Best Selling Books by H.P. Lovecraft

The Call of Cthulhu is a short story written by H. P. Lovecraft during the summer of 1926. Written in documentary style, it contains three narratives that are discovered as notes left by a deceased relative. While Cthulhu is a character, it''s only hinted at: it is the lord of R''lyeh, an ancient being from the depths of space that came hundreds of millions of years ago to destroy the elder beings of our world. It is described as "a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind." The main plot of the story follows several characters as they try to uncover the cryptic nature of the Cthulhu cult, which is discovered amidst a frenzy of worldwide hysteria. Several adventurous characters travel the globe searching out the cult in an attempt to stop them from releasing the dreaded monster from the stars.

"The Cats of Ulthar" is a short story written by American fantasy author H.P. Lovecraft in June 1920. In the tale, an unnamed narrator relates the story of how a law forbidding the killing of cats came to be in a town called Ulthar. As the narrative goes, the city is home to an old couple who enjoy capturing and killing the townspeople''s cats. When a caravan of wanderers passes through the city, the kitten of an orphan (Menes) traveling with the band disappears. Upon hearing of the couple''s violent acts towards cats, Menes invokes a prayer before leaving town that causes the local felines to swarm the cat-killers'' house and devour them. Upon witnessing the result, the local politicians pass a law forbidding the killing of cats. Influenced by Lord Dunsany, the tale was a personal favorite of Lovecraft''s and has remained popular since his death. Considered one of the best short stories of Lovecraft''s early period, aspects of The Cats of Ulthar would be referenced again in the author''s works The Other Gods and The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. It was first published in the literary journal Tryout in November 1920 and now resides in the public domain. Famous works of the author Howard Phillips Lovecraft: At the Mountains of Madness, The Dreams in the Witch House, The Horror at Red Hook, The Shadow Out of Time, The Shadows over Innsmouth, The Alchemist, Reanimator, Ex Oblivione, Azathoth, The Call of Cthulhu, The Cats of Ulthar, The Outsider, The Picture in the House, The Shunned House, The Terrible Old Man, The Tomb, Dagon, What the Moon Brings.

"The White Ship" is a short story written by science fiction and horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was first published in The United Amateur (Volume 19) #2, November 1919. Unlike many of Lovecraft''s other tales, "The White Ship" does not expressly tie into the popularized Cthulhu Mythos. However, the story cannot be entirely excluded from mythos continuity either, since it makes reference to preternatural, godlike beings. The tone and temperament of "The White Ship" speaks largely of the Dream Cycle literary structure that Lovecraft utilized in other stories such as The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1926) and "The Cats of Ulthar" (1920).

"The Transition of Juan Romero" is a short story by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, written on September 16, 1919, and first published in the 1944 Arkham House volume Marginalia. The story involves a mine that uncovers a very deep chasm, too deep for any sounding lines to hit bottom. The night after the discovery of the abyss the narrator and one of the mine''s workers, a Latino called Juan Romero, venture inside the mine, drawn against their will by a mysterious rhythmical throbbing in the ground. Romero reaches the abyss first and is swallowed by it. The narrator peers over the edge, sees something - "but God, I dare not tell you what I saw!" and loses consciousness. That morning he and Romero are both found in their bunks, Romero dead. Other miners swear that neither of them left their cabin that night. The chasm has vanished as well. Famous works of the author Howard Phillips Lovecraft: At the Mountains of Madness, The Dreams in the Witch House, The Horror at Red Hook, The Shadow Out of Time, The Shadows over Innsmouth, The Alchemist, Reanimator, Ex Oblivione, Azathoth, The Call of Cthulhu, The Cats of Ulthar, The Festival, The Silver Key, The Other Gods, The Outsider, The Temple, The Picture in the House, The Shunned House, The Terrible Old Man, The Tomb, Dagon, What the Moon Brings.

"The Dreams in the Witch House" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, part of the Cthulhu Mythos cycle. Written in January/February 1932, it was first published in the July 1933 issue of Weird Tales. Walter Gilman, a student of mathematics and folklore at Miskatonic University, rents an attic room in the "Witch House", a house in Arkham, Massachusetts that is rumored to be cursed. The house once harboured Keziah Mason, an accused witch who disappeared mysteriously from a Salem jail in 1692. Gilman discovers that, for the better part of two centuries, many of the attic''s occupants have died prematurely. The dimensions of Gilman''s attic room are unusual and seem to conform to a kind of unearthly geometry. Gilman theorizes that the structure can enable travel from one plane or dimension to another. Gilman begins experiencing bizarre dreams in which he seems to float without physical form through an otherworldly space of unearthly geometry and indescribable colors and sounds. Among the elements, both organic and inorganic, he perceives shapes that he innately recognizes as entities which appear and disappear instantaneously and at random. Several times, his dreaming-self encounters bizarre clusters of "iridescent, prolately spheroidal bubbles", as well as a rapidly changing polyhedral-figure, both of which appear sapient. Gilman also has nightly experiences involving Keziah and her rat-bodied, human-faced familiar, Brown Jenkin, which he believes are not dreams at all. In other dreams, Gilman is taken to a city of the "Elder Things" and even brings back evidence that he has actually been there—a miniature statue of an "Elder Thing" which he breaks off from a balustrade within the city. The statue is made of unknown materials and a strange kind of alloy... Famous works of the author Howard Phillips Lovecraft: At the Mountains of Madness, The Dreams in the Witch House, The Horror at Red Hook, The Shadow Out of Time, The Shadows over Innsmouth, The Alchemist, Reanimator, Ex Oblivione, Azathoth, The Call of Cthulhu, The Cats of Ulthar, The Dunwich Horror, The Doom that Came to Sarnath, The Festival, The Silver Key, The Other Gods, The Outsider, The Temple, The Picture in the House, The Shunned House, The Terrible Old Man, The Tomb, Dagon, From Beyond, What the Moon Brings.

"The Rats in the Walls" is a short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. Written in August–September 1923, it was first published in Weird Tales, March 1924. In 1923, an American named Delapore, the last descendant of the De la Poer family, moves to his ancestral estate in England following the death of his only son during World War I. To the dismay of nearby residents, he restores the estate, called Exham Priory. After moving in, Delapore and his cat frequently hear the sounds of rats scurrying behind the walls. Upon investigating further, and through recurring dreams, Delapore learns that his family maintained an underground city for centuries, where they raised generations of "human cattle"—some regressed to a quadrupedal state—to supply their taste for human flesh. This was stopped when Delapore''s ancestor killed his entire family in their sleep and left the country in order to end the horror, leaving the remaining human livestock and a surviving relative to be devoured by the rats inhabiting the city''s cesspits. Maddened by the revelations of his family''s past, a hereditary cruelty and his anger over his son''s death, Delapore attacks one of his friends in the dark of the cavernous city and begins eating him while rambling in a mixture of Middle English, Latin, and Gaelic, before devolving into a cacophony of animalistic grunts. He is subsequently subdued and placed in a mental institution. At least one other investigator, Thornton, has gone insane as well. Soon after, Exham Priory is destroyed and the investigators decide to cover up the existence of the city. Delapore maintains his innocence, proclaiming that it was "the rats, the rats in the walls", who ate the man. He continues to be plagued by the sound of rats in the walls of his cell. Famous works of the author Howard Phillips Lovecraft: At the Mountains of Madness, The Dreams in the Witch House, The Horror at Red Hook, The Shadow Out of Time, The Shadows over Innsmouth, The Alchemist, Reanimator, Ex Oblivione, Azathoth, The Call of Cthulhu, The Cats of Ulthar, The Festival, The Silver Key, The Other Gods, The Outsider, The Temple, The Picture in the House, The Shunned House, The Terrible Old Man, The Tomb, Dagon, What the Moon Brings

Nyarlathotep is a fictional character created by H. P. Lovecraft. The character is a malign deity in the Lovecraft Mythos, a shared universe. First appearing in Lovecraft''s 1920 prose poem "Nyarlathotep", he was later mentioned in other works by Lovecraft and by other writers. Later writers describe him as one of the Outer Gods, a malevolent pantheon.

"The Terrible Old Man" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft, written on January 28, 1920, and first published in the Tryout, an amateur press publication, in July 1921. It''s notable as the first story to make use of Lovecraft''s imaginary New England setting, introducing the fictional town of Kingsport. The Terrible Old Man is a strange elderly man "so old that no one can remember when he was young, and so taciturn that few know his real name". He lives alone in an ancient house on Water Street in the town of Kingsport. The Terrible Old Man reappears in the story "The Strange High House in the Mist" in a more benevolent role.

"Herbert West–Reanimator" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was written between October 1921 and June 1922. It was first serialized in February through July 1922 in the amateur publication Home Brew. The story was the basis of the 1985 horror film Re-Animator and its sequels, in addition to numerous other adaptations in various media. The story is the first to mention Lovecraft''s fictional Miskatonic University. It is also one of the first depictions of zombies as scientifically reanimated corpses, with animalistic and uncontrollable temperaments. Famous works of the author Howard Phillips Lovecraft: At the Mountains of Madness, The Dreams in the Witch House, The Horror at Red Hook, The Shadow Out of Time, The Shadows over Innsmouth, The Alchemist, Reanimator, Ex Oblivione, Azathoth, The Call of Cthulhu, The Cats of Ulthar, The Dunwich Horror, The Doom that Came to Sarnath, The Festival, The Silver Key, The Other Gods, The Outsider, The Temple, The Picture in the House, The Shunned House, The Terrible Old Man, The Tomb, Dagon, From Beyond, What the Moon Brings.

"The Music of Erich Zann" is a horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. Written in December 1921, it was first published in National Amateur, March 1922. Due to lack of funds, a university student is forced to take up lodging in an almost empty apartment building on a street named "Rue d''Auseil". One of the few other tenants is an old German man named Erich Zann. The old man is mute and plays the viol[a] with a local theater orchestra. He lives alone on the top floor and at night he plays strange melodies the student has never heard before. Despite Zann''s dissatisfaction with his own music, the student invites himself to hear Zann play at his room. While watching the first night, the student''s curiosity attracts him to the window of the room, which is the only window that can oversee the wall at the end of the mysterious street. Zann seems disturbed to discover that the student is able to hear his melody from his room and asks the student in a friendly manner to move to a lower floor where he won''t hear Zann''s music, only to return the next day to his antisocial behavior once the student has moved... Famous works of the author Howard Phillips Lovecraft: At the Mountains of Madness, The Dreams in the Witch House, The Horror at Red Hook, The Shadow Out of Time, The Shadows over Innsmouth, The Alchemist, Reanimator, Ex Oblivione, Azathoth, The Call of Cthulhu, The Cats of Ulthar, The Outsider, The Picture in the House, The Shunned House, The Terrible Old Man, The Tomb, Dagon, What the Moon Brings.

"A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson" is a short story written in 1917 by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was first published in the September 1917 issue of the United Amateur, under the pseudonym Humphrey Littlewit, Esq. The story is a spoof of Lovecraft''s antiquarian affectations. Littlewit, the narrator, is born August 20, 1690–200 years to the day before Lovecraft''s birthdate—making him nearly 228 years old as he writes a memoir. Critic Daniel Harms writes, "While not one of the most inspired of his pieces, it at least shows that HPL realized his pretensions... of being an older, cultured gentleman of an earlier era, and could make fun of himself."

Fiction, Poetry, Essays and Letters from the Master of the Macabre, H.P. Lovecraft Read the complete collection of writings from H.P. Lovecraft. This edition includes a fully linked table of contents so you can find your favorites easily and return to Lovecraft''s work again and again. The following stories (plus poems, letters and essays!) are included in this massive ebook: The Alchemist At the Mountains of Madness Azathoth The Battle that Ended the Century The Beast in the Cave Beyond the Wall of Sleep The Book The Call of Cthulhu The Case of Charles Dexter Ward The Cats of Ulthar Celephaïs The Challenge from Beyond Collapsing Cosmoses The Colour out of Space Cool Air The Crawling Chaos The Curse of Yig Dagon The Descendant The Diary of Alonzo Typer The Disinterment The Doom That Came to Sarnath The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath The Dreams in the Witch House The Dunwich Horror The Electric Executioner The Evil Clergyman Ex Oblivione Facts concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family The Festival From Beyond The Green Meadow The Haunter of the Dark He Herbert West--Reanimator History of the Necronomicon The Hoard of the Wizard-Beast The Horror at Martin''s Beach The Horror at Red Hook The Horror in the Burying-Ground The Horror in the Museum The Hound Hypnos Ibid In the Vault In the Walls of Eryx The Last Test The Little Glass Bottle The Lurking Fear The Man of Stone Medusa''s Coil Memory The Moon-Bog The Mound The Music of Erich Zann The Mysterious Ship The Mystery of the Grave-Yard The Nameless City The Night Ocean Nyarlathotep Old Bugs The Other Gods Out of the Aeons The Outsider Pickman''s Model The Picture in the House Poetry and the Gods Polaris The Quest of Iranon The Rats in the Walls A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson The Secret Cave or John Lees Adventure The Shadow out of Time The Shadow over Innsmouth Discarded Draft of The Shadow over Innsmouth ....