Complete Works of H. P. Lovecraft (Illustrated)

1868 Pages·2012·8.77 MB·English

by  H.P. Lovecraft

The Complete Works of

H. P. LOVECRAFT

(1890-1937)

Contents

H. P. Lovecraft: Brief Introduction

The Short Stories
LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
The Poetry
LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
Selected Essays
LIST OF ESSAYS
The Memoirs
LIST OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WORKS

© Delphi Classics 2013
Version 2

The Complete Works of

H. P. LOVECRAFT

By Delphi Classics, 2013
Other Weird and Supernatural Fiction authors

by Delphi Classics

www.delphiclassics.com
H. P. Lovecraft: Brief Introduction

Although at the time of his death H. P. Lovecraft was relatively unknown as a
writer, his imaginative and original horror, fantasy and science fiction stories
have now earned him the prestige of being one of America’s most popular
writers. Having established the Cthulhu Mythos story cycle and his
Necronomicon world of forbidden lore, Lovecraft is celebrated for having
developed an aesthetic and philosophical principle of ‘cosmicism’, a belief that
life is incomprehensible to human minds and so the universe is fundamentally
opposed to their interest. It was with this innovative theory that he used many of
his short stories to create unusual worlds and horrific encounters. Many of his
tales convey a cold indifference to human concerns and affairs, creating an
atmosphere unprecedented in literature until this time.
With few of his readers even knowing his name during his literary career,
Lovecraft’s stories appeared chiefly in prominent pulp magazines such as Weird
Tales. Nevertheless, he corresponded with other contemporary writers, such as
Clark Ashton Smith and August Derleth, eventually forming a literary group that
is now referred to as the “Lovecraft Circle”. All members of the group were
directly inspired by Lovecraft, who actively encouraged other writers to use his
ideas and share his work. The author’s prolific letters reveal a learned and
enthusiastic knowledge of the classics, as well as a heightened understanding of
critical study. After Lovecraft’s death, the Lovecraft Circle continued their
work, expanding his vision and the mythological worlds he had established in
his short stories.
Developed by Lovecraft, the Cthulhu Mythos is a fictive universe, whose
name was coined by August Derleth, after the name of the Cthulhu creature from
Lovecraft’s famous short story The Call of Cthulhu. Written in 1926 and first
published two years later in Weird Tales, this story is widely regarded as being
one of Lovecraft’s greatest works. Reportedly, Lovecraft was inspired in the
writing of the tale by Lord Alfred Tennyson’s 1830 sonnet The Kraken, due to
its reference of a huge aquatic creature sleeping for an eternity at the bottom of
the ocean.
The short story is presented in form as a manuscript discovered among the
papers of the late Francis Wayland Thurston, of Boston. In the narrative,
Thurston recounts his discovery of notes left behind by his granduncle, George
Gammell Angell, a prominent Professor of Semitic languages at Brown
University in Providence, Rhode Island, who died suddenly in the winter of 1926
amid mysterious circumstances.
In many of his subsequent short stories, Lovecraft expanded on his theme of
absolute irrelevance of mankind in the face of the cosmic horrors existing in the
universe, with the author constantly referring to the “Great Old Ones”, a
pantheon of ancient and omnipotent deities from space, who had once ruled the
Earth and since fallen into a deathlike sleep. Following Lovecraft’s untimely
death to cancer in 1936, August Derleth continued publishing Lovecraft’s
stories, whilst attempting to categorise and expand the Mythos. Since then, many
writers have added to the Lovecraftian milieu, shaping the Cthulhu Mythos in
what has become an ongoing expansion of the fictional universe.
As Lovecraft’s reputation has blossomed over the decades, he is now regarded
as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century, drawing the
admiration of writers such as Stephen King, Félix Guattari, Michel Houellebecq
and Jorge Luis Borges. In this edition, Lovecraft’s complete fictional works,
including the tales he collaborated on with other writers, are presented in the
chronological order they were written, allowing readers to chart the gradual
development of Lovecraft’s universe and the originality of his writing.
Please note: due to copyright restrictions, the short stories that Lovecraft wrote with C. M. Eddy, Jr. cannot
appear in this collection.
Lovecraft as a young man, 1915
The 1928 magazine that contained the first appearance of ‘The Call of Cthulhu’