The Complete Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft (Volume 2) (Chartwell Classics, 2)

Paid $10 for this 1,100 pg book of Lovecraft! Showed up in excellent condition.

H.P. Lovecraft was the definitive master of other worldly horror, the weird, the surreal. The way he spun words to create powerful, mostly grotesque images was superlative. Creating an entire fictional universe in both the waking and the dreamworld spoke volumes to his creativity and imagination. This volume contains the entire collection of short stories and novellas credited to him alone. It is well known among his fans that Lovecraft also helped other lesser authors with rewrites and edits to their stories. However, those stories are not really credited to him and therefore not his own, so they are not included within these pages (except Under The Pyramids, which he ghost wrote for Harry Houdini, not one of my personal favorites as the first half of this story reads like a Cairo tour guide). But those stories are all available in other books available on Amazon, namely The Crawling Chaos And Others, and Medussa's Coil and Others. Included here are classics such as the seminal Call of Cthulhu, the story that originated the so-called "mythos" and spawned other works by authors old and modern. My personal favorite, Shadows Over Innsmouth, simply oozes atmosphere. You can feel the narrator's desperation and final resignation at his revelation of his background at the end. And while reading Dream Quest Of The Unknown Kadath, I couldn't help but wonder if Lovecraft was a fan of Frank L. Baum and his wonderful Land of Oz. That said, Lovecraft was very much a product of his time, with social attitudes and biases common in the early 20th century. He makes it very clear in his writing, especially early on, that he looks down upon and considers people of swart beneath him. The name he chooses for his cat in Rats In The Walls has had many thin skinned sensitive logophobes seeking therapy. Therefore, if the sight of racial slurs is enough to send you running for your safe space, you'd be well advised to look elsewhere for your reading entertainment. There is plenty of politically correct modern literature aimed at the thin skinned sensitives of today who consider mere words "hurtful". Otherwise, be prepared to be whisked into a world of unspeakable horrors and other dimensional chilling gods.

This is a very nicely done collection. It is well bound and well put together which is a large part of making a good buy. I remember reading some selected collections in an easy to carry paperback whilst sitting on a bench in a sort of park area; the bench was cut into the rock along a walkway, and the atmospheric Lovecraft definitely worked well in an isolated place. The full collection here ( as far as I know) would be a difficulty for some to get to an isolated reading place perhaps ( at a 1,000 pages or so) but where-ever you can read it, this collection is a superb item. The key part in the index is that so many films take titles from Lovecraft's writings, even if they don't take the whole of the story idea. The elemental forces that Lovecraft plays with are great reads, especially since they have been so influential in other stories and in film and audio. The best part of the reading process is , I think, reading the story a film is supposed to be based on and seeing how much is actually translated into film. Quite often the films take the book further, sometimes the original story gets lost in translation; either way its a great read.

Amazing book, I love reading hp Lovecraft stories, and this book has all of them for a great price

Good book

This is a great, high-quality book, it has a good font size, nice pages, etc. I like Lovecraft's work, and there's so many options for buying it that I'm not going to talk about the stories here, I'm going to talk about this physical book. The one downside is that it's heavy, it's almost 4 pounds. That's not a big deal, until you try to continuously hold a 4 pound thing up by your face for an hour. Wow do my arms get tired, my shoulders and neck ache. And that's with switching arms, using both arms, gripping it different ways, etc. I can only hold it a few minutes in one posture before I start to strain muscles in my hands/fingers/arms. Even when my arms are propped on armrests, or if the book is partly suspended by pillows on my chest or lap, it's still a chore to hold it up. If you can still lay on your side and read, then this won't be a big deal, but I have too much shoulder and neck pain to do that. And I don't want to lay it on a desk or on my lap, then bend my neck down reading it, I did that way too much in my college years, it majorly messes up your neck. It's a great book of great works, but it taught me to not buy big, heavy, 1,100+ paged hardcover novels, as it is a huge workout to try to read it! It makes me wish they broke it up into 2 volumes or something. It really does hamper my enjoyment reading this work.

Um livro bem diferente do costumeiro, são diversas histórias, em um único livro. O inglês é antigo, não é uma reedição do livro. Alguns termos são curioso, pois tinham significados diferentes á época onde foram escritos. Me surpreendi muito com o livro, melhor que a encomenda. Os contos são extremamente cativantes, percebe a cada parte lida uma evolução em direção para o perturbador/ocultismo/terror. Um dos melhores livros que já li. Ah um detalhe, a capa demonstrada na foto é somente um papel envoltório, o livro em si é vermelho, lembrando muito um livro antigo, uma surpresa bem vinda.

Excellent value If you like HP Lovecraft (or Metallica?) or if you are just curious about his work (which was my case). I won’t review Lovecraft’s work/writing here, but the book (object) itself is worth 4 stars: it gives you access to all his work in one place (the good and the less good!), it’s a big volume but not too heavy, printing is no-nonsense but neat and legible, paper quality is average. I’ll clearly look to buy more in this type of edition for the value for money.

The book was delivered timely in great condition and in a paper bag. It was not bubble wrapped though. The paper quality is thin and the writing is see through , attached images for your reference. The size of the book is as per the standard Hardback dimensions . However, I got this Hardback at quite a good deal hence this was worth the purchase. Good for gifting purposes too !

Superb collection and I guess it is the complete fiction of HP Lovecraft. Would love to see a similar collection of his essays and letters (but they are available in paperback etc in a separate series). The stories are superb, though perhaps not to everyone's taste. Most are from the Weird Tales magazine though many were printed in other horror mags as well as a few in SF mags) from the 20s and 30s. Great product at a great price. Of course, there are always the original WT mags to check out and they are often found on the web / Public domain sites but it is really wonderful (like the Shakespeare folio) to have them all in one place and easy to pick from the shelf to read at any time. Totally recommended

L’edizione da me acquistata “"The Complete Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft” è quella in lingua inglese pubblicata da Chartwell Books in prima edizione nel settembre 2016, ISBN: 9780785834205. Il volume è ad opera di Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Le dimensioni del volume sono di 23,6 cm in altezza e 17,2 cm in larghezza, ed è composto da 1101 pagine. Il volume è rilegato in cartonato. La qualità della carta è di media qualità. È in lingua inglese. È presente una sovraccoperta. Il volume contiene le opere di H. P. Lovecraft scritte tra il 1917 e il 1935. È perfetto per chi voglia immergersi nella sua produzione letteraria e conoscere appieno i suoi incubi e il suo collegamento con i simboli dell'inconscio. La spedizione non è stata il massimo purtroppo, in quanto il volume era dentro una scatola di cartone senza un rivestimento interno. Si è purtroppo danneggiato, con spaccature negli angoli delle copertine. Oggetti di questa tipologia necessitano di migliori imballi, con maggiore protezione. Consigliato, saluti.