The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (Penguin Modern Classics) [Paperback]

This volume contains the stories: Dagon, Randolph Carter, Arthur Jermyn, Celephais, Nyarlathotep, Picture in the House, Outsider, Herbert West, Hound, Rats in the Walls, Festival, He, Cool Air, Call of Cthulhu, Colour out of Space, Whisperer in Darkness, Shadow Over Innsmouth, Haunter of the Dark, as well as a fourteen page Introduction by Joshi (the foremost scholar on Lovecraft), a suggestion for further reading, a note on the text, and an extra sixty pages of explanatory notes.

This is an excellent collection of Lovecraft stories with a lot of interesting notation and material on his background, his childhood, his inspirations for each story, and various other pieces of fascinating information. It is also, in my opinion, the strongest of the three current Penguin collections of his work, containing as it does the superb Colour out of Space, Shadow over Innsmouth, and Call of Cthulhu (my favourite). Each story is annotated with numbered reference points which can be a bit distracting at first but doesn't really get in the way of your enjoyment of the stories, and provides fascinating insight into the use of certain words, the origins of characters' names, towns and events that influenced the plot, etc. In addition, each of these stories are the definitive editions compiled by Joshi himself, making this currently one of the best Lovecraft collections in the UK. Highly recommended.

This volume, in its own small, quiet way, is a momentous book. Momentous not for being necessarily the best collection of Lovecraft's stories (there are plenty of others to choose from) but because it marks the passage of Lovecraft's reputation from the genre ghetto to the broader realms of literature.

Consider this: Lovecraft's career ran parallel with that of Jon Dos Passos (Lovecraft was six years older). Dos Passos' first novel, 'Manhattan Transfer' was published in 1926, the same year as 'The Call of Cthulhu' made its debut appearance in the pulp magazine 'Weird Tales'. Yet while Dos Passos went on to achieve great acclaim for his subsequent novels, Lovecraft's writing remained ignored during his life outside a small group of enthusiastic magazine writers and readers. 'Cthulhu' when first published didn't even rate cover status in the magazine, that honour being granted to Elliot O'Donnell and some ridiculous piece of his called 'The Ghost Table'. At Lovecraft's early death in 1937 he was recognised as a modern master of the horror story by his friends but to the world outside he was invisible; no collections of his stories had been published, his work languished in the crumbling pages of the pulps.

Sixty years on, after the heroic efforts of August Derleth at Arkham House, who put his own money into publishing the first Lovecraft collections, Howard Phillips Lovecraft finally has his place in the sun (probably an inapt metaphor, he used to spend all day with the curtains drawn). The stories are in print all over the world, there's a growing body of critical writing about his work and spin-off items in the form of comics, games, films, music, etc. show how far his reputation has travelled. It's a simple fact that powerful work in any medium cannot be kept down, however humble its origins; the 'Chants de Maldoror' of Isidore Ducasse (Lautreamont) followed a similar path from obscurity to cult renown (among the Surrealists) to world fame. Lovecraft's champions along the way have included some real heavyweights such as Jorge Luis Borges (who dedicated a story, 'There are More Things', to him) and William Burroughs ('Cities of the Red Night' contains references to "Kutulu, the Sleeping Serpent").

So here he is finally, a classic of the Twentieth Century, complete with the usual well-chosen Penguin cover art; for this edition it's a painting by the apocalyptic Romantic John 'Mad' Martin. The book has an excellent introduction by the world's leading Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi who also provides sixty pages of notes for references in the stories. The texts are taken from the definitive versions compiled by Joshi for the editions Arkham House put out ten years ago, correcting many accumulated typos that had dogged the works since original publication. The story selection tries to cover the whole of Lovecraft's career and includes some of his weaker, more fantastical material. I personally would have preferred a different selection ('Herbert West - Reanimator' is not one of his best stories) but then every fan would probably have a different choice of their own. For a curious reader this is a great place to start and its status in the Penguin canon may serve to draw some to Lovecraft who would have shunned the garish packaging of a horror paperback. Some of us have known for years this stuff was the business, it's satisfying to have these feelings reinforced. Well done Howard.

S. T. Joshi has spent the better part of his life bringing us H. P. Lovecraft's texts as Lovecraft wanted them preserved. We remember that, when Lovecraft first submitted his stories to Weird Tales, he wrote to the editor, "Should any miracle impel you to consider the publication of my tales, I have but one condition to offer: and that is that no excisions be made. If a tale cannot be printed as it is written, down to the very last semicolon and comma, it must gracefully accept rejection." This is from Lovecraft before he was selling regularly to a professional market; obviously, he had an artistic vision and wanted it preserved as he created it. S. T. Joshi has worked to correct the blunders and misreadings and (in some audacious instances) the rewriting of Lovecraft's tales, so that we now have his texts as close to his originals as is perhaps possible.

Lovecraft was a cautious writer, and his style is exactly what he wanted it to be. If he is at times extravagant, it is because he so chooses. Some people have moaned at the style of "The Hound," but it seems perfect for the tale being told. I love the story and do not want to believe, as S. T. seems to, that it was written as partial parody of Lovecraft's style. Lovecraft came to dismiss so much of what to me is his really fascinating work, such as "The Outsider" and "The Hound." The wonderful and intriguing thing about what has been called Lovecraft's "lesser" work is that these tales are still extremely interesting and effective. They are very unusual and they have a kind of spell (over me, at least) that never fades, I return to them again and again.

I've been entranced with the figure of Nyarlathotep, to the point where I have just completed an entire book of tales concerning ye Crawling Chaos. The original prose poem of Lovecraft's concerning this enigmatic creature is in this book. Nyarlathotep is mentioned in future works, also collected here, such as the amazing and potent "The Rats in the Walls" and the fascinating "The Whisperer in Darkness." (This latter story has recently been filmed by the eldritch folks at The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, the same people who gave us the remarkable silent film version of "The Call of Cthulhu." Judging from the trasiler, their cinematic treatment of "The Whisperer in Darkness" will be absolutely faithful to Lovecraft's magnificent story!)

"The Haunter of the Dark" is my all-time favourite story by Lovecraft. I love its sense of Gothic mystery, the evocative church and its nameless history, and the queer fate of its protagonist. It has been said that Lovecraft, had he lived on, would have deserted Gothic horror absolutely and concentrated on writing tales of science fiction, but I find the idea absurd. This was his last completed story, and it is supernatural in the peculiar way that Lovecraft's work treats the supernatural. It is a story that really does haunt one. A superb recent cinematic treatment of the film was shown at last year's H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival -- a film called, strangely, PICKMAN'S MUSE.

This is a fine collection of H. P. Lovecraft's weird fiction, complete with a wonderful Introduction by S. T. Joshi and containing his annotations and notes for each tale. The three editions of Lovecraft's tales from Penguin are, for me, the very best editions of Lovecraft. Highly recommended!