The Transition of H. P. Lovecraft: The Road to Madness

by H.P. Lovecraft, John Jude Palencar, Barbara Hambly

One of the most influential practitioners of American horror, H.P. Lovecraft inspired the work of Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Clive Barker. As he perfected his mastery of the macabre, his works developed from seminal fragments into acknowledged masterpieces of terror. This volume traces his chilling career and includes:
IMPRISONED WITH THE PHARAOHS--Houdini seeks to reveal the demons that inhabit the Egyptian night.
AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS--An unsuspecting expedition uncovers a city of untold terror, buried beneath an Antarctic wasteland.
Plus, for the first time in any Del Rey edition:
HERBERT WEST: REANIMATOR--Mad experiments yield hideous results in this, the inspiration for the cult film Re-Animator.
COOL AIR--An icy apartment hides secrets no man dares unlock.
THE TERRIBLE OLD MAN--The intruders seek a fortune but find only death!
AND TWENTY-FOUR MORE BLOOD-CHILLING TALES

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Short Stories, Fantasy, Lovecraftian, Classics, Anthologies

379 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1996

About the author

Howard 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

Reviews

[Nayra.Hassan · Rating 4 out of 5]

فلتترك عقلك جانبا..و معه قناعاتك و منطقك..قبل ان تدخل لعالم لافكرفت. .فستذهب معه في رحلة لطريق الجنون بشروطه هو..

فنحن مع فريق من جامعة ميسكاتونك التى تقع ببلدة ارخام
اذا كنت من هواة البحث عن الاماكن الحقيقية و رؤية صورها على النت
..فلتتوقف..لا يوجد بلدة او جامعة بهذا الاسم..و لا يوجد حرف الخاء اصلا ذو الرنين الغريب..

اهلا بك في العالم الخاص جدا لهوارد فيلبس لافكرفت..بابجديته..و مدنه..وبحاره.. و جامعتها..و مكتباتها التي تحتوي على كتب اسطوريه..و منها .نيكرونوميكون 📚

اذا كنت معتادا على لوسيفر..و ترانسلفانيا و فرانكشتاين..فلتنسى كل المرعبين البلدي دول.!!هنا لابد و تقنع نفسك جزءيا بفكرة الكيانات القديمة..فهو يتعامل معها كحقائق ثابتة و تظهر مرارا في قصصه.. ويالها من قصص تقودك خطوة خطوة إلى عتبة الجنون

في طريق الجنون من أطول قصصه..90صفحة و قائمة على فرضية
U Contact--Ancient Astronauts
من خلال رحلة أكاديميون لانتاراكتيا..او القطب الجنوبي..و مع داير و دانفورث و غيرهم..ستذهب عام 1930 لرؤية اثار تلك الكائنات ذات الطابع البحري المقزز...التي يعشقها لافكرفت🐙
و هو يعشق ايضا قتل التشويق عن طريق الراوي ..او ضمير المتكلم و يحكي من خلاله الحدث بعد انتهاءه

القصة لها صلات وثيقة مع قصة ظل انزماوث و نداء كتولو..ولهم ترجمة جيدة بواسطة د.احمد خالد توفيق
ولا ارجحها كبداية لعالم لافكرافت..ولا أنصح بها ايضا لمن هو فوق الخمسين..او تحت 18

[Werner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note, Jan. 17, 2016: I just edited this review to correct one misspelling.

The selections in this volume are arranged chronologically, so that they show the progression, and gradual maturing, of Lovecraft's work, from early stories like "The Transition of Juan Romero" to his powerful later work like the novella At the Mountains of Madness. (This is the titular transition; the title and subtitle play on the names of both of these Lovecraft works, but aren't meant to imply that he ever went mad.) All of the material here effectively displays the same characteristics I noted in my earlier review of The Best of H. P. Lovecraft, which is part of the same Del Rey series.

Stories like "Arthur Jermyn" (titled "White Ape" in some anthologies) and "The Lurking Fear" vividly demonstrate the hag-ridden fear of devolution that lies at the heart of Darwinism. (The Darwinism of Lovecraft's day was also openly racist, which accounts for the racially-insensitive language in parts of Lovecraft's corpus that Hambly notes in her introduction; but her charge of sexism is less credible. Lovecraft wrote almost entirely about male characters because, apart from his short-lived marriage, he had little contact with women other than his mother and his aunts and had little understanding of them; but that isn't the same thing as sexism.) "The White Ship" illustrates the vein of mystical, even beautiful fantasy that rarely appears in his work; while "Imprisoned With the Pharaohs" (written with Harry Houdini) is a good example of his many collaborations, in which he took someone's basic idea and worked it up in his own inimitable style. Besides these, some of my own personal favorites in this volume include "The Shunned House," "The Horror at Red Hook," "The Unnameable," "Cool Air," "The Moon-Bog," and "Herbert West --Reanimator." But ALL of them are well worth a read!

[Kevin Hinman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Transition of H. P. Lovecraft is a fairly solid group of shorts, but isn't really recommended for those new to the macabre world of Lovecraft. The collection favors more obscure early pieces, which are interesting as curios for completests, but since they were written when H. P. was still sulking around school and listening to whatever the 1900s version of The Cure was, most of them are garbage.

The standout works are the wonderfully crafted Mountains of Madness, Herbert West: Re-animator, In the Walls of Eryx, and my personal favorite - The Temple, in which a U-Boat captain slowly goes insane after his vessel sinks down to the ruins of a lost city.

These stories are all fantastic, haunting Gothic tales that rival the best Poe, but for every Re-animator there is an Evil Clergyman and a Beast in the Cave to bookend it. Fans, come back for your favorites and explore the Juvenilia at your own risk. First timers, pick up a Best Of anthology instead.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Lovecraft is like having a horrific tale told to you by an english gentleman in a waist coat over tea in a parlor with a roaring fire. It's like sitting in front of the hearth in a large wing back chair while the storm rages outside. I now understand why Stephen King credits him as an inspiration. He has created richly detailed stories of all types of horror and mayhem and even dabbles in the realm of science fiction. Long before many others were dreaming up such things. I'm told that this volume is far from his best, I'm all a flutter to get my hands on the next volume. I also understand that he wrote many of these stories as a fifteen year old. The fact alone that they are flawless in grammar and structure, but the ability to create a lasting work of fantasy at that age. A lovely collection of mayhem!

[✨Bean's Books✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a compilation of HP Lovecraft's works. This one includes a few of his early tales along with Dagon, Imprisoned with the Pharaohs, and At the Mountains of Madness. His works are definitely a favorite of mine and I would recommend this to anyone.

[Tyler Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dude...it's Lovecraft.

[Fiza Pathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must admit that this was the first time I actually came across the author H. P. Lovecraft. I found this book at the Strand Bookstall in Mumbai after it fell on my head as I was rummaging through a bookshelf containing some other great books on philosophy.

I was taken aback when I read on the back cover of the book that Lovecraft had inspired many of my own favourite authors of the macabre like Anne Rice, Stephen King & Clive Barker. As I poured over the stories at night UNDER my study table with the table lamp on, I was transported to a realm quite different from my own understanding of terror & fantasy. Lovecraft's ideas were not only macabre but also quite morbid & blood chilling. True that his works are steeped in grand descriptions which normally puts a casual reader of, but a true lover of literature & horror will certainly realize after reading Lovecraft's works like 'At The Mountains Of Madness', 'Reanimator', 'Imprisoned With The Pharaohs' etc that, the descriptions are all meaningful to completely realize the actual horror behind it all.

As Barbara Hambly stated, H.P. Lovecraft struggles to bring out his ideas to the reader....it is his idea that is powerful & extraordinary. His pseudo - Poe short stories take on another turn as they get more original & more bizzare as the years go by. Lovecraft's characters too keep on undergoing transformations & at times reappear in other stories. He in the bargain creates a niche for himself in the horror & fantasy genre which no one can rob.

He is excellent as I have observed in first person accounts of the story, making the reader grip the book tightly in a cold sweat as he administers the opiate of fear into our system....almost like his warped character Herbert West does by administering a special powder into the veins of dead bodies or organs to bring them to life in the 'Reanimator'(this was better than Frankenstein). Most of Lovecraft's protagonists I have observed are men (its always men !!!) who are :

1] Well educated

2] Intelligent

3] Believe in the dark forces & works of very sinister personalities (eg., the constant repition of the book Necronomicon by the Arab Abdul Alhazred who was a genius par excellance)

4] Have this constant habit of getting into trouble inspite of their intelligence

No doubt that at times his stories have a certain amount of Racism present in it, never the less, Lovecraft still pens his stories with a masterstroke of a true wizard of the terrible. Most of his main characters as I have stated before are common scholars or scientists except for 'Imprisoned With The Pharoahs' where the poor person imprisoned is the world famous escape artist (got to love him) Harry Houdini.

My personal favourites in this book were ;

1) The Transition Of Juan Romero

2) The Temple

3) The Terrible Old Man

4) Reanimator (lots of gross descriptions & lots of blood....too good !)

5) Imprisoned With The Pharaohs (I love Houdini)

6) The Horror At Red Hook (out of this world !) &

7) In The Walls Of Eryx (he co -authored this with Kenneth Sterling)

Lovecraft refers a lot to Edgar Allen Poe in most of his early works especially in 'The Shunned House' where it looks like he really was enamoured by the original creator of the macabre.

All in all.......a thumbs up for Lovecraft & his 'madness'. Now I am going to check out all the movies that have been based on this stories. Indeed, many movies have found their genesis in the works of this master of ghastly descriptions.

I shall post some more information & links after I finish my research. Got to get my students to check this guy out.

[Steven]

These are the Lovecraft stories I've read so far, just for my own personal record-keeping...

At the Mountains of Madness
Azathoth
Beyond the Wall of Sleep
Book
Call of Cthulhu
Case of Charles Dexter Ward
Cats of Ulthar
Celephaïs
Colour out of Space
Cool Air
Crawling Chaos
Dagon
Descendant
Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
Dreams in the Witch House
Doom that Came to Sarnath
Dunwich Horror
Evil Clergyman
Ex Oblivione
Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family
Festival
From Beyond
Haunter of the Dark
He
Herbert West–Reanimator
History of the Necronomicon
Horror at Red Hook
Hound
Hypnos
Ibid .
Imprisoned With the Pharoahs
In the Vault .
In the Walls of Eryx
Lurking Fear
Memory
Moon Bog
Mound
Music of Erich Zann
Nameless City
Nathicana
Nyarlathotep
Old Bugs .
Other Gods
Outsider
Pickman's Model
Picture in the House
Polaris
Quest of Iranon
Rats in the Walls
Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson .
Shadow Out of Time
Shadow over Innsmouth
Shunned House
Silver Key
Statement of Randolph Carter
Strange High House in the Mist
Street
Sweet Ermengarde .
Temple
Terrible Old Man
Thing on the Doorstep
Through the Gates of the Silver Key
Transition of Juan Romero
Tree
Tomb
Unnamable
Very Old Folk .
What the Moon Brings
Whisperer in Darkness
White Ship
Winged Death

[Michael Sorbello · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twenty-nine Tales of Terror by H.P Lovecraft. It starts off with some of his weaker and less memorable tales, but there are some gems scattered throughout it such as...

At the Mountains of Madness: William Dyer, a professor at Arkham's Miskatonic University recalls his chilling findings during his scientific expedition to Antartica with a team of researchers. William and his team uncovered ancient ruins and fossils within the innermost unexplored caves, mountains and frozen wastes never before seen. The creation of the world, the races that ruled before prehistoric times, the many wars waged between cosmic beings from across the vast universe, the minuscule role humans play in the grand scheme of all existence. All this is revealed and more within the Mountains of Madness.

Dagon: The final confession of a morphine addicted marine merchant who experienced something so terrifying during a sea voyage in World War I that it shattered his sanity. These are his hastily scrawled notes he managed to write down before casting himself from his hospital window, for he just can't bear to live with the long lost secrets of ancient seafaring creatures and intelligent entities that lurk below the water's surface.

The Tomb: The Tomb tells the eerie tale of Jervas Dudley, a shy and curious boy who spends most of his time daydreaming in his lonesome. Being the curious fellow he is, he develops an obsession with the mysterious tomb belonging to the Hyde family, whose nearby mansion had burnt down hundreds of years ago. After failing to break into the tomb, Jervas falls asleep by the entrance. His dreams are haunted by horrific ghostly visions of the family's secret history of debauchery, blasphemy and other forms of wickedness. After being terrified by nightmarish visions of the family and learning the truth of how their house burnt down, he uncovers a key to the tomb in which he discovers a burial with his name on it. Curious Jervas soon learns the meaning of curiosity killed the cat.

A mixed bag of some of Lovecraft's best and quite a few average and bad ones as well.

[Hunter Duesing · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I like about thes collections of Lovecraft's work is that are themed in some way. The purpose of this collection is to track Lovecraft's evolution as a writer. As Neil Gaiman is quick to point out in his introduction, most of Lovecraft's early work (like 'The Beast in the Cave' for example) isn't very good, but it shows promise, and as this book proves, that promise was fulfilled as Lovecraft grew as a writer. If you are new to Lovecraft's short fiction, you'll probably want to start elsewhere by picking up a "greatest hits" collection of his work. If you've read Lovecraft and you enjoy what he has to offer, you'll find a great deal of juicy stuff to sink your teeth into.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am too biased to write a proper review. I love Lovecraft and usually feel the need to read something of his at least once a year. This was my last unread volume on the shelf and it's a collection of some of his earlier more obscure stories. Honestly his plotlines are frequently redundant because they are usually different branches of his own mythology, but the world he has created is so detailed, so macabre and and strangely gothic. I always find myself getting completely lost in it regardless of any predictablility.

[Man Solo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Has the great story Under the Pyramid starring Harry Houdini

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What does it mean to be mad? One might define madness as the state wherein one can no longer distinguish between real, objective phenomena, as experienced empirically by the senses, from certain delusions of the mind; seeing ghosts, as it were. But surely the madman believes the phantasms of his mind to be quite real; this is why the objective standard of empiricism is indispensible. But what if one’s senses convey something which all one’s prior experience betrays as logically impossible? Does one trust to empiricism, or, in true Kantian fashion, shape reality according to his experience? Of the two paths, rejecting what one experiences or believing something contrary to one’s logical makeup, which is true madness? This issue goes right to the heart of many of the stories of H.P. Lovecraft, assembled in this collection appropriately titled The Road to Madness.

Lovecraft is most famous for his Cthulu mythos cycle, but only a few of the stories here can be said to belong to the mythos proper. The rest are simply tales of men who have glimpsed a horrible secret, or carry that secret within themselves, and as a result teeter on the edge of madness. Take, for instance, Arthur Jermyn, ill-fated hero of the story of the same name. Research into his ancestral history hints at a monstrous pedigree, and a final damning piece of evidence tips the scales; Arthur is driven to madness and suicide. The story is exemplary of Lovecraft’s classical modus operandi; the protagonist, most often a first-person narrator, passes off as coincidence or delusion events which the reader knows are meant to be taken as actual occurrences, until some climactic circumstance forces him to confront what he had previously only dared to suspect. Those who are not, like Jermyn, driven over the edge will attribute their horrible experiences to mental fatigue, nervousness, or an overactive imagination. The fact remains, however, that the reader knows that what has happened was indeed real.

In his mythos stories, the horrible reality lurking beneath the superficiality of human understanding connects to the very heart of the universe and the other beings which inhabit it. For example, in At the Mountains of Madness, one of Lovecraft’s most famous works, an expedition to the Antarctic uncovers the remains of a city built long before humans walked the earth. Shaken, but with sanity intact, the survivors resolve to keep the horrible secret from the rest of the world. In other stories, however, the horror arises from other sources. In Herbert West – Reanimator, the titular character learns the secret of restoring dead tissue to a semblance of life. Far from being deterred by the monstrous results, West pushes further still until his macabre obsession literally consumes him.

The collection is not completely filled with darkness and horror, however. Included are a sample of Lovecraft’s earliest works, which include some clumsy imitations of Poe, but show the maturation of a writer slowly finding his own voice. There are several short pieces and poems which show Lovecraft’s command of language to create a unique aesthetic. The Tree is one such example, a short fable set in ancient Greece. One of the most interesting offerings is In the Walls of Eryx, which is pure science-fiction. Framed as the recordings of a field worker sent on a resource-gathering expedition on Venus, Lovecraft’s trademark psychological musing is again at work, only here the confounding device is of alien, rather than supernatural origin.

Because the stories in this collection focus mostly on the mental battles of the characters, and because only a few of the more well-known works are included, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it as an introduction to Lovecraft. But for those familiar with his work, or who don’t mind taking a chance on some eldritch mystery, there is much here to incite the mind and imagination.

[Traummachine · Rating 5 out of 5]

3.5 stars (as a collection):
It's hard to rate a Lovecraft collection. He is pretty hit and miss, so most of his collections are probably mixed bags. But all of them I've read contain several stories that are Lovecraft at his best. So I guess the best thing to do is to briefly cover my faves so you can decide if this is a good collection for you to pick up. Keep in mind that some of these might seem cliche, but that's due to all the imitators. Only Poe and a handful of others were writing Horror before Lovecraft.

The Terrible Old Man: Easily the best 3 page story I've ever read. Despite the super short length, when I start listing my favorite Lovecraft tales this is always one of the first to come to mind. It's so short that if I say anything else about it I'll give it away!

Herbert West--Reanimator: Take the movie Re-Animator, and make it more Night and less Return (of the Living Dead) and you've got a pretty good idea. Very cool, easily the earliest zombie story I've ever read.

The Lurking Fear: Link to the movie, which I saw a long time ago. A town has been plagued for decades by ghoulish creatures which appear and then mysteriously vanish. Our hero discovers the subterranean tunnels they use and explores them. Very tense (since the hero's an academic, not a Rambo)!

The Unnamable: Not a good movie, but it is a very good short story. An author tries to convince his friend that his horror stories are not so far-fetched as they might seem.

Cool Air: A good adaptation of Lovecraft. Our hero moves into a tenement, where he is saved from a heart attack by the mysterious doctor who lives upstairs from him. He and the doctor start to become friends, but the strange smells, sounds, and temperature in his apartment make him feel more and more uneasy.

At the Mountains of Madness: I have no idea how this movie is. But the story is a milestone for Lovecraft -- one of his 3 longest tales, it describes an expedition into Antarctica, where strange creatures are dug up from the ice, where advance parties of the expedition are found slaughtered, and where horrible ancient civilizations are found and explored. This definitely influenced one of my favorite movies of all time, The Thing.

There are several other solid Lovecraft stories in this collection, but there are just as many that were blah. So the good stories here are amazing, but as a collection it's just meh for non-completists.

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

First Recorded Reading: October 9, 2000


In my continuing quest for interesting bedtime reading, I have finished this cheerful volume of dark tales from H. P. Lovecraft. (I have three of these volumes, all with very creepy cover art by surreal artist John Jude Palencar; this volume, The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre by H. P. Lovecraft, Introduction by Robert Bloch, and The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft: Dreams of Terror and Death by H. P. Lovecraft, Introduction by Neil Gaiman. And I should note that I am apparently reading these volumes out of order, because this present book contains a lot of material from the author’s early work, before he became a master horror writer. But this volume is a very good one, with some great material, and I recommend it to those who love the craft of Lovecraft.

The book begins with five early tales, followed by a fragment of a story; then the collection swings into high gear, with such wonderful stories as “The White Ship”, “The Crawling Chaos” (no one could beat Lovecraft for great story names), “The Lurking Fear”, “Imprisoned with the Pharaohs” (ghost-written by Lovecraft for Harry Houdini, who claimed that the incident recorded had happened to him; since Houdini’s account turned out to be mostly fictitious, Lovecraft got to let his imagination loose on the story), “The Shunned House” (which makes no sense whatsoever, upon reflection, but is still a great story), and “Cool Air”.

The novella “At The Mountains of Madness” is in this collection; and besides being a story that tells us You Really Don’t Want To Know What Is At Antarctica, I wish that Professor Dyer could use his powers of interpreting mural art in terms of both time and space to more accessible art (like Egyptian murals). The collection ends with two short stories, one of which, “In The Walls of Eryx”, is an out-and-out science fiction story, set on the planet Venus.

I think this is a great collection of Lovecraft’s stories, and I look forward to re-reading The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft: Dreams of Terror and Death by H. P. Lovecraft, Introduction by Neil Gaiman as my bedtime reading for a week or so.

[Leothefox · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume is sort of a history, taking us along the chronological road of Lovecraft's development. We start with the very early “The Beast in the Cave” and into some curious efforts on our way up through “Dagon”, “The White Ship”, and one of my all-time favorites, “The Crawling Chaos”. Even then, it's just getting started.

Even for a seasoned Lovecraft enthusiast, this makes for one weird and interesting trip! Some of it is fanciful strangeness that almost doesn't connect up to anything, other stuff drifts into politics and points elsewhere. Here we find a WW1 horror story, a tale set on Venus, and a Harry Houdini adventure!

For more famous tales, there's “Herbert West-Reanimator”, “At the Mountains of Madness”, “The Shunned House” and “The Lurking Fear”. There's also a story I've always found memorable but which I never heard anybody mention, “The Alchemist”, which involves a narrator doomed by a family curse.

There are stories from the New York period, “The Horror at Red Hook”, “Cool Air”, and the ultimate rejection of the modern metropolis, “He”. Lovecraft's xenophobia fires there stories along, channeling popular fears of the day which are somehow not gone yet.

There are 29 stories here, providing a rich variety, strengthened by the wealth of short pieces sandwiched in with meatier ones like “Herbert West” and “At the Mountains of Madness”. Some of these tales are like old friends by now, especially “The Crawling Chaos” and “The Festival” (seriously, read this one if nothing else!). The word “nightmare” is overused when describing horror fiction, but Lovecraft really nails the dream state, right up to the ripe cherry at the very end, “The Evil Clergyman”.

Read it!

[Martin Gibbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Purple


Purple is the word that comes to mind after reading this collection of stories from one of the original masters. I think of the purple void of nightmare and the purple prose that wends its way through these passages. The writing is terrific, dark, brooding, flowing—but sometimes you can fee strangled by it, wrapped in its stream.

The stories themselves are great, the masterpiece in my opinion being "At the Mountains of Madness." But, through all of the blocks of text, with all the deep descriptions of terror and the Old Ones, there is no dialogue. After reading de Camp's biography, I realize Lovecraft was averse to the stuff, but to quote a famous football player "C'mon, man!" You can still build terror and fear though the speech of the characters.

This is a great volume for those wishing to go back and see the inspiration for a century of horror and fantasy. Video games, novels, movies, etc., have all drawn from these tales. It is fun to go back and read the original—for audiences in the '30s, this was some seriously scary stuff.

Three stars for lack of dialogue and a lot of purple. But purple's not a bad color.

[Jeff Diamond · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. There isn't much I can say about H.P. Lovecraft that hasn't already been said a bajillion times, but I can take a stab at it.

The Road to Madness is a collection of Lovecraft's stories, but it feels like the collection's quality is hit-or-miss. Some of the earlier works are there, and are fun to read, but when you look at some stories, they are clearly better than others. However, this does give a good insight into some of the progress that Lovecraft made as an author, and the changes his style underwent.

That being said, I don't think I'd read it again. For one, the cover art is really freaky, and I'm worried that it'd give my kids nightmares. The stories are good ones--and ones you see less frequently that others--but there are certainly better collections out there.

[River McKee · Rating 4 out of 5]

In The Transition of H.P. Lovecraft: The Road to Madness, I read the short story He. It is about this young man who hates walking during the day so he walks around at night. He does this every night until one night he meets this old man. He's wearing dark old clothes with a trench coat. The old man tells the young man to follow him, so he did and he followed him for a very long time in the dark. They continued walking until they both get to the old mans house and they go inside. Then the old man brings the young man up stairs into a room.
He lights a candle and starts telling the young man scary stories. Then the old man tells the young man to look outside the window. So he does and then the old man starts chanting and then the young man starts seeing very demonic things. The young man falls to the ground and starts screaming and the old man starts getting really mad at the young man and scratches him with his long old nails. Then the old man starts getting really scared. The young man realizes this and asks why are you getting scared. And he says they're coming for me.
I liked that the book was based a really long time ago when New York was first getting built. What I didn't like was that they spoke so different back then so it was hard to comprehend and read but it was a good read overall. I would recommend this to anyone who likes a suspenseful and kind of scary book.

[Elias · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great stuff, I read it mostly for Mountains of Madness, but it's full of other tales. I'd had trouble finding it in other collections, such as the ST Joshi edited one with footnotes. HPL is classic, gold standard stuff for mood, and it's amazing that really what we're reading is sci-fi and not fantasy, exactly. MoM takes some diving in, as HPL is very dense with descriptions in an academic style rather than what other authors might do with popular fiction: virtually no dialogue, all descriptions, and you infer things broadly. My complaint is that he does a lot of exposition with this, following the history of certain beings rather than telling a Robert E Howard style action tale, but that's the author, and something of the point: mortal men, not heroes, are encountering the weird. Great stuff, despite its historic period being apparent; in fact, I like the immersion of that. The cover of the edition is also great fun, and is possibly the best looking version of his tales that I've come across (imho).

[luciddreamer99 · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the stories here are not as good as the Best of Lovecraft volume by the same publisher, this volume still has some Lovecraft goodness. Highlighted perhaps by the short novel "At the Mountains of Madness," the stories display Lovecraft's characteristically detailed prose with his brand of mysterious horror. "In the Walls of Eryx" is a nice little science fiction story I don't remember reading, and there are other great multi-part stories, such as "Herbert West--Reanimator." Overall, I'd say this is a good collection of Lovecraft stories, though maybe not the best. I really liked it, but I'm a big fan of Lovecraft. If you are looking for the best Lovecraft, and have never read him, I'd say check out The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre from Ballantine/Del Rey. This volume has some early works of the author's that, while interesting in the overall picture of his work, are just not as polished as his later works. Again, still enjoyable, still good horror, just not the best of the best.

[Nicholas Beck · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Transition of H. P. Lovecraft was a fantastic example of the many different styles in which Lovecraft wrote his stories over the years. This contained a number of terrifically scary stories with tremendous settings outside the traditional New England location. Some of my favorites were At The Mountains Of Madness, In The Walls Of Eryx, Cool Air, The Lurking Fear, and Herbert West-Reanimator. This collection of stories took the reader to the ends of the earth, to other parts of the solar system, and to the limits which the human mind can change the world around. As with all of Lovecraft's stories the reader is left thinking about the implications the writer suggests in the incredibly horrific images.

I would definitely read this collection of stories again, but if a reader is new to Lovecraft this is not the book with which to begin. Some of the stories are during his younger years and the difference can easily be seen in the writing as well as the complexity of the stories.

[Ethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book contains some of Lovecraft's lesser-known and earlier work as well as a few famous pieces. Some of the earlier stories are only okay, but true Lovecraft fans will enjoy seeing how he progressed. Since this collection contains my all-time favorite Lovecraft story (or novella, actually), At the Mountains of Madness, I can't help but give it five stars. It also contains a few classics, like "Herbert West - Reanimator," and some interesting stories, like "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" (ghost-written for Harry Houdini). My favorite of the less popular stories is "In the Walls of Eryx," which is old school science fiction story in an eldritch, Lovecraftian key. Barbara Hambley's introduction is surprisingly fun for a Lovecraft introduction (I suppose Lovecraft fans have to make light of all that noisome terror to stay sane). Lastly, John Jude Palencar's illustrations are delightfully devious. I only wish there had been more.

[Farrah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Lovecraft quote which thrust me into this dark world of creepy splendor: "Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness." -The Outsider

fucking magical. and now on to the collection at hand. i'll say this: as a collected edition of stories laid out chronologically, i enjoyed witnessing lovecraft's genius unfold. while there is always a demon or monster in his stories, the ones in his early writing career, like the first one in this addition written when he was 14 years old, were monsters in the vain of the addams family. later, his writing transcends his own abilities and becomes its own beast. this is when the monsters which his characters battle are sentient--like the kind we battle in real life. honestly, before that, the writing is crap. just like any 14 year-old's. Seriously, read some of mine.

[Alex Barclay · Rating 5 out of 5]

In high school, a friend of mine had a tattered copy of "The Road to Madness" that he let me borrow. Before then, I had been a big fan of Stephen King and Clive Barker, but it never occurred to me that there may be a writer more influential in my horror writing. That's when H.P. Lovecraft entered my life. Works out of this book, such as "At the Mountains of Madness", "The Horror at Red Hook", and "Herbert West, Reanimator", remain some of my favorites to this day. H.P. Lovecraft taught me to reach beyond what I considered weird, and to plumb the depths of what could be out there to find true horror. Although some of the work may seem a bit outdated, the tales of madness that Lovecraft created, to me, rival that of any horror writer.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

A kind of “sequel” to the cornerstone DelRay collection Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre, The Road to Madness is an odd hodgepodge of some of Lovecraft’s best along his very worst. Like the loose Dream Cycle stories, these include some fragments and juvenilia that apes Poe or Dunsany. However, the collection includes a few absolute essentials: At the Mountains of Madness, Herbert West - Reanimator, Dagon, Cool Air, and The Lurking Fear are all worthy entries in the Lovecraft library. Some of the others, like Lovecraft’s “most sci-fi” tale In the Walls of Eryx, are interesting side roads. Overall, you can pick and choose a few choice cuts with this one, unless you’re an obsessive completist like me. In that case, enjoy!

[Bob Zyla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like the Del Ray trade paperback collections of Lovecraft's work, most being organized by theme. This one seemed different in that it's more a vague retrospective from early juvenalia to later mature works, and not concentrating on the Cthulhu mythos or Dream Cycle for example. It's not easy to pick favorites here, as I'm being a completionist and chronologically working through all his fiction.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Jude Palencar's art for this Del Rey series is disturbing in the most beautiful way. H.P. Lovecraft is mandatory reading for any horror fan! My favorite stories in this collection were, The Book, The White Ship (Maybe one of my all time favorites by Lovecraft), The Lurking Fear, The Horror at Red Hook (Another favorite). Beautiful bizarre stories to haunt your dreams!

[Rubena Redondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

wooow that is good book

[Izabela Noga · Rating 4 out of 5]

jak mi brakowało klasyki jezus😭😭😭 takie fajne to było(edzio Poe nadal wygrywa)