Most Popular Books by H.P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft''s "The Call of Cthulhu" is a seminal work in the canon of weird fiction, masterfully weaving together elements of horror, cosmicism, and the unknown. Through a series of interconnected narratives and fragmented accounts, Lovecraft constructs a chilling tableau that explores humanity''s insignificance in an indifferent universe. The atmospheric prose and meticulous detail evoke an unsettling sense of dread, establishing a literary style that has influenced countless writers and filmmakers. Lovecraft''s exploration of existential terror, coupled with the intricate mythology surrounding the Great Old Ones, positions this work as a significant precursor to the genre of cosmic horror, prompting readers to confront the unfathomable truths lurking beyond reality. Lovecraft (1890-1937), a pivotal figure in American literature, crafted his narratives during a period of personal turmoil and societal upheaval, drawing upon his own experiences and anxieties about the modern world. His fascination with the arcane and the obscure is evident in "The Call of Cthulhu," where he channels his otherworldly visions into a narrative that challenges the boundaries of sanity and belief. Moreover, his extensive correspondence with contemporary writers and his deep knowledge of philosophy and science greatly shaped his unique worldview. Recommended for both aficionados of horror literature and those new to Lovecraft''s oeuvre, this iconic tale invites readers to confront the unknown and embrace the dark, intricate tapestry of fear that defines the human condition. With its enduring legacy and profound existential themes, "The Call of Cthulhu" remains essential reading for anyone interested in exploring the depths of cosmic dread.

WIKIPEDIA says: ''H.P. Lovecraft''s reputation has grown tremendously over the decades, and he is now commonly regarded as one of the most important horror writers of the 20th century, exerting an influence that is widespread, though often indirect.'' His tales of the tentacled Elder God Cthulhu and his pantheon of alien deities were initially written for the pulp magazines of the 1920s and ''30s. These astonishing tales blend elements of horror, science fiction and cosmic terror that are as powerful today as they were when they were first published. THE NECRONOMICON collects together the very best of Lovecraft''s tales of terror, including the complete Cthulhu Mythos cycle, just the way they were originally published. It will introduce a whole new generation of readers to Lovecraft''s fiction, as well as being a must-buy for those fans who want all his work in a single, definitive volume.

The Whisperer in Darkness is a 26,000-word novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written February–September 1930, it was first published in Weird Tales, August 1931. Similar to The Colour Out of Space (1927), it is a blend of horror and science fiction. Although it makes numerous references to the Cthulhu Mythos, the story is not a central part of the mythos, but reflects a shift in Lovecraft''s writing at this time towards science fiction. The story also introduces the Mi-go, an extraterrestrial race of fungoid creatures. The story is told by Albert N. Wilmarth, an instructor of literature at Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts. When local newspapers report strange things seen floating in rivers during a historic Vermont flood, Wilmarth becomes embroiled in a controversy regarding the reality and significance of the sightings. He sides with the skeptics, blaming old legends about monsters living in uninhabited hills that abduct people venturing too close to their territory. He receives a letter from Henry Wentworth Akeley, a man living in an isolated farmhouse near Townshend, Vermont, who claims to have proof that will convince Wilmarth he must stop questioning the creatures'' existence. The two exchange letters that include an account of the extraterrestrial race chanting with human agents in worship of several beings, including Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep, the latter of whom "shall put on the semblance of men, the waxen mask and the robe that hides"... 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.

“[Lovecraft''s] dream fantasy works are as terrifying and haunting as his tales of horror and the macabre. A master craftsman, Lovecraft brings compelling visions of nightmarish fear, invisible worlds and the demons of the unconscious. If one author truly represents the very best in American literary horror, it is H. P. Lovecraft.”—John Carpenter, Director of At the Mouth of Madness, Halloween, and Christine This volume collects, for the first time, the entire Dream Cycle created by H. P. Lovecraft, the master of twentieth-century horror, including some of his most fantastic tales: The Doom That Came to Sarnath—Hate, genocide, and a deadly curse consume the land of Mnar. The Statment of Randolph Carter—“You fool, Warren is DEAD!” The Nameless City—Death lies beneath the shifting sands, in a story linking the Dream Cycle with the legendary Cthulhu Mythos. The Cats of Ulthar—In Ulthar, no man may kill a cat...and woe unto any who tries. The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath—The epic nightmare adventure with tendrils stretching throughout the entire Dream Cycle. And twenty more tales of surreal terror!

"From Beyond" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was written in 1920 and was first published in The Fantasy Fan in June 1934. The story is told from the first-person perspective of an unnamed narrator and details his experiences with a scientist named Crawford Tillinghast. Tillinghast creates an electronic device that emits a resonance wave, which stimulates an affected person''s pineal gland, thereby allowing them to perceive planes of existence outside the scope of accepted reality. Sharing the experience with Tillinghast, the narrator becomes cognizant of a translucent, alien environment that overlaps our own recognized reality. From this perspective, he witnesses hordes of strange and horrific creatures that defy description. Tillinghast reveals that he has used his machine to transport his house servants into the overlapping plane of reality. He also reveals that the effect works both ways, and allows the alien creature denizens of the alternate dimension to perceive humans. Tillinghast''s servants were attacked and killed by one such alien entity, and Tillinghast informs the narrator that it is right behind him. Terrified beyond measure, the narrator picks up a gun and shoots it at the machine, destroying it. Tillinghast dies immediately thereafter as a result of apoplexy. The police investigate the scene and it is placed on record that Tillinghast murdered the servants in spite of their remains never being found. 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, What the Moon Brings.

"The Nameless City" is a horror story written by American writer H. P. Lovecraft in January 1921 and first published in the November 1921 issue of the amateur press journal The Wolverine. It is often considered the first Cthulhu Mythos story. The Nameless City of the story''s title is an ancient ruin located somewhere in the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula, and is older than any human civilization. In ancient times, the Nameless City was built and inhabited by an unnamed race of reptiles with a body shaped like a cross between a crocodile and a seal with a strange head common to neither, involving a protruding forehead, horns, lack of a nose, and an alligator-like jaw. These beings moved by crawling; thus, the architecture of the city has very low ceilings and some places are too low for a human being to stand upright. Their city was originally coastal, but, when the seas receded, it was left in the depths of a desert. This resulted in the decline and eventual ruin of the city. 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 Picture in the House" is a short story written by H.P. Lovecraft. It was written on December 12, 1920, and first published in the July issue of The National Amateur—which was published in the summer of 1921. While riding on his bicycle in the Miskatonic Valley of rural New England, a genealogist seeks shelter from an approaching storm in an apparently abandoned house, only to find that it is occupied by a "loathsome old, white-bearded, and ragged man," speaking in "an extreme form of Yankee dialect...thought long extinct." The narrator notices that the house is full of antique books, exotic artifacts, and furniture predating the American Revolution. The old man is apparently harmless and ignorant, but shows a disquieting fascination for an engraving in a rare old book, Regnum Congo, and admits to the narrator that it made him hunger for "victuals I couldn''t raise nor buy"- presumably human flesh. It is suggested that the old man in the house was murdering men who stumbled upon the shack to satisfy his "craving", and that the old man has extended his life preternaturally through cannibalism. The narrator realizes the old man has been alive for over a century. The old man denies that he ever acted on his desire, but then a red drop of blood falls from the ceiling, clearly coming from the floor above, and splashes a page in the book. The narrator then looks up to see a spreading red stain on the ceiling; this belies the old man''s statement. At that moment, a bolt of lightning destroys the house, bringing oblivion to the narrator. 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.

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 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 Statement of Randolph Carter" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft. Written December 1919, it was first published in The Vagrant, May 1920. It tells of a traumatic event in the life of Randolph Carter, a student of the occult loosely representing Lovecraft himself. It is the first story in which Carter appears and is part of Lovecraft''s Dream Cycle.

H. P. Lovecraft was one of the greatest horror writers of all time. His seminal work appeared in the pages of legendary Weird Tales and has influenced countless writer of the macabre. This is one of those stories.

"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.

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 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.