So now that my essay marking is finally over, I have some free time to read books of my own choosing. How does one get started reading H.P. Lovecraft? What should I read first? I’m really intrigued by the cult following he seems to have; while I’m not really a fantasy buff, good literature of any genre generally appeals to me, and from what I can discover Lovecraft is pretty well respected. (That, and I want to impress a girl. Is that so wrong?)
So tell me, where to begin?
Well, last week my professor is my Horror Novel class assigned the short story “The Shunned House” and the novel “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”. I read them both over the weekend, and those were my first experiences with Lovecraft. I don’ tknow if they’re his best, because I haven’t read everything, but I do know they’re two of the best stories I have ever read. So I say, you might as well start with those two.
“The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” gets my vote for the best Lovecraft solo effort, followed very closely by “At the Mountains of Madness”. Both are essentially novels. The best Lovecraft story would have to be “The Mound”, which Lovecraft authored but was based on an earlier story written by someone else but inspired by his works. “The Mound” is a longish short story. If you want to dive straight in then those would be my recommendations. If you want to browse a bit first then some of the more famous short stories would be the way to go. “The Thing on the Doorstep” and “The Dunwich Horror” is an excellent short story, as is “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”. “The Call of Cthulhu” never really appealed to me for some reason.
The great thing about Lovecraft is that it’s mostly public domain, so you can get a lot of them online. eg:
http://daemon_sultan.tripod.com/tales.html
I really reccomend starting with ** The Call of Cthulhu **, and then reading * The Colour Out of Space, At the Mountains of Madness, * and * The Shadow over Innsmounth. * And then go read everything else he has written. OR ELSE.
Get the Annotated Lovecraft, the two books Joshi edited. I think they’re just called “The Annotated Lovecraft” and “More Annotated Lovecraft.” But S.T. Joshi is the editor.
One thing you should be aware of is that there are two broad groupings of Lovecraft’s stories: the “dream cycle” and the “Cthulhu mythos”. (Plus a number of miscellaneous other stories, of course.) The stories in the two categories have a very different feel–the dream cycle stories are essentially pastiches of Dunsany (unfortunately, if you’re not familiar with Lovecraft, I doubt you’ll be familiar with Dunsany, but he is well worth reading, since he helped lay the cornerstone for fantasy literature). Anyhoo, the dream cycle almost has a wistful feel to it, a longing for bright things from long ago that are now available only in dreams. The stories in the dream cycle culminate with the story The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, which I would recommend reading last among the dream stories.
Ballantine has published a number of paperbacks of Lovecraft’s stories; I think one of them is dedicated specifically to the dream cycle. (The Ballantine books are probably your easiest method of acquiring copies of Lovecraft; Arkham House and a couple of other small-press publishers also issue books of his works, but they’ll be more expensive. Stick to cheap copies till you decide whether you like it or not.)
The Cthulhu mythos stories are much fewer, though people tend to throw in some other stories into that bucket. These are the stories that people usually think about when they think about Lovecraft–the tales of ancient, creeping, [insert half-a-dozen other adjectives] horror. In addition to Lovecraft’s own stories, a number of other authors who published in Weird Tales also jumped on the Cthulhu bandwagon. So you may also want to check out the horror fiction of folks like Robert E. Howard (yes, the Conan guy), Clark Ashton Smith, early Robert Bloch (yes, the Psycho guy), Fritz Leiber, and so forth.
You should also bear in mind that Lovecraft had a…well…unique writing style. He never met an adjective he didn’t love, and he goes to great lengths describing how indescribable the eldritch horrors are. So a certain amount of suspension of disbelief (or rather, suspension of critical reading) is called for–just accept the writing on its own merits. So long as you can get past the surface of the words, you’ll find that Lovecraft was one of the best horror authors ever.
Thanks for the suggestions, all. I think I might start by checking out some of the stories at the link Blake provided, and maybe splurge on the Annotated Lovecraft before Christmas gets here.
I think I’m particularly interested in this Cthulhu bloke. How do I know which stories he’ll appear in? And is Lovecraft’s writing anything at all like Edgar Allan Poe’s?
(grin) Well, HPL certainly indulged himself in a lot of overblown, purple prose, but purple prose was pretty much standard for the pulp magazines in which most of his fiction appeared. Bear in mind that Poe was HPL’s “god of fiction” (his own words), and Poe was the main influence on Lovecraft’s style for his early stories. (Jorge Luis Borges once remarked that Lovecraft was an “unconscious parodist” of Poe.) I think you’ll find his style gets leaner and more workmanlike in his later stories.
Most fiction is either plot or character driven, with popular fiction generally leaning more towards plot than character. Lovecraft’s fiction is somewhat unusual in that the emphasis is largely on atmosphere and setting rather than on plot or character. Characterization in a Lovecraft story is usually paper thin, with the protaganist more often than not being little more than an obvious alter-ego of Lovecraft himself, and the plot is often merely an excuse for presenting an elaborately drawn background; consider, for example, how little actually happens in * The Rats in the Walls, Pickman’s Model, The Shadow Out of Time, * or * At the Mountains of Madness, * all have of which still have highly detailed settings and back story despite the skimpy plots. If most writers are painting portraits, Lovecraft is painting landscapes, and his best works seem to me like prose versions of Hieronymous Bosch. Lovecraft is not telling a story so much as slowly luring the reader into a dark and fantastic world of his own creation.
For someone just starting out, I’d recommend in no particular order: * The Dunwich Horror, The Call of Cthulhu, Pickman’s Model, The Rats in the Walls, The Shadow Out of Time, The Colour Out of Space, At the Mountains of Madness * and * The Dreams in the Witch-House. * If none of those hook you, then Lovecraft probably isn’t for you.
I haven’t read any of these except The Call Of Cthulhu, but I think you can’t go wrong if you follow his own advice. (Now where is that squid smily when I need it)
you desire to be initiated into the ways of Cthulhu?
Very well.
Don this ceremonial, hooded black robe, embroidered with a thousand unclean gylphs that were old er Atlantis sank.
Breath deeply from the vapors that come from this brazier, filled with the burning leaves of the Grey Lotos blossom.
Let the fumes empty your mind of all human thought.
Take up the ceremonial dagger, and follow me…downwards…
Be sure to read “Herbert West: Reanimator” somewhere along the way. That one creeped me out, truly and deeply. And I heartily second “Pickman’s Model”.
My brother has a Miskatonic (sp?) University bumper sticker. I don’t personally know the reference… but he tells me it’s Lovecraftian.
I was going to make an ‘initiation’ joke, but Bosda beat me to it.
I read a book of short stories in high school. I fell out of Lovecraft, not because he’s not readable, but if you start to read too many at a time (as with any reasonably prolific author) everything starts to sound the same. There are lots of things too horrible to describe… and after about 20 stories, you forget which characters you’re reading about, etc. I did the same thing with Arthur C. Clarke. I should get back in… Cthulhu calls to me.
I did play (and GM) the D20 roleplaying version of The Call of Cthulhu. It’s quite fun, especially when you keep watching your sanity score drop…then drop some more… then plummet.
tee hee.
My professor issued this warning “Read it carefully, children. He’s like Poe…except depressed. He’s a depressed Poe.”
It made me chuckle at any rate.
anyone else read Colin Wilson’s “The Philosopher’s Stone” (You may remember him from the famouse “The Outsider” ?
I guess it’s amazing really just how many other writers referenced HP’s universe.
Those are good suggestions. I think my favourite short story would be The Whisperer in Darkness, which has a somewhat different feel than many of the others. Maybe it’s the unusual emphasis on plot (interesting analysis, LonesomePolecat) or it’s technofobia?
and yes, the roleplaying game is quite fun. And creepy. Haven’t played it for a while but maybe it’s time to retrieve this particular dusty tome from the vault?
http://home.golden.net/~hutchins/
Very cool! 
Yep, I agree with everything in the first paragraph quoted above–I should have commented on purple prose being the prevailing style at the time.
Incidentally, some other recommendations of authors for those interested in atmospheric horror:
[ul]
[li]Algernon Blackwood[/li][li]Arthur Machen[/li][li]William Hope Hodgson[/li][/ul]
Everything has been said that I was going to say, so I’ll just second a couple of recommendations: Charles Dexter Ward and At the Mountains of Madness are both good and quite accessible (the latter is the only Lovecraft story that legitimately freaked me out), while Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath should be read last or near-to-last in the canon. Also, it’s worth mentioning that while Lovecraft has been mined for movies quite often, there isn’t a single film that successfully captures what Lovecraft is about, in my opinion. Stuart Gordon’s Dagon comes close (but falls flat in some respects), and John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness is an interesting sideways look at some of Lovecraft’s themes, with a legitimately creepy ending. Still, the bottom line is, don’t bother with any of the various movies if you’re looking for a “Cliff’s Notes” version of the stories. Guillermo Del Toro is supposedly working on an adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness that might be promising, but with Lovecraft you’ve got to go to the source.
Just go out and get the current paperback “The Best Of H.P. Lovecraft,” Ballantine. Runs about twelve bucks – it’s oversized. Has most of the stuff everyone’s been recommending in this thread, except for “Charles Dexter Ward” and “Mountains Of Madness” – those are more like short novels.
…but “The Best Of” is a fine, cheap way to get initiated to his best work, all in one volume. Not a dull story in it.
And oddly enough, one of the ones that comes closest is probably “Ghostbusters” (with the exception of the happy ending)