The Call of Cthulhu and Other Dark Tales

by H.P. Lovecraft, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock (Introduction)

“The twentieth century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale” – Stephen King about H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft’s fiction reveals a universe that is vaster, darker, and stranger than anything previously imagined. His “cosmic horror” reflects a peculiarly modern philosophical belief system in which human beings are regarded as insignificant in light of the vastness of time and space. The especially Lovecraftian twist on this apocalyptic premise is that it is alien forces and powers at work in the universe that possess the potential for the ultimate destruction of mankind. 


Reprinted here are many of Lovecraft’s most famous works, including “The Call of Cthulhu” (1928), “The Dunwich Horror” (1929), and “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” (1936).  These stories will introduce readers to Lovecraft’s pantheon of “gods,” his characteristic themes, his fictitious New England geography and, of course, the Necronomicon, Lovecraft’s famous invented book of occult secrets.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Classics, Short Stories, Fantasy, Audiobook, Science Fiction

459 pages, Paperback

Published May 18, 2009

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

[Jakob Shingler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my introduction to Mr. Lovecraft’s work and it didn’t disappoint. I had this in my audiobook library on Spotify and decided to give it a go and I was shocked and thrilled that Pinhead himself (Doug Bradley) did the narration. He did it as part of his Spinechillers audio production and with the help of some nice added sound effects, he added an eerie touch to an already eerie story.

All I have to say is that if I had a grand-uncle who devoted most of his life to uncovering a mysterious statute that had history leading to cults/cult-like activities where they believed an ancient creature with octopus and dragon features would arrive from the stars and doom the world, and it might have led to untimely death. Yeah I wouldn’t dive deep in that rabbit hole but that’s just me lol 😂

Can’t wait for the next story, Mr. Lovecraft. Bring it on!

[Erin (she|her) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm giving this a 3 because I've just realized all the horror menus I love is inspired by lovecraft so I guess it deserves some flowers, but I did not enjoy reading this. It was boring, pretentious, and racist.

[Colin Gooding · Rating 2 out of 5]

Marked as Did Not Finish

I picked three short stories by HP Lovecraft to read in book club this week, so I took those ebook out from the library thinking I would start with at least those stories and read maybe more.

I made it through The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Call of Cthulhu, and I started The Dunwich Horror, but early into that one I gave up.

I feel similar about reading this as I do with something like Tolkien. I respect the influence of the work and I think the broad stories/worlds and some specific moments are great, but I just can't get into the writing.

This is all aside from Lovecraft himself being a garbage person that certainly comes through in at least the casual racism throughout these stories, though I actually found it interesting to think about whether certain tropes that are prevalent throughout horror (fear of the other/the unknown being the big one) is inherently racist, or if just combining that with this writer makes it feel worse (though there often is clear racist terminology used in the writing, though not always directed at the monsters).

Anyways, glad I tried this out even if it's not for me.

[Nate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Last month (September 2013) I had an idea that I'd journey back to two of the true originals in two of my favorite genres; horror and fantasy. The other author I read was Robert Howard, who wrote the original Conan stories. I enjoyed both authors, but I think I had a better overall time with Howard. I'm not sure why, but reviewing Lovecraft is kind of daunting and complicated, which is probably why I bitched out and made this introduction half about Howard.

This collects many of Lovecraft's famous short stories, poems, and novellas (with the mystifying exception of At the Mountains of Madness) and was an easy way to get into his work. His style is a bit stuffy and archaic, which will surely turn off many people but I thought it fell into the whole "academics facing cosmic impossibilities" theme that he had going. Seriously, it seemed like every protagonist in these stories is a rich professor or student of some kind. In one way it's nice because it lends these stories an air of scientific qualification but it gets repetitive pretty quickly.

So, how scared was I by these stories? There were definitely moments where I got this horrible feeling of bone-chilling dread in the stories, particularly when Lovecraft pulled his weird, shocking twists. Lovecraft even managed to profoundly disturb me in some of the stories, which was pleasant as I'm probably a bit jaded. Funnily enough, the stories I responded to the most had nothing to do with the Cthulhu mythos (even though I did enjoy that stuff). It just seemed like when Lovecraft focused on creating terrestrial horrors rather than the whole gigantic immortal space octopus type of thing it seemed more real and horrible.

The problem with Lovecraft's traditional "cosmic horror" is that it really is hard to comprehend some of this shit, and it's supposed to be. Too many times the story devolved to stuff like "And then I saw it and I went insane from its indescribable intracosmic amorphous likeness" or something like that and I just couldn't connect to it. I don't know, the fault could be on me for being an imagination-less pleb or something like that. Still, stuff like The Call of Cthulhu, The Colour out of Space and Dagon are unquestionably cool. I just didn't connect when them as much as the stuff like Arthur Jermyn, The Rats in the Walls or The Shadow Over Innsmouth. I did find Charles Dexter Ward interminably boring, the only story in the collection I really disliked.

All in all, a pleasant if a bit underwhelming experience for me. Don't get me wrong, even with all the complaints these stories still have the power to summon dread, terror, and horrible, overwhelming curiosity. Anyone who has an interest in horror probably owes it to themselves to at least check out one or two of Mr. Lovecraft's stories. If I remember correctly some of them might even be in the public domain at this point and easy to acquire as such.

As a final caveat which I funnily enough had to insert into my review of Howard's stuff; if antiquated and misguided views on race/gender/sexuality and stuff like that really bother you, you might avoid this one. I definitely got a mild but noticeable flavor of racism from Lovecraft, which was irritating but didn't bother me too much. It shows itself in stuff like a character's cat being named "Nigger-Man", not really in overt comments on race or anything like that. I wouldn't have enjoyed that and it would have been a shame to have such obnoxious bullshit marring the legacy of one of America's originals.

[Adrianne Joan · Rating 2 out of 5]

can't even write a decent horror story without being so racist it actually made me laugh in shock

[Alex Fry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did it. I defeated HP Lovecraft. Call of Cthulhu and the third short story were great, but the Silver Key was pointless and MY GOD was Mountains of Madness boring. Such a cool concept for a book too, but when it boiled down to geological descriptions and overindulgence in detail I got sick of that shit fast. A picture is worth 1000 words, and HP Lovecraft misinterpreted that memo.

Overall I can see why he’s such an important horror writer, and I do appreciate his style of slowly building up these cosmic horrors. It’s just *how* he builds it up can range from intriguing to ungodly levels of boring.

Also he loves the word decadent. I’m not even sure he used it right half the time because after reading it so much I still hardly know what it means.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Introduction by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock - 4 Stars
Dagon - 5 Stars
The Terrible Old Man - 5 Stars
Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family - 4 Stars
Nyarlathotep - 3 Stars
The Picture in the House -5 Stars
Herbert West—Reanimator -5 Stars
The Rats in the Walls - 5 Stars
The Call of Cthulhu - 5 Stars
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward - 5 Stars
The Colour Out of Space - 5 Stars
The Dunwich Horror - 5 Stars
The Whisperer in Darkness - 4.5 Stars
The Shadow Over Innsmouth - 5 Stars
The Dreams in the Witch House - 5 Stars
The Haunter of the Dark- 5 Stars

[Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Call of Cthulu: 4/5
The Silver Key: 2/5
The Dunwich Horror: 5/5
At the Mountains of Madness: 3/5

[Noah Luna · Rating 5 out of 5]

“That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.”

An incredible collection of cosmic horror short stories, filled with gnawing implications that stick with the reader. The Call of Cthulhu stole the show, of course, but “The Rats in the Walls, The Nameless City, and The Festival” blew my mind!

[Ed Holden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give this volume three stars, though it perhaps deserves better. The collection is weighed down by Lovecraft's early tales, as well as by some predictable twists in his later ones. But though a reader will surely go mad if he or she delves too deeply into the author's crabbed scribblings, many are worth reading: in particular I enjoyed "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" and the flawed but genuinely scary "The Shadow Over Innsmouth."

Lovecraft has a "tell, don't show" narrative style, and in his early works this hinders his storytelling immensely. His often enjoyable prose is the only mitigating factor in stories that have little or no dialogue. I found the first few offerings in this collection repetitive and boring, albeit quaint in a Victorian/Edwardian fashion. It was not until I reached "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" that the story rose above the prose and I found myself hooked. Still, even many of the good stories get bogged down in dragging prose and predictable endings. Yet the more I read them, the more I enjoy them.

I first learned about Lovecraft via a reference in Professor Wilmington's "Mysteries of the Occult," itself principally an exposition on that vile tome the Necronomicon by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred. Of Wilmington himself there's little to say that has not already been written in the local periodicals of Arkham and Boston during the years since his disappearance. Except, that is, that I managed to follow in his footsteps some time later. Of that there is no record, until this review.

Wilmington's investigation of Lovecraft began half a decade hence, with hours of tedious but often surprising reading in the library at Miskatonic University. His notes indicate that he went in search of further writings in locations as varied as Vermont, Providence RI, the darkest regions of eastern Europe, and ultimately the foul city of Innsmouth, where I decided to pick up his tracks. Innsmouth is just south of Newburyport, which is a short MBTA Commuter Rail ride from Porter Square station. There is no direct train to Innsmouth, sadly, so I had to take a lonely green bus from the outskirts of Newburyport. As I rode, with the silent bus driver as my only feller traveler, I discovered that my Android phone lost 3G data a few miles south of Newburyport, and lost voice coverage entirely a few minutes later. I was overcome with mounting dread, and my spirits fell precipitously when I saw the worm-eaten city itself, with its decrepit gambrel roofs and peaked gables silhouetted against a dusky evening sky.

I briefly walked to the malodorous river to gaze into its curious murkiness, then checked myself into the ancient Gilman House inn for a mere thirty dollars. I learned from the wizened gray innkeeper that Wilmington himself had stayed there, and he even gave me Wilmington's room. It was not until I had set my bags on the musty bed that I realized this was the very room where Wilmington stayed on the night he disappeared.

I'd like to say that I escaped, that I snapped up my valise and made haste for the bus, but alas a check at the cracked window revealed that the bus had long departed, and I was trapped for the night in that rotting city - trapped forever, in fact, for once darkness fell I was introduced to the trancelike, misshapen denizens of the town, who converged on my room like rock concert-goers, groping for me, dragging me off toward the Old Ones at the harbor. Yes, forever am I theirs.

"Yog-Sothoth! Nyarlathoep! Ia! R'lyeh - Cthulhu ftagn!"

[Madison Preuss · Rating 4 out of 5]

love this as a concept

[Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barely 3 stars. One of the stars is just because of his contribution to the horror genre, but geez, it’s not aged well, possibly because we’ve become desensitized with modern horror and sci-fi stories.

I found it dull and at times frustrating to read. Everything doesn’t have to be ”cyclopean”…

[Brian Price · Rating 2 out of 5]

Feen spent 40 pages describing a cave.

No bueno.

2.0/5

[Monique · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovecraft can be great once he gets to the point. Madness is the pages and pages of rocks and masonry we found along the way.

[Peter Dosedla · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve had a lot of mixed feelings while reading this collection. I appreciate what these stories meant at the time of their publication over a 100 years ago, and how many of the “horror tropes” paved the way for subsequent books and movies. I liked the aspects and ideas of cosmicism or cosmic horror and what it represents about our place in the universe.
What I didn’t like as much was how most of these stories here explored these ideas. It felt like most of them used a similar formula of the story where only the variables (like characters, places, monsters, etc.) changed. It just became pretty repetitive after a while. I might’ve felt differently about them if I read them individually, spread out over a longer period of time, but it is what it is. I don’t like leaving books unread, but as there wasn’t that much left, I guess it’s fine if I just move on.

[Mylan B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah yes the two most terrifying things in the world, the terrifying existentialism of knowing how small and insignificant you are in the face of the cosmos and *gasp* an ethnic person!!!

Obviously, I’m joking but all things aside, seriously Lovecraft? You write about these primordial beings beyond human comprehension who simply cannot be bothered by our meager existence yet you imply we should be caring about the amount of melanin in one’s skin? Be so for real.

Anyway, I’ll stay for the world building (the descriptions or lack thereof really do captivate the reader) but leave the racism and xenophobia behind

[Rosie Owens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found some of the stories in this edition really gripping! As a bit of science nerd I found the Herbert West Reanimator really interesting and that one is definitely my favourite thus far, The Call of Cthulhu itself obviously was also a really good one (I was reading these with my mouth opened in shock). In some stories, particularly the longer ones, I found the language to flow really well but in some I couldn’t understand a thing to save my life. Really enjoyed these stories though in general!

[Debra Wendt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I knew about Lovecraft but had never read any of his work. After reading this book, while I can appreciate the world he created, the "bone chilling horror" gets lost in his language. The writing is littered with classical allusions and archaic language, and for me, it gets in the way of the story. Perhaps in his day, these references were widely known; just not a timeless writer in my opinion.

[Riverman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read,

The Nameless City 5/5
Herbert West-Reanimator 5/5
The Hound 2/5
The Lurking Fear 2/5
The Rats in the Walls 3/5
The Festival 3/5
The Shunned House 3/5
The Horror at Red Hook 4/5
He 4/5
The Call of Cthulhu 4/5

[ayriss · Rating 2 out of 5]

mythos goes hard too bad his racism permeates throughout his writing and makes it unbearable

[Josh Morrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first I've read of H.P. Lovecraft, and I can see why he has a name for writing horror. The imagery he uses in each of these stories, the wild, ferocious, and hideous creatures he invents are truly terrifying. However, he also has a penchant for keeping the reader removed from the story. In each take in this collection of stories, either it's told first-person after the fact, so there is no immediate danger to the narrator, thus no tension to the story, or, the omniscient narrator stays with the point of view of on-lookers who watch the horrifying scenes play out, and again, are in no immediate danger, and therefore there is no tension to the story. It could be that these stories are victims of their time, back when ideas like this were new and frightening, and having too close a POV, or characters in grave immediate danger was too much for the readers of that time. I don't know. I just know that, while I really enjoyed the imagery, the stories themselves were a bit of a disappointment.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a collection of four of Lovecraft’s most popular works. While I’m certainly no admirer of his personal life, I wanted to read these to get a glimpse into the Cthulhu Mythos and to see what inspired the overall Lovecraftian genre of horror. Alas, after reading these it seems that I’m no admirer of his professional life either. While I know there are a few other recommended works not included in this collection, I honestly don’t feel compelled to trudge through them.

The individual works’ ratings and reviews are as follows:

“The Call of Cthulhu”
- 2.5/5 stars
- Just about average for me. I wanted to read it due to it being the foundation of Lovecraftian lore, but I honestly wasn’t impressed. I can appreciate the idea, but I felt it fell short. Maybe cosmic horror just doesn’t do it for me, but I finished feeling generally underwhelmed and not really excited to read the other stories.

“The Silver Key”
- 2.75/5 stars
- As a whole, I liked this one slightly more than “The Call of Cthulhu.” While the first few pages were painfully repetitive and slow, I found the overall story to be relatively enjoyable and interesting. Still not something I’d remember after a few days, though.

“The Dunwich Horror”
- 3.75/5 stars
- This one was genuinely enjoyable to read. I thought it would be predictable from the beginning, but I ended up actually being surprised by the ending. Great vibes of an eerie, creepy, village.

“At the Mountains of Madness”
- 2.25/5 stars
- This was a frustrating experience. After a relatively enjoyable novella experience with “The Dunwich Horror,” I was excited to start this novella, especially since it is one of Lovecraft’s more famous works. However, the few good story ideas that this has are dragged down by woefully executed exposition and environmental descriptions. It took me twice as long to finish as I thought it would solely due to the number of breaks I needed to take from the seemingly endless rambling by the narrator. By the end, the somewhat interesting plot felt very overshadowed by an overall poor writing performance.

[Thaisa Meyka · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐⭐½
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Este livro, com 15 famosos contos de H. P. Lovecraft, é uma coletânea que busca reunir os trabalhos mais essenciais escritos pelo autor. E, nesse aspecto, a edição cumpre sua promessa: encontramos contos como "O Chamado de Cthulhu", "A Sombra Sobre Innsmouth", "O Horror de Dunwich", alguns dos mais conhecidos de Lovecraft, usados sempre como referência quando citamos o escritor e o horror cósmico como um todo.
Ele agrupa narrativas que são extremamente interessantes e que, em sua maioria, traz os maiores nomes da mitologia criada por Lovecraft, tal como Cthulhu, Dagon e Nyarlathotep, e personagens icônicos como a bruxa Keziah Mason, o cientista Herbert West, o estudante Charles Dexter Ward - todos loucos, cada um em sua maneira e por um motivo, enquanto as criaturas que nos são apresentadas são as maiores responsáveis pela insanidade que circula na vida de cada protagonista.
Mas exatamente por conter contos tão conhecidos e importantes para a construção desse mundo terrível inventado pelo autor, os preconceitos do próprio aparecem na maioria dessas histórias: muitos deixam transparecer xenofobia e elitismo, enquanto uma boa parte acaba transbordando visões racistas do escritor (como "A Sombra Sobre Innsmouth", "Herbert West: Reanimator", "O Chamado de Cthulhu", "Os Ratos nas Paredes" e "A Verdade Sobre o Falecido Arthur Jermyn e Sua Família").
Apesar de adorar a escrita do autor, sua estilística e os mitos aterrorizantes e intrigantes que ele desenvolveu, não tem como apreciar 100%, porque é difícil ler frases e estereótipos completamente errados e dolorosos.
Por fim, o que o leitor mais absorve na obra de Lovecraft é isso: a mistura do horror sobrenatural e cósmico e, em contrapartida, o horror de conhecer o Lovecraft como ele era - genial e terrível no mesmo nível.

Mais resenhas no instagram literário @livre_em_livros

[Energy Rae · Rating 4 out of 5]

I might be a bit obsessed with Lovecraft. I first read him as a teen, late at night after lights out. His works were among the few sci-fi I read when I was younger, as it was a genre I didn’t get into until recent years. I sleep next to a Cthulhu wall tapestry, and he watches me each night while I sleep. Lovecraft has a unique way of telling stories.

I enjoyed some of the annotations that furthered parts of each story, but others felt unnecessary to me. And perhaps with fewer unnecessary annotations, they could have made the text larger and easier to read. The graphics were iffy, but it’s a black and white book on low-quality paper, so I understand there are limitations. But some of them were washed out, and I feel it does a disservice to the stories. Book quality aside, I like the stories they put in this collection, as The Rats in the Walls is one of my favs.

[Fred · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection for someone new to Lovecraft. It includes some of his most well known work (the intro talks about why At the Mountains of Madness and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward were excluded.) Has a lot of footnotes and also illustrations from the magazines where they were first published. The only problem with a collection like this is that they rarely have any Lovecraft deep cuts like The Quest of Iranon.

What's included:

Dagon
The Outsider
The Music of Erich Zann
The Rats in the Walls
The Call of Cthulhu
The Colour Out of Space
The Dunwich Horror
The Shadow over Innsmouth
The Shadow Out of Time
The Haunter of the Dark

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phew! I'm finally done!

I'm glad I've officially read Lovecraft-- there's a lot of great material here and it's super cool to see his influence in literature and movies. Some of these stories suffered from being too long, and the formulaic plots could be a little monotonous, especially with the "show-don't-tell" writing about going insane. It took me a while to really "get" the love for Lovecraft, but once you get a feel for the writing and the universe, it's a fun ride.

[Willow Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly for the most part pretty meh writing. Some stories are definitely better than others (I personally really enjoyed, Shadow over Innsmouth, The Outsider and The Colour Out of Space).

Be warned this book contains a lot of hate speech and general nastiness that one can expect from a agoraphobic racist white man from American in the 1950s (A least he’s consistant in hating everyone that’s not a wealthy upper white class man).

[Austin Wright · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Barnes and Noble edition of this series is absolutely horrendous.

The font is bafflingly small, there are no annotations (if you have an opportunity to read the annotations of S.T.Joshi or Leslie Klinger, please do!). There are several other editions which have about 50 pages of additional information which will help the reader further appreciate Lovecraft's work.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

H. P. Lovecraft is a master of atmosphere. If you over-think it, it might not appeal so much, but if you sit back and enjoy the ride, he will creep you out with his worlds beyond the one we know - just beyond.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Points lost for gratuitous racism and "tell, don't show." But still - tentacles!