Kipling was the pre-eminent man of letters circa 1900, but pretty much unread today. Here S. T. Joshi has assembled 17 short stories by Kipling, in chronological order of composition. Contrary to the book's subtitle, these aren't horror tales, and many have no supernatural aspect at all.

It is notable that the stories grow steadily better as one goes through the book. "The Phantom Rickshaw" is a total absurdity, but by the time we get to "They" Kipling, like Barlowe and Lovecraft in "The Night Ocean," is looking ahead to the type of story that would be written by the likes of Robert Aikman in the 1960s and 1970s, probably the ultimate (to date) literary development of the horror tale, before it backslid into the EC-comics imitations of Stephen King and Dean Koonz and other currently and undeservedly popular writers.

Kipling is noted for fiction and verse set in India, but the best stories in the book, for me, had nothing to do with India. These included the before-mentioned "They," and "The Finest Story in the World," both of which appear to be based very loosely on real experiences of Kipling, and both of which seem to break genuinely new ground within their respective themes.

S. T. Joshi contributes his usual perceptive introduction.

Recommended.

S.T. Joshi edits Mark Of The Beast & Others, a collection of horror tales by Rudyard Kipling, which pairs his lively manner with chilling tales of the dead and psychological terror. Some, as 'The Phantom Ricksaw', have been widely published and will be familiar to fans of the genre; others such as 'Lost Legion' may be less so. All provide masterpieces of the occult.

Robert M. Price once called Joshi the reincarnation of Lovecraft, and this wasn't far from the mark. The shadow of Lovecraft is oppressively looming over this study, and Joshi's writing style and criticism is nearly identical to Lovecraft's 'Supernatural Horror in Literature'. Both can be annoying at times, although they don't take away much of the study's merit overall.

Joshi's tries to bring together a canon of modern weird literature, and argues that authors such as Ramsey Campbell, T.E.D. Klein, Thomas Ligotti, and Shirley Jackson are superior to mass marketing writers such as Peter Straub, Anne Rice, Stephen King, W.P. Blatty, and Clive Barker. Some of the latter get a bashing that they will probably remember for a long time.

In doing this, Joshi often sounds arrogant, elitist, and nit picking. While I do think he's overreacting sometimes it is also clear that the praise of best-seller authors is terribly out of proportion with their literary merits, and that Joshi's words deserve their extra impact. On the other hand, hasn't it always been that the literary merit of best-seller authors leaves much to be desired?

Even so, I think Joshi's study is important because of another aspect. It is an easily accessible study that deals with authors whose appreciations usually don't appear outside of fanzines, scattered journals, or OOP hardcovers. It is clearly written for other literary critics as well. All in all, Joshi shows to have a good understanding and grasp of the field and makes important and relevant commentaries.

As noted, Joshi stresses great importance on Lovecraft's theory of effective weird fiction, and every other three pages Lovecraft will make an appearance. This is a good foundation, but also a potential weakness. Much of Joshi's criticism goes to the grave if one simply refuses to see any merit in Lovecraft's own criticism of weird fiction. Therefore, fans of the bashed best-seller authors will more than likely be unimpressed by Joshi's biting remarks, and fans of the marginal authors he handles will learn not much more than what they already knew for themselves.

One thing that bothers me, though, is Joshi's obvious bias against weird fiction that doesn't somehow work with Lovecraft's 'supernatural realism' or harnesses atheism (he admits this in the final chapter and epilogue). This he defends adequately in the chapter on Blatty, deeming his metaphysical background too preachy, but later on it becomes strained. To Robert Aickman's opinion that the ghost story gains in strength in the presence of psychic research and faulty science, Joshi replies 'I hardly know how to respond to this farrago of nonsense', and quotes another extensive example of Lovecraft. But when dealing with Anne Rice's preachy vampires that constantly and sometimes violently assert that there is no God, Joshi comments: 'It is not clear what relevance these theological discussions have to the core of the novel, but they are admirably presented.'

The Modern Weird Tale examines the philosophy (or lack thereof) behind the works of Shirley Jackson, T E D Klein, Stephen King, Peter Straub, Clive Barker, Robert Aickman, Anne Rice, Ramsey Campbell, Thomas Tryon, William Peter Blatty and Thomas Ligotti, with an interesting chapter on Robert Bloch's Psycho and some of its loving offspring by Bret Easton Ellis and Thomas Harris. Joshi states in the introduction that the exclusion of authors like Richard Matheson and Thomas Tessier (to name but a couple) was prompted by his feeling that his book was already long enough. I cannot agree. Joshi is the most able and articulate literary critic to deal with supernatural horror in literature since the advent of H P Lovecraft, and his carefully argued critiques are desperately needed now that gross-out soap opera has all but pushed the good stuff off the shelves. I was a little disappointed with some of the emphasis in this work - thirty pages on Stephen King and only seventeen on Robert Aickman; an entire chapter devoted to William Blatty's sanctimonious potboilings while writers of the calibre of K W Jeter and Jonathan Carroll are relegated to the "excess length" department - but, after all, however much one may deplore the triumph of bestsellerdom, it's naive at best to ignore it. And even among the bestsellers, Joshi finds items worth bothering with - sometimes, indeed, items we would certainly be much worse off without. Even Joshi's deplored Stephen King is commended for Rage, The Running Man, Gerald's Game and some others. The chapters on the great writers - Jackson, Klein, Aickman, Campbell - are as thorough and rewarding as anything in The Weird Tale, although Joshi's antagonism towards Aickman's (admittedly unenlightening) theoretical views means that Aickman seems to get a little less than his due as a writer. Joshi has, for example, completely missed the point of Aickman's brilliant "Ravissante", and his paragraph on the story ends, in effect, with "so what?" Still, The Modern Weird Tale is at least as good a read as the earlier book, and contains almost as many pointers to interesting material of which the reader may not be aware. Perhaps the best I can say is that, having got through its 260 pages in a day, I immediately went and bought Joshi's critical study of John Dickson Carr - a writer I have never read - purely for the enjoyment of reading what Joshi has to say about him.

H.P. Lovecraft was at the hub of a small circle of weird fiction writers, artists and enthusiasts. Even the most casual note sent in by a fan of his work would often receive a wonderfully long and detailed letter by way of thanks. Were it not for HPL's mammoth correspondence, writers like Frank Belknap Long, Clark Ashton Smith, E. Hoffmann Price, August Derleth, and Donald Wandrei would never have gotten to know one another and, very possibly, might not have persued writing careers with nearly as much fervor and creative imagination.

This book is a record of the friendship that developed between HPL and Donald Wandrei who, as a 19-year-old University of Minnesota student in 1926, one day decided to write a fan letter. For the next ten years, the two men would exchange views on everything from the "weird" influence on art and literature to the woes of trying to get Hugo Gernsback, editor of WEIRD TALES, to pay for the stories he bought.

Readers will also find interesting Wandrei's hitching odessey in the Summer of 1927, when he went from St. Paul to New York City to Providence, Rhode Island (bumming lifts all the way) in order to visit HPL from July 12-29.

There is also a great deal of humor to be garnered from these letters, especially HPL's near obsession with a cheap eatery called JAKE'S (where you could get a complete meal for 25 cents) and a precursor to Baskin and Robbins called MAXWELL'S, where HPL would take visitors and stage ice cream eating contests.

The only truly sad notes were HPL's consistent failures to secure a steady writing job and his persistent racism (also shared by Wandrei, at least while he explored New York). While certainly a blot on their characters, it does add to rendering a more complete picture of two creative people: one a neophyte, the other a rather weary and disillusioned veteran.

This must surely be one of the most fascinating books published on Lovecraft in a very long time. The book contains nearly all of the correspondance between him and Donald Wandrei, a horror/sci-fi writer in his own right, as well as upcoming co-founder of Arkham House. What makes this volume particular fascinating, is that it not only contains Lovecrafts letters, but also Wandreis, making this volume so much more exciting to read because of the ping-pong effect it gives. A lot of other letter-books tend to be slightly boring because the letters seem out of place due to the missing answers.
The two talk about their life, their writings, their authorfriends and what they read, giving a wonderful glimpse into the lives of two struggling writers who never made the big jackpot!
Of course the book will mainly be enjoyed by the hardcore-Lovecraft-fan, but even the more casual reader will be entertained by this book, that also gives a glimpse into the way life was lived in the beginning of the last century!

On top of that, the publisher has done a wonderful job in producing the book; smythsewn binding, fine paper and highquality printing!!
The book is the first in a series of books containing letters of Lovecraft, and I already look forward to the next volumes!
Highly recommended!

I'll admit it, I'm a tech dork. I work for an Internet company and this book is perfect for tag and signature lines for email. Although on a more serious note the definitions found here are not the dictionary definitions but the definitions that modern day society has reflected upon them. While a word, item, or identification for something may mean one thing in the dicitonary we tend to stereotype or re-clasify it in our times as something completly different. Read the exerpts for some good examples. Whil the book was compiled of pieces written back in the turn of the 20th centurey a lot of the sarcastic or sardonic definitions still hold true. Definatly an interseting book.

Ambrose Bierce, in this hilarious book, satirizes all aspects of human behavior. This lexicon that he has created provides often true insight in to the tacit meanings of otherwise benign words. For example, PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy. This book is a must-get.

The stories are straight Lovecraft, with all of the pros and cons that drags with it. Good creepy fiction, some poor plots and some poor choices of wording.

The main problem that I had with this book though was the annotations. Almost every one of them was mediocre, some were truly bad, many were useless (especially the ones about names...only someone interested in genealogy would care, and they don't frequently use fiction as a source), and one that I saw foretold the ending in such a fashion as to destroy part of the ending. Hence, the annotations were rather poor. The illustrations were worse. There were two useful illustrations in the entire book. Other "luminary" illustrations are things like the pictures of three famous poets' graves. Why? The picture of Paul Revere's house. So? Etc. These occur throughout the book and are quite distracting as you expect them to matter, and are greatly disappointed.

My recommendation is to simply buy a normal version of these works. It is probably cheaper and definately more useful. The stories are decent (although I personally think that they are overrated), but the annotations are frequently annoying and almost always useless.
Harkius

While there are some rare nuggets of interesting information in the annotations, I find aspects of this collection to be disorganized, haphazard, and perplexing. The stories, 10 in all, represent a hodgepodge of Lovecraft's greater and lesser writings, arranged chronologically from 1920's "The Picture in the House" to 1935's "The Haunter of the Dark." The editors apparently want to show the evolution of Lovecraft's writing over the years and choose not to build a collection based on any particular theme. This makes for some interesting story selections: "Herbert West--Reanimator" is included, which somewhat surprised me since Lovecraft largely disavowed this work (the idea and format being prescribed by someone other than himself). "The Horror At Red Hook," a strangely unsuccessful story to my way of thinking, as well as the rather formulaic "The Shunned House" can also be found here.

On the plus side, some real classics are given the annotated treatment. "The Picture in the House" is particularly welcome here, as it is perhaps Lovecraft's most horrifying short piece of fiction, and a copy of the referenced infamous picture is included for the reader to view. "The Hound" is an effective if rather traditional horror tale, the annotations for which provide some important information on the French Decadents and other outre movements referenced in the story. "Cool Air" is one of the author's most recognized stories, and the notes stress the fact that the story was written before air conditioning made its way into housing units. "Pickman's Model" is still a disturbing read, even though the ending lacks the punch today it probably had in Lovecraft's time. The three real jewels of this collection are the seminal works "The Call of Cthulhu," "The Thing on the Doorstep," and "The Haunter of the Dark" (one of Lovecraft's final stories and one often given less attention than I feel it deserves). The annotations are very useful in a complex work such as "The Call of Cthulhu," but in many cases they seem forced, contrived, and tiresome. Much of the time, the notes simply define terms such as cyclopean or eldritch, point out obvious concepts and alternate spellings, and endlessly reference other notes in this and the first collection of annoted Lovecraft stories. Worst of all, this book has no table of contents, and one can only see for sure what stories are included by leafing through the pages of the text.

The comments on antiquarian concepts and literary references makes this book worthwhile, but I found it to be less enlightening than I expected. Most of the annotations are unfortunately useless or repetitive. Even the pictures included in these pages, largely of old churches and cemeteries, do not correspond exactly with Lovecraft's settings The many quotes from Lovecraft's letters are interesting, but the letters can and should be read in their entirety in order to avoid mistaken impressions due to missing context. The book is also afflicted with a number of typos, which is something I am sure Lovecraft himself would have railed against. What matters are Lovecraft's stories, when it comes right down to it, and this collection does include some (but certainly not all) of his best fiction. The annotations are welcome additions to the texts, but their usefulness varies widely from page to page.

Let it be said up front: this volume makes you ask for more, but more because of the meager offering than of a whetting of appetite, like "Annotated Lovecraft" did. This venture into Lovecraft, although with Joshi and Cannon at the helm, fails to make a lingering impression for various reasons that are closely associated, I believe.
Let us begin with the selection of tales. In the preceding volume we had such interesting tales as At the Mountains of Madness, The Colour out of Space, and The Rats in the Walls, but this follow-up (and I don't know if there's another planned sequel?) has stories that are, in my opinion, less impressionable, such as Herbert West - Reanimator, The Horror at Red Hook, The Thing on the Doorstep, and The Shunned House.
Sure enough, these tales, although not all of them equal in quality, are interesting for the Lovecraft scholar to see annotated, but I think it a just a tad too much of mediocrity for a single volume. Rather I'd seen The Whisperer in Darkness, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, or another long piece (the annotated Shadow over Innsmouth has been published by Necronomicon Press, and The Shadow out of Time's definitive text has only recently surfaced) supplemented by shorter works, as the case was with the first volume.
Another thing is that there are far less annotations than in its predescent, sometimes whole pages going by without any footnote. What is worse, is that some footnotes are totally unnecessary, oneliners, or explanations of words that one can glean from any good dictionary. Again, this is not necessarily bad, it's just that it would have been better had there been one or two thoroughly explored (major) tales, and some others as dessert.
Yet not all is lost. I still recommend this one as a must-have for the inclusion of The Haunter of the Dark, The Call of Cthulhu, and Pickman's Model, and more so for the additional photographs of the sites Lovecraft mentions than for the footnotes - if you're an above average reader of Lovecraft and Lovecraft studies you'll know most of the knowledge handed already anyway. And, let's face it, anything on Lovecraft that has been done by either Cannon or Joshi is worth buying for collector's sake.
The bottom line is: get it, but don't freak out with a joyous expectation of anything remotely as "The Annotated Lovecraft". It's okay, nothing more, certainly nothing less.

I really did not want to give this book only 2 stars; by virtue of the stately beauty of its language, it probably deserves more. However, I had a distinctly "two-star" feeling after reading this work, and I think that many fantasy fans would agree with me.

A lot of us read that Lovecraft and Howard and others were influenced by Dunsany, and it piques our interest. Let me assure you, this is misleading. For those of you who like the violent adventure of Howard and Wagner, or the mordant humor of Vance or Smith, beware. This is sleepy, thinly-plotted stuff. Dunsany is pronouncedly overrated, in my opinion. Certainly, his reputation as a fantasy author is not justified. He simply does not spin a good yarn. But hey, don't take my word for it. The other reviewers' reference to Dunsany's work as "Borges-like" and "grown-up fantasy" should send up more effective danger signals than I could contrive.

If you want to read the good Dunsany sword-and-sorcery, seek out the stories "The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth" and "The Sword of Welleran." Everything else is dreamily turgid like the Pegana stories, or mere lightweight whimsy.

Many of Dunsany's most eerie and effective stories are collected in this excellent collection. TIME AND THE GODS is probably his single best work, and all of the stories from that long out-of-print masterpiece are to be found here. This should be enough to persuade Dunsany enthusiasts in favor of this volume.

For those who haven't read Dunsany, he is one of fantasy's true masters; many have imitated his archaic, elaborate style, but none have succeeded in capturing the peculiar Dunsany magic without being artificial. Dunsany's strange meditations on time, destiny, prophecy, and fate are reminiscent of Borges, and his prose is rich and (as noted) perilous to imitate.

S. T. Joshi's introduction somehow makes it seem as if Dunsany's chief merit were his influence on Lovecraft, but it is more correct to say that Lovecraft's chief merit is his influence on others, while Dunsany remains a neglected literary master, one of the few writers ever to capture wonder and mystery at their most elemental in wrappings of elaborate, aristocratic prose.

Dunsany is a master of language and of myth. Reading his prose reminds me of listening to Bach; seeing light through stained-glass windows.

Anything by Dunsany (John Edward Moreton Drax Plunkett, Lord Dunsany) is worth reading; the Complete Pegana is exceptional. There is something in Dunsany's construction of an alternate world of gods and men, of the Great god, who made the world and then slept; and the lesser gods, who fear the Creator will someday awake...which resonates with other great human myths. Lord Dunsany never fails to delight.

This is fantasy for grown-ups; not too sweet. Thought provoking and original, with timeless themes and characters that evoke something fundamental.

This is one book I'd take with me to the proverbial desert island.

I have not seen some much garbage and simple stupidity in one book in a long time. This book is full of half "truths", misleading statements,and dubious and shady quotes. It is hard for me to understand (which I don not) how can anyone even bother to waste his/her time writing this stuff. Doesn't the author has anything better to do? I guess not!!!!!!

The editor feels that by associating these 100+ excerpts with the word "racist" he can instantly refute them. On the contrary there is much here for reasoned minds to agree with--especially in the selections by Murray/Herrnstein, Shockley, Jensen. George and D'Souza. Certainly some of the older racial tracts are just silly but much of the modern writings hold true. Even some of the predictions made many years ago, like in Ross' "The Old World and the New" (1914) about the future of America have proven quite accurate. Joshi also peppers the book with some egalitarian essays meant to counter the rest, but despite the pleasant platitudes, these sections do little for the book and basically attempt to refute the "racists" with not much more than a few doses of "shame on you" scorn and a few shots of saccharine sweet sentimentality. No positive proof for equality is presented, but then again, egalitarianism has never required proof for their beliefs.

This book is very inspiring for those who love humanity. It contains a lot of inspirational material. It is a nice historical completement to books such as: Why Race matters (by Michael Levin); Race, Evolution and Behavior : A Life History Perspective (by J. P. Rushton); The Real American Dilemma: Race, Immigration and the Future of America (by Jared Taylor.); Duke's My awakening. I especially recommend Joshi's book to anyone who cares about America.

One of the means by which Lovecraft supported himself was in revising stories written by younger, would-be writers. These revisions are problematic because it is virtually impossible to say how much of Lovecraft himself is to be found in them. I believe that, with a few exceptions, the master of the macabre did not lend much of his influence in the retelling of these inferior tales, but a certain few of them do possess sufficient traces of Lovecraft to make them of interest to those followers in his footsteps. Oddly enough, the two stories that actually list Lovecraft as co-author, The Crawling Chaos and The Green Meadow, are the worst of the bunch. Both of these Elizabeth Berkeley stories are flights of fancy which forego any real plot in favor of lofty, dream-enshrouded flights of fancy which cannot even begin to compare to the Dunsanian, dream-cycle myths that Lovecraft perfected on his own. William Lumley's The Diary of Alonzo Typer is a rather formulaic tale of ancient evil and the discovery of a stranger's ancestral lineage upon his return to the home of a dead forebear. It gives lip service to such Lovecraftian gods as Shub-Niggurath but falls short of dramatically gripping the reader. Wilfred Blanch Talman's Two Black Bottles is another unoriginal attempt to horrify the reader by invoking a soul-reclaiming restless spirit from the confines of a dark, defiled church's cemetery; this story succeeds rather well but possesses no real pizzazz. Adolphe de Castro contributes The Electric Executioner, a rather enjoyable story that cannot but ultimately disappoint in regards to its highly improbably ending.

The revised work of two authors, Hazel Heald and Zealia Bishop, do merit a closer look. Not only are their tales enjoyable and reasonably well-crafted, they do bear certain imprints of the master revisionist's singular hand. Heald's Winged Death has nothing at all to do with the Cthulhu Mythos, instead offering the chronicles of a scientist's mad, wretched, and ultimately self-destructive plot to ingeniously kill a colleague whom he accuses of discrediting his work. Heald's other tale, The Horror in the Museum, does attain a nice level of creepiness and a touch of cosmic horror. The museum in question is a wax museum, and the strange owner suggests that his distinctly horrible wax figures are more than mere wax. The protagonist, whose friendly interest in the singular artist turns to concern and fear at his increasingly mad utterings, agrees to spend a night alone in the dark museum, surrounded by horrible waxen figures and only two doors away from a creature the artist makes incredible claims about, eventually stating that it is a beast he has called down from Yuggoth itself, a beast through which the return of the Old Ones to Earth can be secured. There is plenty of Cthulhian chanting and references to be found in this story, although it does not follow the letter of the original Mythos. Zealia Bishop's tales also convey Mythos elements, yet her stories take the reader to Mexico and underneath the plains of Oklahoma, transplanting the abodes of ancient otherworldly creatures beneath the ground and reinterpreting the Mythos references in a Mexican-Spanish tradition. The Curse of Yig invokes a snake-devil of Indian legendry who exacts a most bitter revenge on those who would harm his children among the snake population, one much more malign and vengeful than death itself. The Oklahoma setting of The Curse of Yig is greatly expounded upon in the most significant tale of this collection, Bishop's The Mound. An ancient mound is guarded by Indian spirits, and all white settlers who have dared explore the area have either returned no more or returned as raving madmen. A scientist of the twentieth century cannot be expected to put stock in such tales, though, so our protagonist vows to explore the mound and finally uncover its secrets. In a major discovery, he comes across a centuries-old account of a sixteenth century Spanish explorer who claims to have journeyed into an alien world underneath the mound, one where some well-known Lovecraftian otherworldy gods are spoken of, remembered, and worshipped. It is rather fascinating to see a sort of conflated Mythos cosmology transplanted deep beneath the earth and to read of references to ancient gods such as Tulu that correlate with the Great Cthulhu. Among the revisions in this collection, The Mound most clearly bears the influence of Lovecraft himself, and while one should by no means place it in the canon of his horrific literature, it does hold a power sure to hypnotize the seekers of Lovecraftian knowledge with its implications and parallel take on the Mythos itself.

Because there are so many different Lovecraft collections out there, it may be useful to prospective buyers to know what's actually in this volume:

[By S. T. Joshi:] A Note on the Texts; [By August Derleth:] Lovecraft's "Revisions"; [Hereupon stories effectively ghostwritten by H. P. Lovecraft:] The Green Meadow; The Crawling Chaos; The Last Test; The Electric Executioner; The Curse of Yig; The Mound; Medusa's Coil; The Man of Stone; The Horror in the Museum; Winged Death; Out of the Aeons; The Horror in the Burying-Ground; The Diary of Alonzo Typer; [Hereupon stories moderately revised by Lovecraft:] The Horror at Martin's Beach; Ashes; The Ghost-Eater; The Loved Dead; Deaf, Dumb, and Blind; Two Black Bottles; The Trap; The Tree on the Hill; The Disinterment; "Till A' the Seas"; The Night Ocean

Contrary to the claim on the dustjacket that this "collection includes all known revisions and collaborations undertaken by Lovecraft", it actually misses several: "Under the Pyramids" (a.k.a. "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs"), ghosted for Harry Houdini; "Through the Gates of the Silver Key", a collaboration with E. Hoffmann Price; several revisions for and collaborations with R. H. Barlow; and participation in "The Challenge from Beyond", a pulp magazine's round robin. Still, this volume is just about indispensable for anyone seeking to build a textually sound collection of the complete fiction of Lovecraft.

Oke, this book gets five stars for collectors. If you are into Lovecraft, by it. That's why I give it 5. But for the overall quality of the stories is average. I believe this is because Lovecraft wrote them for hardneeded money. Revisions in this case mean: an idea by writer, Lovecraft doing the whole work. He said himself in a letter, that he would not like his name associated with this stuff. Still, stories like The Mound and The Museum are still good. The rest is oke, but not 'Lovecraftian'.

Reading Lovecraft's stories today, it's hard to suppress the feeling that you've heard this one before. You probably have, of course - though in a different form and under a different name. While much of his work is plainly unoriginal (the ghosts of Poe and Lord Dunsany whisper just a little too loudly in places), it's no overstatement to say his comparatively small corpus has informed most of twentieth-century horror. And though many have tried, no one has quite matched the overblown pitch of his macabre, lugubrious little melodramas, nor rivaled the gloriously monstrous adjectival orgy of his prose.

More interesting, though, than his scenarios or style is the world view which inspired them. "Was I tottering on the brink of cosmic horrors beyond man's power to bear?" asks the narrator of 'The Call of Cthulhu' - a sentiment no doubt shared by many tired souls living through the godless pandemonium of the early twentieth century. While more 'serious' writers like T. S. Eliot responded to the apparent end of civilization with a sparse modernism and renewed religiosity, Lovecraft embraced a 'mechanistic materialism' which emphasizes man's ultimate cosmic insignificance. His monsters might not frighten you, but in tale after tale it is this which is most chilling.

Arranged in the order in which they were written - and supplemented by a solid Introduction, suggestions for further reading, and very detailed notes - S. T. Joshi's Penguin edition (like its companion, 'The Thing on the Doorstep') is a useful volume for those wanting to taste Lovecraft's mad genius, witness its development, and learn something about the man and his place in history.

I don't think that there's a lot for me to add to what's been said already about the quality of Lovecraft's stories, except to agree with the assessment of Lovecraft as a stellar author of short horror fiction. The real question to ask about a collection of Lovecraft's work, though, is: what distinguishes it from all the other many Lovecraft collections out there? That is why I would give the Penguin collection 5 stars: the selection of stories is very good, arranged chronologically and covering the Lovecraft "hits," as well as some lesser-known earlier works. But what's most impressive about this anthology, as compared to others, is the superb annotation by S.T. Joshi, the premier Lovecraft scholar. There are ample footnotes to each of the stories, describing the backgrounds of the tales, discussing where Lovecraft got his ideas, pointing out thematic links, etc. These footnotes also provide insights into the life of Lovecraft himself, who apparently was not the weird recluse that one might initially suspect when reading his stories. In fact, Joshi includes many quotes from Lovecraft's correspondences, and some of these quotes are even very humorous (one quote deals with Lovecraft's description of his attempts to make a vocal recording in the style of Enrico Caruso, the famous singer). That's why this Penguin collection of stories is so good: you get many classic Lovecraft stories, along with Joshi's illuminating commentaries and annotation.

Since there are so many different Lovecraft collections out there, it may be useful to prospective buyers to know what's actually in this one:

[First, preliminary material by S. T. Joshi:] Introduction; Suggestions for Further Reading; A Note on the Text; [Hereupon stories by H. P. Lovecraft:] Dagon; The Statement of Randolph Carter; Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family; Celephais; Nyarlathotep; The Picture in the House; The Outsider; Herbert West--Reanimator [a collected magazine serial]; The Hound; The Rats in the Walls; The Festival; He; Cool Air; The Call of Cthulhu; The Colour Out of Space; The Whisperer in Darkness; The Shadow Over Innsmouth; The Haunter of the Dark; [By Joshi again:] Explanatory Notes

Unlike in THE ANNOTATED H. P. LOVECRAFT and MORE ANNOTATED H. P. LOVECRAFT, also edited and annotated (though in the latter case co-edited and co-annotated) by Joshi, the equally copious annotations here are collected at the back of the book (thereby being what are technically known as "endnotes") rather than placed at the bottom of story pages where they're referenced (known as "footnotes"). And also unlike the "ANNOTATED" volumes, THE CALL OF CTHULHU AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES lacks photographs that highlight the relationships between the subjects in the stories and the persons and places of Lovecraft's life; features smaller print, which makes it a bit harder to read but means more stories can be packed into the volume.

THE CALL OF CTHULHU AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES now has out a sequel, THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES, a similarly arranged collection of Lovecraft fiction with an introduction and endnotes by Joshi and put out by the same publisher, Penguin. Each of these Penguin volumes, as well as the two "ANNOTATED" volumes published by Dell, presents its selection of stories in the order they were written, a practical advantage when reading Lovecraft.

Never having read Lovecraft before, I found this to be an excellent introduction. This book helps you over two essential hurdles when confronting Lovecraft: his sometimes arcane language and his ideas of bizarre literature. The notes and introductory text get you past each of these and into the heart of the stories, as well as linking these stories to events and places in Lovecraft's life and within his (and other's) fiction. I feel I can now get much more enjoyment from any of Lovecraft's stories than I could if I came to them cold. I get the feeling that the stories presented here are not the cream of the crop, but I think Joshi was trying to present a strong and varied selection of Lovecraft's work in order to whet people's appetites. He certainly succeeded with me. I'm deducting one star because of some minor quibbles, mainly that I wish there had been more and more relevant photographs (namely of some of the places the notes described which Lovecraft used as a basis for the settings in his stories) and that the photos had been captioned (you have to look at the list in the front of the book to find out what you are looking at). This book has made a Lovecraft fan out of me.

Annotated Lovecraft--it sounds like a great idea, and it is. However, many of the annotations in this book seem unnecessary and irrelevant. Make no mistake, the stories themselves are some of HPL's best--"The Rats in the Walls," "The Colour Out of Space," "The Dunwich Horror," and the short novel "At the Mountains of Madness." A pretty good introduction by S. T. Joshi starts things off, and the final pages include some noteworthy comments on the art of writing horror (taken from some of Lovecraft's letters) and a short essay on the translation of Lovecraft's work into radio, TV, and film. This complementary material is very useful to someone just delving into the Lovecraftian universe, but the annotations are somewhat of a mixed bag.

While some of Joshi's annotations are quite interesting and useful, many seem to me to be totally unnecessary; some, such as biographical material, is interesting but immaterial to the stories themselves. For every chemical Lovecraft mentions, Joshi gives us the chemical formula and scientific name, which is okay if somewhat excessive. When some of the trademark Lovecraft terms pop up (e.g., eldritch), Joshi defines them; however, he also explains to us how aeon is an alternate spelling of eon, immensurable is synonomous with immeasurable, etc.--there are several unneccessary footnotes in each story explaining what seems to me to be patently obvious. Joshi also is fond of taking a notion from the text and explaining how Lovecraft "may have" been thinking of this or that, often ending the note with a quote of several sentences from authors such as Poe, Bierce, etc.--sometimes valid, sometimes not, usually over-the-top. He is also fond of referring back to his own footnotes from earlier in the book each and every time a certain subject is mentioned, which I find annoying.

Certainly, many of the annotations are useful, especially in the short novel At the Mountains of Madness. A good bit of the scientific nomenclature and theories, as well as geographic names, have changed since Lovecraft's time, and Joshi does the reader a great service in explaining what Lovecraft meant, what he was referring to, etc.; such important data contribute much to an understanding of the material and proper placement of the settings of the tales. While I would certainly recommend this book to Lovecraft readers, I would strongly suggest that anyone reading these stories for the first time ignore the footnotes completely. Besides sometimes giving away plot points to the current story and others, the footnotes totally interrupt the flow of your reading. To truly enjoy Lovecraft, you must immerse your mind in his language, structure, and flow. I don't think I can read any of these stories too many times, so rereading is more of a pleasure than a pain. Read these stories, move on to other things, then at some point come back and re-read the stories in conjunction with the annotations. You may well have to grin and bear it through many of the unneccessary, repetitive, and not entirely relevant footnotes, but you will gain some rewarding insights and make some new discoveries in these rich otherworldly tales by horror's greatest writer.

I wish I had written The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, but I was happy someone did and was very interested in reading it. The stories included in the volume make a fine introduction to H. P.'s work for anyone unfamilar with his stories, but also offer real interest to those of us who have read these stories numerous times. Now we can find out what some of H. P.'s more obscure references meant, definitions to scientific terms he used, as well as insight into his inspirations for the stories. The book has a few pictures of some of the actual sites that Lovecraft used as scenes in his tales and how he got place and charactor names. Contents include "Rats in the Walls", "Colour Out of Space", "Dunwich Horror" and "At the Mountains of Madness". The only complaint I have with this book is there could have been even more annotation.