich Zann' had a sort of negative value: it lacked the flaws -- notably overexplicitness and over-writing -- that marred some of his other works, both before and after." Joshi also write that the tale "...justifiably remained one of Lovecraft's own favourite stories, for it reveals a restraint in its supernatural manifestations (bordering, for one of the few times in his entire work, on obscurity), a pathos in its depiction of its protagonist, and a general polish in its language that Lovecraft rarely achieved in later years."

One talent that Lovecraft did indeed acquire in his latter years was that of writing solid works of great length -- and two of his masterworks are found herein, the short novels "A the Mountains of Madness" and "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward." They represent two polar sides of Lovecraft's works -- the dark and sinister supernatural, and the cosmic. In both, Lovecraft is triumphant. It took me a long time to mature enough to fully appreciate the grandeur of everything that makes "Mountains" such a fascinating work. It is here that Lovecraft fuses the horror story with what was then the new and recent genre of science fiction, and it was fitting that the novel had its first publication as a serial in the sf magazine, Astounding Stories, in 1936. Some readers find the work verbose and overlong, and others find it fascinating and hypnotic. It is a great story to LISTEN to, and has been read in its entirety in the audio series, THE WORLDS OF H. P. LOVECRAFT, which may be found here at Amazon. With THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD, Lovecraft delved into the earthy past, setting the tale in his beloved Providence. In it, he evokes a nameless horror of the most grotesque kind, and brings us one of his most fascinating characters in the guise of Joseph Curwen. It is debatable whether or not Lovecraft was gifted in presenting believable characters in his fiction -- but what cannot be gainsaid is that, with the creations of Curwen, Erich Zann and Wilbur Whateley, Lovecraft breathed life into characters that are unique in every way.

"The Dunwich Horror," found herein, is not one of Joshi's favourite Lovecraft tales. In his new book, THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS, S. T. declares that the story is an "artistic failure" because it strays from aspects of weird fiction that Lovecraft deemed all-important, believing that cosmic fiction should not enforce the clumsy idea of "good versus evil" and such. Yet "The Dunwich Horror" is a powerful tale and remains, justifiably, one of Lovecraft's most popular.

Even Lovecraft's "bad" fiction is of intense interest and highly enjoyable. "The Thing on the Doorstep" is not one of Lovecraft's best stories -- and yet it has a lot in it that is highly entertaining. It contains one of Lovecraft's few women characters, and she is superbly portrayed.

All three of the Joshi-edited Penguin titles are really wonderful. They contain S. T.'s texts, which he had carefully edited so that they correct the many errors of earlier editions of Lovecraft's fiction, and they contain extensive notes on each story. This is a fantastic book and will serve as a fabulous introduction to those who are reading Lovecraft for the first time.

It tells you something about the critical reappraisal of American horror writer H P Lovecraft that Penguin Classics is releasing short story collections by this writer.

The current collection, like the first Call of Cthulhu, gives us a sampling of Lovecraft's writing arranged chronologically. This volume is dominated by two of his best novella: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, one of Lovecraft's most unsettling works, and the great tale of Antarctic horror At the Mountains of Madness. These are must reads for horror fans and among Lovecraft's best efforts.

There are also three classic short stories here: the enigmatic Music of Eric Zann, the ghoulish Pickman's Model and the late Cthulhu Mythos tale The Thing on the Doorstep, which takes some of the concepts of possession from Charles Dexter Ward and goes in another direction with them. These tales also rank high in Lovecraft's output.

The remaining stories are more of a mixed bag, especially the early tales, but we do get a nice representative tale from the writer's "Dunsany" fantasy period with The White Ship. However, the format allows one to see Lovectaft mature as a writer and even the weaker tales have their moments and point toward his later efforts.

Great work by editor Joshi, who is doing a great service for Lovecraft fans with his definitive texts. His notes are especially welcome for At The Mountains of Madness, which manages to cover an amazing amount of scientific, historical, and mythological ground in its simple format.

Lovecraft may not be the most subtle writer, but at his best he takes us on a slow gradual journey that begins simple enough and leads us to true cosmic horror. Just look at a movie like Alien and you'll see Lovecraft's influence has been remarkable.

I've always recommended the Arkham House hardcovers as the way to properly read Lovecraft, figuring you might as well start at the top as sooner or later you'd want the Arkhams anyway and be out any monies spent on inferior editions. But then along came the Penguin Classics editions of Lovecraft (three of them to date) prepared by S.T. Joshi, the same man who prepared the texts for the recent editions of the Arkham House Lovecrafts, and suddenly the which version to buy question is not so easily answered.

The Penguin editions of HPL have much to recommend them. Definitive texts, lengthy notes by Joshi for each tale ("The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" alone has 170 footnotes!), and the comfortable Penguin binding that lays easily open and is ideal for travel.

The title-story here is one of my least favorites in all of Lovecraft but happily two of his very best are here -- "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" and "At the Mountains of Madness". Other strong tales within include "The Music of Eric Zann" and "Pickman's Model". There are a total of 12 stories along with Joshi's introduction and notes.

I should note, the Arkham House editions of Lovecraft are the complete Lovecraft. These three Penguin paperbacks do not present the complete fiction, making the Arkham editions still the ones to have if you wish to have it all (like me).

A studious version, if you like. There are a large number of notes for each story for you to delve into - some 70 odd pages worth, and a list of texts given for more of a look at Lovecraft.

Thing on the Doorstep : The Tomb - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : Beyond the Wall of Sleep - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : The White Ship - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : The Temple - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : The Quest of Iranon - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : The Music of Erich Zann - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : Under the Pyramids ["Imprisoned with the Pharaohs", as Harry Houdini]
Thing on the Doorstep : Pickman's Model - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : The Case of Charles Dexter Ward - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : The Dunwich Horror - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : At the Mountains of Madness - H. P. Lovecraft
Thing on the Doorstep : The Thing on the Doorstep - H. P. Lovecraft