"The Call of Cthulhu: And Other Weird Stories (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) [Paperback]

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.

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.