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H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction Omnibus Collection - The Early Years: 1908-1925
This volume covers H.P. Lovecraft's "apprentice years" roughly the first half of his literary career, the half written before his return to Providence in 1926. Every story written for publication under his own name is included in this volume, from 1917 through 1925.
Highlights of this volume include:
The Tomb Dagon The Doom that Came to Sarnath The Temple The Picture in the House The Nameless City The Outsider The Other Gods The Music of Erich Zann Herbert West, Reanimator The Hound The Lurking Fear The Rats in the Walls The Shunned House The Festival The Horror at Red Hook In the Vault Supernatural Horror in Literature
Highlights of this volume include:
The Tomb Dagon The Doom that Came to Sarnath The Temple The Picture in the House The Nameless City The Outsider The Other Gods The Music of Erich Zann Herbert West, Reanimator The Hound The Lurking Fear The Rats in the Walls The Shunned House The Festival The Horror at Red Hook In the Vault Supernatural Horror in Literature
645 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 15, 2018
About the author
H.P. Lovecraft
6,542 books19.8k 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 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 5, 2018
It's October, so I figured it's the perfect time to read (and in many cases, re-read) the stories of my favorite horror author.
Volume 1 of Lovecraft's Complete Fiction Omnibus collects his earlier stories. We get a good selection of some of his most well known stories such as "Herbert West, Reanimator", "The Rats in the Walls", "Nyarlathotep", "Dagon", and "The Outsider". We also get a good selection of his Dreamland Cycle stories such as "The Cats of Ulthar" and "Polaris". People who only think of Lovecraft as a horror writer will really be surprised at some of his Dreamland stories, like "The Quest of Iranon", which is more fantasy and fairy tale than horror.
Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos starts taking shape here, too, with major players (like Dagon and Nyarlathotep) making appearances.
Volume 1 of Lovecraft's Complete Fiction Omnibus collects his earlier stories. We get a good selection of some of his most well known stories such as "Herbert West, Reanimator", "The Rats in the Walls", "Nyarlathotep", "Dagon", and "The Outsider". We also get a good selection of his Dreamland Cycle stories such as "The Cats of Ulthar" and "Polaris". People who only think of Lovecraft as a horror writer will really be surprised at some of his Dreamland stories, like "The Quest of Iranon", which is more fantasy and fairy tale than horror.
Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos starts taking shape here, too, with major players (like Dagon and Nyarlathotep) making appearances.
March 28, 2026
Spooky stories mostly set in New England. Some really compelling ones, and some not. I enjoyed the editor's notes that help contextualize them.
January 16, 2023
It is thrilling to read the stories that inspired such a huge part of our current entertainment. Sure, many of them are weird, some of them are racist, others dont hold up to today's standards, but to be able to witness the rise of such a huge literary name as HP Lovecraft is fascinating.
The omnibus does an excellent job in providing context for every story along with facts and the state of Lovecraft's mental health while he wrote them.
This is the genesis of cosmic horror and I got a first-row seat.
The omnibus does an excellent job in providing context for every story along with facts and the state of Lovecraft's mental health while he wrote them.
This is the genesis of cosmic horror and I got a first-row seat.
April 26, 2023
It's widely known at this point that H.P. Lovecraft was deeply troubled and much of his writing is steeped in his own problematic fears of people from other races. Nonetheless, the reach of influence from his creative work is stunning and powerful. This complete omnibus is truly impressive, and does not skirt around Lovecraft's flaws. I love many of the stories (though a couple of them are just too prejudiced to be enjoyable), and the asides about what was going on in the author's life at the time of writing them are fascinating.
October 14, 2020
Interesting ideas but not as good as Richard Matheson's. Different eras though.
January 8, 2020
This is the first volume of the Lovecraft Omnibus set of three books. It deals with the early years of Lovecraft’s writing career up to his 1926 thesis “Supernatural Horror in Literature”, for there is no doubt but that Lovecraft’s work does show a significant improvement after this essay was written.
But these works from the early years have a great deal of interest. Some are reasonably well written and entertaining. There is certainly a continuing improvement. We can see the enormous influence of the Irish fantasy writer, Lord Dunsany but also how Lovecraft still infuses his own personality and vision into these pieces. “Herbert West Reanimator” is a six part parody of horror literature which has distinctly comic overtones. And the appendix contains a number of unusual works such as “Sweet Ermengarde: or the Heart of a Country Girl”—a satire of the Horacio Alger books and the Prohibition Era, the “History of the Necronomican” and the complete text of “Supernatural Horror in Literature”.
The volume concludes with a Timeline of H.P. Lovecraft’s Life and Work.
One of the features that makes John Finn’s edition very useful is the presence of introductory material preceding each story and accompanying biographical details.
Finn also does a competent reading of the entire volume—including the introductory notes to the individual stories for Audible.
But these works from the early years have a great deal of interest. Some are reasonably well written and entertaining. There is certainly a continuing improvement. We can see the enormous influence of the Irish fantasy writer, Lord Dunsany but also how Lovecraft still infuses his own personality and vision into these pieces. “Herbert West Reanimator” is a six part parody of horror literature which has distinctly comic overtones. And the appendix contains a number of unusual works such as “Sweet Ermengarde: or the Heart of a Country Girl”—a satire of the Horacio Alger books and the Prohibition Era, the “History of the Necronomican” and the complete text of “Supernatural Horror in Literature”.
The volume concludes with a Timeline of H.P. Lovecraft’s Life and Work.
One of the features that makes John Finn’s edition very useful is the presence of introductory material preceding each story and accompanying biographical details.
Finn also does a competent reading of the entire volume—including the introductory notes to the individual stories for Audible.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews