The Essential H.P. Lovecraft Collection

by H.P. Lovecraft

Over a dozen essential works by H.P. Lovecraft are in one giant collection with an easy to navigate table of contents.

At the Mountains of Madness
The Call of Cthulhu
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The Color Out of Space
Darkness
The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath
The Dreams in the Witch-House
The Dunwich Horror
Herbert Reanimator
The Horror at Red Hook
The Horror in the Museum
Hypnos
Imprisoned with the Pharaohs
The Lurking Fear
The Other Gods
The Shadow Out of Time
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
Shunned House
The Thing on the Doorstep
Through the Gates of the Silver Key

Genres: Horror, Classics, Short Stories, Fantasy, Ebooks, Science Fiction, Short Story Collection

983 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 26, 2010

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

[Jason Golomb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a terrific deal and steal for anyone interested in classic horror and sci-fi. I'd heard of HP Lovecraft and knew, generally, that he is one of the grandfathers of those two genres, but I'd never read him before. I'd seen somewhere recently that his story "Mountains of Madness" was the base upon which the movie "The Thing" was created. John Carpenter's 1980's remake was the first hardcore horror movie I ever saw as a kid, and still lives in a dark, shadowy, and very cold place in my memories.

"Mountains of Madness" was written in the '30s. The early 20th century represented a golden age of exploration and discovery. Both poles were "captured"; jungle pyramids and ancient hideaways were discovered galore. Newspapers, newsreels and books were filled with adventure and the promise of something new that tended to be very old. It's in this context that Lovecraft's narrator visits Antarctica and makes a discovery of something of incomparably ancient. It tells the previously untold story of an Antarctic scientific mission gone horribly wrong and is crafted from the perspective of a scientist who was involved in the mission and who's desperate to warn off future efforts to investigate the strange goings-on.

A fascination and passion with exploration and discovery comes clearly through Lovecraft's writing. Lovecraft repeatedly refers to the "Cyclopean" sized objects in the Antarctic...a term used by Hiram Bingham in describing the first Inca-carved stone blocks he discovered in Peru. He even compares one of the ancient discoveries as looking like Machu Picchu.

The richly detailed story is thick with mood- and scene-setting. The story builds slowly and Lovecraft incorporates well-timed and teasing foreshadowing that frames a downright creepy story. More than once, I found myself jumping with shock at a startling noise when reading the story alone at night.

This story collection also includes "Call of the Cthulhu" - another foundational story and theme from Lovecraft. "Mountains of Madness" is a longish short story...about 100 pages total. “Cthulhu” is much shorter, at only about 25 pages, but paints an amazing portrait of an ancient supernatural underwater beast come to life in modern times.

Both stories build extensive myths around fictional beings and religion. The ideas behind the myth-building are very realistic, and go a long way to feed the terrifically detailed stories. Both are presented from an investigative perspective, which builds the stories and characters well and includes deftly developed foreshadowing that intensifies the drama and tension while avoiding details that give too much away. They're creepy, moody and satisfyingly scary.

[Jillianne Chadwick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice free audible listen. Was a bit monotoned and some of the novels were like background noise. Some however were very thrilling and kept me enthralled.
There was a few warnings with racism in these stories and I was a shocked to hear some of the references used. Especially the names of his cats.


I’m a big fan of Ivan Kal and his science fiction/fantasy books and I was surprised to realize how HP Lovecraft influenced him in a way and how some of the stories like Hastur The King In Yellow and the Cthul(hu)were included in Ivan Kals stories.

[Bryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been interested in reading more about the whole Cthullu mythos and figured I'd dive in. This collection of Lovecraft's stories are strange and disturbing, which I imagine is the intent. Lovecraft mixes references to geology, paleobiology, art, poetry with his fiction and creates a mythology of creatures much older than the earth. The stories are enjoyable since there is so much to unpack in any one. A fascinating world of monsters and creatures.

[Tracie · Rating 5 out of 5]

H.P. Lovecraft is amazing. I first read some of his stuff in highschool because a friend of mine recommended it, being an Edgar Allan Poe fan. His writing style is a little more detailed than I usually read, but the ideas and concepts and the executions kept me hooked.

[Lee Churchill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Been reading this casually over the last three years, a great book to have nearby that you can jump into a single story. A haunting, terrifying, single story.

[Fa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leí la colección de relatos ‘Desde el más allá’ con prólogo de Alberto Chimal pero lamentablemente esa edición no es reconocida todavía por el algoritmo de Goodreads.
Me sorprendió la capacidad del autor de hacerme sentir tanto miedo como ansiedad sin decir casi nada, todo lo deja a la imaginación.
Llamó mucho mi atención el evidente desprecio hacia los negros y los mexicanos (en uno de los relatos, al menos) y la marcada exaltación de los blancos de ojos claros como si esas características implicaran alguna superioridad.
Independientemente de eso, disfruté mucho la lectura, aprendí sobre descripción de ambientes y sensaciones para contagiarlas sin revelar tanto de estos, y eso sí me parece invaluable.

[andrew fedje · Rating 2 out of 5]

Learned a lot about H.P. Lovecraft, wanted to hear some of the stories that inspired some of my favorite authors. Knowing Lovecraft is very controversial, but still considered one of the great American authors intrigued me. I picked through some of his well known stories and came to the conclusion that yes, I can see his inspiration for modern sci-fi. Is it good? Not to me, but if you are curious about Lovecraft I highly recommend Audible's free collection! It teaches you about who he was and the controversy behind his writing. I honestly learned a lot and that was the most enjoyable part about it.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was hard enough to read knowing ahead of time that Lovecraft was a racist. But it’s FULL of inexplicable typos. Some seem to be “find & replace” style errors, suggesting that they were imparted by a modern editor. Others are obvious typos, where two different spellings of the same word or name appear on the same page.

There are certainly intriguing concepts contained within this tome, but who has the patience to parse them out?

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Due to a long hiatus it took me 9 years to finish this! Anyhow, all done now. Lovecraft’s writing can be turgid but the stories are classics. Best stories:
- The Mountains of Madness
- Call of Cthulhu
- The Shadow Over Innsmouth
- Imprisoned with the Pharos
- The Shadow out of Time
- The Thing on the Doorstep

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The imagery is fantastic. An absolutely amazing imagination. But his writing style was tiresome. Rambling and long winded.

[Karri Carpenter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my thing. Great writing but I don’t like science fiction. The only reason I read the whole book is because I liked the writing.

[Bohdan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read not only novels from exactly this book but even more.
After a little research through the world of ancient horrors I understood why Lovecraft is one of the best... but, personally for me, the best ONLY among ancient horror writers.
As a fan of horror movies and creepy stories I appreciate the atmosphere, plot and scary moments. In Lovecraft's novels the horror part is all about atmosphere! YES! It is AWESOME, I agree. Each story is filled with deep thoughts, descriptions of environment and feelings of main characters, but... where is everything else?
In the percentage I would divide next figures of attributes of Lovecraft's novels:
Atmosphere, thoughts - 70%
Horror, story-line - 25%
Plot's outcome - 5 % =(
Look, I want to be frightened, I want to see the very final of the plot... aaand I don't receive that. Only a few of these novels made me enjoy this feeling in full.
May be I jut got used to modern horrors... still, I understood that among other writers (of that time) Lovecraft did his best and indeed IS the father of horrors.
One little advice for the one who wants to experience Lovecraft's works: read only his BIG novels (with at least 3-4 chapters) and don't pay too much attention to the little ones as they are very controversial and better search through the Internet for the best ones.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

One caveat here: I'm only about a third of the way through The Essential H.P. Lovecraft Collection (Golgotha Press) because, honestly, I'm not sure who among us could read 800+ pages of his material at a stretch.

That said, I don't think you need to read 800 pages in order to gauge your opinion of Lovecraft's work. After years of reading things by Richard Matheson, Stephen King and Clive Barker, I'd always heard about H.P. Lovecraft as an influence, but had never explored his material, myself. The Closest I'd come was seeing some of the film adaptations of his work, like Stu Gordon's Re-Animator. After finally doing so, I'd have to say he's something of a one-trick pony.

Lovecraft does a great job creating atmospheres of dread (At The Mountains of Madness, Dunwich Horror, the aforementioned Herbert West: Reanimator) and his Cthulu mythos of ancient entities/gods is interesting, but everything begins to follow the same formula: A survivor narrative of mankind encountering forces and creatures beyond their understanding recounted with exceptionally vague descriptions.

They say film adaptations (of horror stories, in particular) never live up to the source material because whatever the filmmakers envision can never live up to what the reader conjures up in his/her mind. Lovecraft feeds into that by limiting his own descriptions, instead relying on things along the lines of "unnameable," "beyond understanding," and "words cannot describe etc., etc." An interesting device, but when it's the first club out of the bag--and the second and the third--it gets a bit monotonous. Not saying I need everything spelled out, but if each tale exhausts the thesaurus of its synonyms for "indescribable," it starts to come off like a bit of a crutch.

[Karen]

Includes: At the mountains of madness, call of Cthulhu, case of charles dexter ward, color out of space, darkness, dream quest of unknown kadath, dreams in the witch-house, dunwich horror, herbert west: reanimator, horror at red hook, horror in the museum, hypnos, imprisoned with the pharaohs, lurking fear, other gods, shadow of time, shadow over innsmouth, shunned house, the thing on the doorstep, and through the gates of the silver key

[Kayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really great collection. Took forever to get through it, but glad I did! My only complaint is that the collection itself must been thrown together rather hastily. I noticed a LOT of typos - missing punctuation, the occasional wrong letter. Of course it doesn't change the stories, it's more annoying than anything!

[Michelle]

Just finished reading the Mountains of Madness. I haven't read that one in years and I forgot how creepy it was. I actually put it down before I went to sleep one night because I didn't want those images to be the last thing in my head before I fell asleep. Love it!

[Jessy May · Rating 4 out of 5]

FInally read all of these!!! Needed to read some works by the Grampa of horror!! Some stories I enjoyed more than others! My favs were the ones in Arkham and Innsmouth!

[Angelus · Rating 5 out of 5]

best short story book i have read thus far...

[Eilleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

awesome of course.

[Autumn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great collection of some of Lovecraft's best stories. I don't read many ebooks, but this experience has certainly made me more open to them.