H. P. Lovecraft: Tales of Horror

by H.P. Lovecraft, John Coulthart (Illustrator)

H.P. Lovecraft’s tales of cosmic horror, science fiction, and the fantastic are among the most classic in all literature. His writing challenges readers, scares them senseless, and explodes the boundaries of the known. This stunning collection, illustrated in color, brings to life some of his greatest, most profound works—including “The Call of Cthulhu,” “The Haunter of the Dark,” “The Dunwich Horror,” “The Color Out of Space,” “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” and “The Whisperer in Darkness.”

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Classics

377 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 25, 2022

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

[Nat King]

Hard to give this a rating, especially considering it’s a story collection which are infamously tricky to rate. What I will say is that I can see just how influential Lovecraft’s stories have been (I’ve only ever read snippets from Call of Cthulhu) but my god the guy really doesn’t hesitate to work in a little bit of racism wherever and whenever he can… The Whisperer in Darkness was by far my favorite of the stories collected here!

[Jackie Ramirez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Real rating: 3.5

I decided to read this to familiarize myself with Lovecraft's works and... This did the trick! For transparency, I read the stories while following along with audio recordings from HorrorBabble on YouTube. Their voice helps add ambiance and horror to the stories!

Some of the stories took some time before I could find myself invested in the story, but others were very easy to follow along. Not to mention, I find it hard to read 1900s English in the first place. My personal favorite was "The Colour out of Space".

The illustrations were beautifully crafted and I wish there were more throughout the stories. A good read for anyone who is hoping to step into the Eldritch horror genre for the first time.

[Sarahsketti · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5

Pros: we love a connected universe, lovecraft has such a strong vibe, the illustrations were fantastic

Cons: I have learned that lovecraft only has one plot and it’s not a great one. Plus, you know, truly horrendous racism

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Many years ago, at the suggestion of a friend, I read a collection of Lovecraft's stories. I remember liking some of them quite a bit ("The Picture in the House") and not caring much for several others. Not remembering the title of that collection, I recently thought I'd read another so that I could at least number one of his works here, among the books that I've read. Two-plus weeks later, I finally managed to finish this short collection of a few short stories, and I'm congratulating myself for the accomplishment. What a slog! Lovecraft has been called the best horror writer since Poe, and I suppose he was, and it's easy to see that many, many of the horror writers that followed have owed him a great debt, but what you've got here is pretty much the same story, over and over again, delivered with the same over-the-top, endless verbosity. Boring! I thought the final entry in the book was probably the best, as it was at least a little different from the rest, and I did like the presentation here, though the art by Coulthart was a little hit-and-miss and somewhat inconsistently placed throughout the book.

[Myron Pacheco · Rating 2 out of 5]

A small collection featuring 6 horror stories by H.P Lovecraft.

I'll say I liked the way that suspense was built throughout these stories, even though there are many times where it was, at least in my opinion, excessively wordy and pretty hard to follow.

There were points in time during the book where it felt like I wasn't actually reading anything, but rather just looking at random strings of words on a paper. I found it very hard to properly visualize what was going on in over half of these stories due to how wordy and weirdly written it was, and often found myself getting very bored of it.

All of this could just be coming from the very big part of me that normally has zero interest in books whatsoever, but I picked up this book because it looked like something that could be interesting to me. I'd only recommend this book to you if you're really interested in it.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Hardcover edition] Just revisiting some of HPL's classics. "The Colour Out of Space" was not quite as creepily atmospheric as I remember, but most of these stories are still solid examples of early cosmic horror.

[Travis E. · Rating 3 out of 5]

First experience with Lovecraft. Very classic horror literature where the big bad is rarely seen. I did like the culty touch of the villains but the overt racism was a pretty constant component to the stories. I am eager to read Lovecraft Country now that I have more background.

[Russell Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, but not up to my expectations. Robert E Howard was better. Very formulaic and not really what I’d call horror

[Kyle Toth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some plot holes in many stories, but overall very creative and well-written!

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly the Cthulu stories, found all of them pretty chilling, except the first, "The Call of Cthulu." Which is actually preferable to "The Call of Sulu." OH MY!

[Reed Rolfe · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is beyond epic, the way it written is gorgeous