Arkham House Books

In My Humble Opinion
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I just purchased a collection of books published by the well regarded Arkham House and Donald M. Grant publishers. I’m not sure where to get started in my reading, so I’ll name a few titles/authors. Hopefully some Dopers out there will be able to comment on some of these. I look forward to your opinions!

Lots of Lovecraft. I’m pretty familiar with the fiction, but what about Selected Letters? I have all 5 volumes. Are they worth my time?

Blooded on Arachne by Michael Bishop

The Rim of the Unknown by Frank B. Long

Dwellers in Darkness by August Derleth

A Rendezvous in Averoigne by Clark Ashton Smith. Actually, I ended up with a whole slew of CAS books.

The following by Brian Lumley:
The Horror at Oakdeene
Beneath the Moors
The Caller of the Black

Ramsey Campbell’s The Height of the Scream and Demons by Daylight

Basil Copper’s From Evil’s Pillow and And Afterward, the Dark.

There’s quite a bit more (C.L. Moore, Robert E. Howard, and others) but I don’t want to gum up this post with too many titles.

Please offer an opinion if you have read any of these!

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Quick – look in the Ramsey Campbell collections and tell me if you see “The Hands”.

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So you bought these books to read – not for their collector value? Cool beans!

The Cthulhu mythos isn’t my favorite reading material, but I’ve heard good things about all of the writers you mention.

If you want an expert opinion, go to http://www.egroups.com and sign up for the Chapel Perilous and Grimoire groups. We just finished a nice discussion on HPL and his imi–, followers, which included Derleth and a few of the others you bought.

I’ve also heard good things about the HPL letters. He was supposedly a fabulous correspondent, and very generous in his friendships. I’ll bet those are good.

I’d read the Ramsey Campbell first – except that the others will suffer by comparison. Yeah, save the best for last. Enjoy! I am so envious.

Will you come back with book reports?

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The Letters are indeed worth reading. Lovecraft had a very interesting circle of friends, especially the young Robert Bloch (author of “Psycho” and “Night of the Ripper,” as well as many other classics).

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Alas, this is not one of the stories listed. But, as your suggestion, I will put the Campbell on top of the stack. (I’m just about to finish Sturgeon’s More than Human) I read one of Campbell’s novels last year (The Doll that Ate His Mother). I might have read something else of his in one of the many anthologies I have.

Both, actually. Most are first editions with print runs of 5000 or less. Absolutely pristine condition, with the exception of Lumley’s first book. I was aware of their collectibility when I bought them. (I certainly paid enough!) But, I’m not one of those who puts my books on a shelf never to be read. They will be enjoyed.

Speaking of Lumley, I was hoping someone would pop in here who had read these. I know he went on to do the Necroscope series (which strikes me as hack-work), but these predate those and look to have a totally different style.

Yeah, I’ve got a lot of the mythos books. I’ve actually only read the original Lovecraft. I’ve yet to delve into the stylistic continuations that make up the mythos. I like Lovecraft, but only in small doses. Reading his stories one right after another, I find they start to all sound alike. I mean, how many times can you read about “monstrous geometric formulations impossible to describe”? :slight_smile:

Thanks for the opinion. I’ll take a gander at the first volume and see what it does for me and go from there.

I’ll try out that link (much appreciated!) after next week. I’ll be traveling and away from computers during that time.

Anyone want to check in on any of the other authors?

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You MOTHERFUCKER!!!

{cough. ahem.}

So, uh, divemaster, ol’ buddy ol’ pal, uh, which Robert E. Howards were included in this collection you bought?

SKULL-FACE AND OTHERS, huh? You know, Howard’s stories weren’t really that great, kinda, uh, “dated,” y’know. Howzabout I take this one off your hands? I’ll give you, say, ten bucks for it? Have another beer, it’s on me.

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Sorry about that. I’ll behave.

Longtime Arkham reader/collector checking in. I like the tales in Lumley’s CALLER OF THE BLACK, which was his first collection. I’m less fond of the novel BENEATH THE MOORS, but I must say it has one of the most inadvertantly hilarious dustjacket illustrations I’ve ever seen. (A drawing of a dinosaur-headed creature with a man’s torso in the forground. Standing behind it, with an expression of “Whoaaa, dude!” is a 1970s-dressed jowly guy with a bad haircut and droopy moustache)

The first Copper collection, FROM EVIL’S PILLOW, is also good. The lead-off story, “Amber Print,” is probably the best thing he’s ever done.

re: Lovecraft’s letters. Yes, yes, YES…definitely worth reading! Some folks say his letters are better than his fiction!

I’ve read all five volumes, but if you want to start with the most interesting jump ahead to Volume III, which covers 1929-1931. These were the years when HPL did most of his antiquarian traveling: to upstate New York, to Virginia, to Charleston, SC, to Quebec City, and to St. Augustine, Florida.

Congratulations on the acquisition of some of the best and best-produced books of weird fiction ever published!

(You wanna sell me Smith’s SELECTED POEMS…?)

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I gotta ask (but you’re under no obligation to answer) – how did you come by the collection?

That’s a going-out-of-business sale not to be missed. Or did someone die?

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Ukulele Ike said:

I’ll echo this, but go further. Most folks who know Lovecraft say his letters are better than his fiction. Old H.P. was one of those people who documented pretty much every experience in his life to his wide circle of friends and associates. Not to mention that he was very active in the amateur press movement, which I think is an oft-overlooked historical curiosity, and makes for interesting reading.

Also, if you want to tie your experiences with the letters together in a more coherent form, you might pick up H.P. Lovecraft: A Life by S.T. Joshi. It’s out of print, I believe, but you should be able to pick it up used.

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I’ll check the shelf for the titles when I get home this evening. I know these particular editions were published by Grant in large, nicely-illustrated volumes. I’ve never read any Howard. He committed suicide at age 30, didn’t he?

and

OK! Lovecraft’s letters come before the mythos. There seems to be a consensus here.

I don’t have that one, but I do have the biography by L. Sprauge de Camp. That was part of the collection as well. I’ve enjoyed de Camp’s fiction, so I have high hopes for the bio. I’ve read that it is supposed to be good. Thoughts?

I don’t mind sharing (the info, that is; not the books :smiley: ). I have been very active buying and selling books on eBay. Other than this collection, my activity has been primarily Stephen King. I actually have every single King first edition hardcover, including all the novels, the Dark Tower series (also published by Grant), Six Stories, the relatively scarce My Pretty Pony and Cycle of the Werewolf, the original Bachman paperbacks, and many of the anthologies where a King story was first published (999 being one of the nicest).

Anyway, someone was auctioning off his entire collection of the OP. He was an Aussie and was moving overseas and needed to lighten his load. I was the only bidder. I think the price scared everyone off. Also, it was a very long and detailed listing and the guy wrote it up in a Lovecraftian style, talking about bidders appeasing the elder gods and all that. Actually, it was quite clever.

What escaped most people is that even given the price, the whole lot was still a bargain. A total of 66 books, all but a Clark Ashton Smith paperback series (Panther publishers) being hardbacks. As I mentioned, most are first printings; a few seconds. What also slipped through was that one of the books in the lot was Stephen King’s Dark Tower I, Grant First Edition, which as you may know, fetches a really nice price from collectors. I was able to turn around and sell that one for $425 (I already had a copy), which really helped offset the price of the collection.

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As is the fiction of all those who followed him. I’m quite jealous, too. I used to have Mythos collections from the seventies by many of those guys and I really miss them.

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Yeah, you’re right. I just didn’t want to be accused of seeming over-enthusiastic. <grin>

I dig the letters as much for their view of 1920s-30s history through the eyes of an extremely bright wacko as for their insight into the wacko himself.

Incidentally, in other news for HPL letter-lovers, Ohio University Press has recently released LORD OF A VISIBLE WORLD: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN LETTERS, also edited by S.T. Joshi, the planet’s leading Lovecraft Nerd (and THAT’S saying something!). The Amazon.com entry for this book includes an intelligent and thoughtful review, and discussion of HPL’s epistolary prowess, by some guy down in Texas.

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Hoo hah! I can just hear Joshi griding his teeth and stamping his little feet!

Here’s some of his statements from LOVECRAFT: A LIFE:

"…the worst failing of de Camp’s biography is his treatment of Lovecraft’s philosophical thought. Although a popular writer on science, de Camp is not a trained philosopher and is entirely incapable of tracing the sources or evolution of Lovecraft’s worldview and the degree to which it structured his literary work…At the same time, de Camp harps upon Lovecraft’s racial views all out of proportion to their significance in his general philosophy…

"In short, de Camp simply did not have the intellectual and personal resources to write a biography of Lovecraft. He was out of his depth, and this makes his schoolmasterly chiding of Lovecraft all the more galling…

“And yet, for all its inadequacies, de Camp’s biography did do some good…the volume did indeed give Lovecraft wider exposure in the general literary world and helped to interest an entirely new generation of enthusiasts and scholars in Lovecraft the man and writer.”

It won’t kill you to read it; I’ve read it myself. But Joshi’s bio is by far the better book. Don’t let his pompous tone in the above excerpt drive you off!

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Oh great. Another book to add to my shelf. I’m already out of room, and when I have to start stacking in corners, it’s going to be your fault!

:wink:

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Oh, wait, I just realized you said that the Howards are published by Grant. Still a great buy, but the Arkham Howards run a thousand bucks or more on the collector’s market.

I didn’t realize that Grant published Howard…I’d love to hear what else ya got, in general.

Yes, Howard did commit suicide…shot himself in his car at the age of 29. He thought his mother was dying (she was, but he died first) and felt he didn’t want to go on without her.

I’m not a huge fan of his fiction, but he’s interesting as a literary character (Ditto for Clark Ashton Smith*, as a matter of fact). I prefer the Bran Mak Morn stories to the Conans…“Worms of the Earth,” “Pigeons from Hell,” and “Black Canaan” are supposed to be his three best stories, from a horror-lover’s perspective.

*In my office I have a framed 1947 letter from Smith to his editor, Don Wandrei, discussing some changes is a pseudo-decadent poem he wrote in French. The nicest thing about it is that it’s signed Klarkash-Ton, the nickname HPL gave him.

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No, the Howard and Lovecraft editions are not the ones where the story or collection first saw the light of day. Those, indeed, would be way out of the price range this government biologist can afford! Rather, Grant and Arkham House were nice enough to publish very nice collections in (let’s see here…checking pub dates) the late 60s through early 80s. Most seem to have come out in the early 70s.

The books by the other authors, and a few more I didn’t mention, are I believe actual first appearances of the work.

The three Howard books are [ul][li]Marchers of Valhalla, which contains the title work, “The Grey God Passes,” and “The Thunder Rider”, []The Sowers of the Thunder, which contains “The Lion of Tiberias,” the title work, “Lord of Samarcand,” and “The Shadow of the Vulture”[]Black Colossus, which contains the title work and “Shadows in the Moonlight”[/ul][/li]
By the looks of the illustrations, Howard is slightly out of my genre. Valkryes and Conan-types are not exactly up my alley. But I need to read him to get a feel for his contribution to fantasy. (I have read Pigeons from Hell). Pity about his demise.

Do the authors M.P Shiel, Theodore Roscoe, and Harold Lamb ring any bells?

Auntie Pam! I checked through one of the anthologies in this collection, Nameless Places, edited by Gerald W. Page. One of the stories is Campbell’s The Last Hand. Is this the one to which you were referring?

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Divemaster – you lucky devil!!

I did my homework (finally) and the Campbell story I’m looking for really is called “The Hands”. The short story bibliography says it’s only been published twice – in Cutting Edge (a collection edited by Dennis Etchison) and Alone With the Horrors. So that’s not it. Thanks for checking!

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AuntiePam: ALONE WITH THE HORRORS was published by Arkham in 1993, and may still be available at the cover price. I haven’t read “The Hands” (originally published in 1980) but I will posthaste.

dmaster: M.P. Shiel is the GOODS! I assume you’ve got a copy there of the 1975 Arkham title XELUCHA AND OTHERS?

Oddly enough, the screwball 1959 Harry Belafonte/Mel Ferrer Armageddon flick THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL credits M.P. Shiel and his short novel THE PURPLE CLOUD as the primary screenwriting source.

Small world, huh?

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Thanks, Ike. I was told that collection was pretty much unobtainable, but I’ll take your word on it. Off to search.

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You keep on exciting me, Ukulele Ike. Two of the books in the collection are Shiel’s Xelucha and Others (1975–creepy face on the cover!) and Prince Zaleski and Cummings King Monk (1977).

Let’s see, who else? Ok, how about Russell Kirk’s The Princess of All Lands and Watchers at the Strait Gate? I didn’t mention Kirk at first because I read TPoAL as my first foray into this set. A good read. Another neat Arkham House cover; nothing overt, but captivating all the same. I remember reading Kirk’s opinion columns in the newspaper. (As a conservative, I figured he should automatically go to the top of the stack :slight_smile: ).

I can’t tell you how great it has been hearing y’all’s opinions and comments on these books and authors. I will be out of town and away from the SDMB from tomorrow morning through Friday. So, please feel free to add anything else you want, and I’ll take a peek when I get back. I didn’t want my silence to be interpreted as a lack of interest.