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The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories
The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (Penguin Classics Deluxe)
300 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2022
About the author
H.P. Lovecraft
6,478 books19.6k followersHoward Phillips Lovecraft, of Providence, Rhode Island, was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction.
Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.
Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.
See also Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
— Wikipedia
Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.
Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.
See also Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
— Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 13, 2026
I had read some of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories when I was much younger—likely in high school—and was thrilled by them. I noticed this Penguin Orange Classic volume at a bookstore and wondered if the stories would hold the same fascination now that I am much older and more mature. They didn’t. They are so over-written and full of “purple” prose that they make Edward Bulwer-Lytton's florid, melodramatic “It was a dark and stormy night…” seem tame.
The 16 short stories and two novellas contained herein are all written in the first person (except for the final story, “The Haunter in the Dark,” which is written in the third person). The narrator either directly experienced the supernatural horrors described in the stories or relates the terrors experienced by a friend or colleague. The style is unwavering.
The volume is edited by Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi, but there is no introduction or biographical information about Lovecraft to put the collection into any kind of literary or historical context. Lovecraft was certainly erudite and had a voluminous vocabulary at his disposal.
In my opinion, the most fully realized and successful of the pieces is the novella, “The Whisperer in Darkness.”
The 16 short stories and two novellas contained herein are all written in the first person (except for the final story, “The Haunter in the Dark,” which is written in the third person). The narrator either directly experienced the supernatural horrors described in the stories or relates the terrors experienced by a friend or colleague. The style is unwavering.
The volume is edited by Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi, but there is no introduction or biographical information about Lovecraft to put the collection into any kind of literary or historical context. Lovecraft was certainly erudite and had a voluminous vocabulary at his disposal.
In my opinion, the most fully realized and successful of the pieces is the novella, “The Whisperer in Darkness.”
Displaying 1 of 1 review