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Dark Things
- GenresHorror
330 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1971
1 person is currently reading
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About the author
August Derleth
887 books305 followersAugust William Derleth was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, and for his own contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and the Cosmic Horror genre, as well as his founding of the publisher Arkham House (which did much to bring supernatural fiction into print in hardcover in the US that had only been readily available in the UK), Derleth was a leading American regional writer of his day, as well as prolific in several other genres, including historical fiction, poetry, detective fiction, science fiction, and biography
A 1938 Guggenheim Fellow, Derleth considered his most serious work to be the ambitious Sac Prairie Saga, a series of fiction, historical fiction, poetry, and non-fiction naturalist works designed to memorialize life in the Wisconsin he knew. Derleth can also be considered a pioneering naturalist and conservationist in his writing
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augus...]
A 1938 Guggenheim Fellow, Derleth considered his most serious work to be the ambitious Sac Prairie Saga, a series of fiction, historical fiction, poetry, and non-fiction naturalist works designed to memorialize life in the Wisconsin he knew. Derleth can also be considered a pioneering naturalist and conservationist in his writing
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augus...]
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 14, 2018
In my review of William Croft Dickinson's 'Dark Encounters' I wrote at some length about supernatural writing, at the risk of boring everyone for the second time I will refrain from doing so again. Should anyone be interested you can find it on Goodreads. Suffice to say that many of the thoughts I expressed there apply here.
'Dark Things' is a seminal collection of classic ghost and horror stories edited by the redoubtable August Derleth and was published in 1971, the year of his death. Supernatural publishing owes Derleth an enormous debt - he founded the now legendary Arkham House who produced this anthology and was particularly responsible for promoting the work of H. P. Lovecraft, whose 'Innsmouth Clay' appears in this book. What Arkham House achieved in its formative years was to raise both the awareness and standard of contemporary supernatural writing to such a level that it reached the attention of major critics and, crucially a wider audience. In keeping with that credo 'Dark Things' contains many stories by writers who are well known now but back in 1971 were just making their way; of which Basil Copper, Ramsay Campbell and Margery Lawrence are but a few. Once you add in Lovecraft, Bloch and the Jamesian ghost story writer H. Russell Wakefield and you have the perfect blend for a succesful collection. The icing on the cake for me was to read Joseph Payne Brennan's brilliant tale 'The Peril That Lurks Among Ruins' and 'The Eyes of Mme. Dupree' by P. H. Booth, authors I had not come across before. Derleth certainly knew what readers enjoyed.
To sum up 'Dark Things' is one of those landmark books that is essential reading for students of the supernatural and our gratitude must go to Derleth for making it possible.
'Dark Things' is a seminal collection of classic ghost and horror stories edited by the redoubtable August Derleth and was published in 1971, the year of his death. Supernatural publishing owes Derleth an enormous debt - he founded the now legendary Arkham House who produced this anthology and was particularly responsible for promoting the work of H. P. Lovecraft, whose 'Innsmouth Clay' appears in this book. What Arkham House achieved in its formative years was to raise both the awareness and standard of contemporary supernatural writing to such a level that it reached the attention of major critics and, crucially a wider audience. In keeping with that credo 'Dark Things' contains many stories by writers who are well known now but back in 1971 were just making their way; of which Basil Copper, Ramsay Campbell and Margery Lawrence are but a few. Once you add in Lovecraft, Bloch and the Jamesian ghost story writer H. Russell Wakefield and you have the perfect blend for a succesful collection. The icing on the cake for me was to read Joseph Payne Brennan's brilliant tale 'The Peril That Lurks Among Ruins' and 'The Eyes of Mme. Dupree' by P. H. Booth, authors I had not come across before. Derleth certainly knew what readers enjoyed.
To sum up 'Dark Things' is one of those landmark books that is essential reading for students of the supernatural and our gratitude must go to Derleth for making it possible.
January 2, 2015
Great collection of short stories. A pleasure to read.
July 13, 2015
As with most anthologies, I started reading this collection expecting to like a few of the entries while finding the rest to be merely okay. I was pleasantly surprised that this ratio was reversed, and ended up enjoying most of the stories. If you like horror anthologies, this is a good one.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews