The three titans of WEIRD TALES, Clarke Ashton Smith, H. P. Lovecraft, and Robert E. Howard, all wrote verse but only Ashton Smith was taken seriously as a poet by the contemporary literary establishment. Howard's manly Kiplingesque verse was written largely for his own amusement, and HPL's was almost entirely confined to his days of activity in the Amateur Press movement (1914-22).

Most of HPL's verse is in an archaic, highly artifical late 18th Century or "Georgian" mode, which he had come to love from the books he found in his grandfather's library as a child. He sometimes writes in the manner of Poe, but almost always to parody. Actually, his most effective verse, like "Fungi from Yuggoth," is in the sonnet form--- a form he rarely used. Editor Joshi says this is "complete," and he means it, down to birthday card inscriptions and one or two line fragments found among HPL's papers. But this almost guarantees a low average of literary quality and interest. Most educated men in the early 19th Century composed verses on occasion. I have seen a photo of Einstein playing violin with a father and son on piano and violin. Einstein inscribed the photo (in German), "Here's to the father and his lad. Our music was--- not bad!" Imagine someone collecting all such Einsteinian greetings and publishing them as THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF EINSTEIN. Einstein would be horrified, and so should you be. Should we be equally horrified by this book, which is not so different? I think not, because HPL is an important literary figure, and after all some of the material collected herein is seriously intended--- but not much.

A lot of the verse consists of gentle kidding of friends in the AP movement, particularly HPL's teenage buddy Alfred Galpin. There is even a mock-Elizabethan blank verse play in which Galpin and other figures of the AP have prominent roles, including HPL himself. One of the most astonishing of these works is "Medusa: A Portrait," several pages of inventive vituperation aimed at a female enemy of HPL's.

Most readers will spend most of their time with HPL's "Fantasy and Horror" verse, which takes up about 60 pages of this mammoth 557-page time. Given the interest many rock musicians take in HPL it is surprising more of this material has not been set to music. A quick search of the Internet did reveal some posted MP3s of precisely such--- I didn't sample them but did notice the titles chosen were often the ones I'd also have chosen for that purpose.

This is a book to keep by the side of the bed and read a few pages in every time cats get you up to be let in or out, or a loud jalopy going by jolts you awake. I think that's about the only way to get through it.

Having read and collected everything else that lovecraft has written, I decided that it was time to invest in this collected edition of his poetry. I had heard that I shouldnt expect too much, since his prose was a lot better than his poetry. That is still true, but i was quite surprised to find that his poetry is not bad at all. I have to admit, that i have never read or cared much for poetry, and mainly bought this collection to complete my library of lovecraftian books. But i really have enjoyed nearly all of the poems that i so far have read, even though only few of them are horrific and connects to his usual wriitings.

It should also be noted that the publisher Night Shade has done a fine job in producing this hardcover volume; good paper and printing and smythesewn binding that will let you read this book over and over again without the pages falling out. It is rare to see books of this kind nowadays! Buy it!!

Absolutely amazing! I had no Idea Lovecraft had written so much poetry! 557 pages in length. Divided into 10 parts. juvenillia(poetry written as achild or just getting started in poetry),fantasy and horror(my favorite),occasional verse,satire,seasonal and topographical,amateur affairs,politics and society,personal,alfredo a tragedy( a play by lovecraft),and fragments. Very thorough. A must for the Lovecraft purist and collector.

bram stoker is most famous for dracula. not hard to believe. some of the stories here have even a dull plot. but mostly the problem is that stoker dwells at completely irrelevant things, like melodramatic dialogues going on and on, the building of friendship, etc. he could have done better, he is a good enough writer. but he has a melodramatic string, which destroys. the judge's house is the only story really worth reading.

At times the writing is sensual and evocative as one would expect from Stoker. The story themes range from legendry and quests to evils in both familial associations and on the dramatic stage. A range of stuff capitalizing on the eclectic knowledge of Bram Stoker. But what makes it a good buy? How is it especially useful? It would be indispensible for anyone needing an economical edition, as it contains The Crystal Cup, The Chain of Destiny, The Castle of the King, The Dualitists, and A Star Trap: five stories that appear in addition to some nine stories previously collected in editions of Dracula's Guest.

THESE STORIES CONTAIN SUCH CHILLING, CREATIVE DEPTH. I DO BELIEVE STOKER WAS A GENIUS, NOT JUST ON THE BASIS OF DRACULA BUT ON WORK LIKE THE STORIES PRESENTED IN THIS BOOK. IT'S A PITY THAT HE PROBABLY DIDN'T REALISE THAT HE WAS THE BLUEPRINT FOR THE GREAT MASS MARKET HORROR WRITER, A SORT OF VICTORIAN STEPHEN KING. AN ASTOUNDING COLLECTION OF WORK, VERY CLEVER AND SOPHISTICATED 10 -10

It's a testimonial to how effective leftist indoctrination is in popular culture that this political hack S.T. Joshi who has authored such history books as From Thomas Jefferson to David Duke should apparently be the dominate current editor of H.P. Lovecraft's writings.

Many of the books which Joshi has edited actually carries warnings of the quaint antique datedness of the contents to be read with the condescending superiority that an assumed left/liberal urban professorate can bestow on reactionary trifles.

This dichotomy between an academic's doctrinaire loyalties and marketing results in Joshi's schizophrenic editing. A finicky apologetic mess.

Joshi is symptomatic of the congealing imagination as the ivy league disgorges it's post-modern generation into publishing. Lovecraft and company deserve better.

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:

[By S. T. Joshi:] Acknowledgments; Introduction; Suggestions for Further Reading; A Note on the Text; [short stories, except where noted, by H. P. Lovecraft:] The Tomb; Beyond the Wall of Sleep; The White Ship; The Temple; The Quest of Iranon; The Music of Erich Zann; Under the Pyramids [a.k.a. Imprisoned with the Pharoahs]; Pickman's Model; The Case of Charles Dexter Ward [novella]; The Dunwich Horror; At the Mountains of Madness [novella]; The Thing on the Doorstep; [by Joshi:] 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, making it slightly harder to read but meaning more stories can be fit into the volume.

THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES is something of a sequel to THE CALL OF CTHULHU AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES, a similarly produced and arranged collection of Lovecraft fiction, with an introduction and endnotes by Joshi, put out by the same publisher, Penguin. To his credit, Joshi's respective introductions to both Penguin collections are informative and interesting for readers regardless of previous familiarity with Lovecraft, while repeating little of the same content.

Each of these Penguin titles, as well as the two "ANNOTATED" titles published by Dell, presents its selection of narrative fiction in the order written, a practical advantage when reading Lovecraft, and make attractive companion volumes.

If you have never read H.P. Lovecraft before, this is an excellent place to start. Each story gets a brief introduction by the Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi. The stories are the corrected versions, and the presentation is tasteful and classic.

"The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories" is packed with some of Lovecraft's best stories. "The Music of Erich Zann" stands out as one of the best short stories I have ever read. In Paris, in a street that can no longer be found, a student lodger is disturbed by unearthly violin music drifting from the top floors. Who is Erich Zann, and where does he learn these strange tunes?

Other classics in this collection are "The Dunwich Horror," featuring the infamous Necronomicon. "At the Mountains of Madness," Lovecraft's longest story is a mixture of Edgar Allen Poes "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" and his own creatures from beyond. Set in the Antarctic, this has been the inspiration for several films. "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" and "The Thing on the Doorstep" are both excellent. I wish this volume had been around when I first started reading Lovecraft. I am happy to have it now.

some great stories here. by machen, lovecraft, cram and hodgson. also an interesting one by blackwood. but basically, that's it. the non-supernatural and most of the weird fiction was completely uninteresting to me.

This volume is an indispensible guide to the authors that have inspired modern horror, as well as a darn good read. Blackwood's "The Man Whom the Trees Loved" is a study in despair that will surprise even the most savvy of readers. R.H. Barlow's "A Dim-Remembered Story" creates a feeling of the surreal that is so strong, one begins to question the truth of our own existence. Machen, Lovecraft, and Lord Dunsany are also represented. The book is organized in a fashion that categorizes the stories as examples of various types of weird tales. Many of these stories are out of print, so to find a collection of the finest stories of the genre is, one might say, a stroke of Providence.

If you don't have access to the 5-volume "Selected Letters" (published by Arkham House), this book is indispensible. This collection of letters spans Lovecraft's adulthood and covers such diverse topics as writing, eighteenth century antiquities, philosophy, politics, racism, economics, cats, travel, and even the art of buying a cheap suit!

Veteran Lovecraft scholars will enjoy this work because of the editors' efforts at placing each selection of letters in its proper context. These little annotations assist the reader in gaining a better understanding of the author's need to communicate with kindred spirits (despite his avowed misanthropy), his attempts to battle his depression with satiric humor, and the sometimes extreme lengths undertaken to cope with the slide into poverty and near starvation.

Well researched and ably constructed, Joshi and Schultz's offering is a welcome addition. Highly recommended.

Strange that it took so long for someone to think of this. Lovecraft was one of history's great letter-writers, and many of his letters contain autobiographical details, so why not gather those all together? Well, here they are, 343 pages of letters, Lovecraft's autobiographical sketch SOME NOTES ON A NONENTITY, and some explanatory notes. The letters don't really form a coherent autobiography, and someone who reads this book without having read Joshi's biography of Lovecraft first will probably not form a very clear idea of Lovecraft's life.

Most of the letters are new to me, even though I am familiar with the contents of the multi-volume Arkham House "Collected Letters." Virtually all the letters are a delight to read, since poor Lovecraft could find entertainment in even the most humdrum activities... consider the wild Arabian Nights bazaar-haggling fantasy he inserts into the account of his search for a good, cheap suit, after a thief made away with almost everything he owned in the way of wearables.

The text has one annoying defect; the letters are usually not introduced by telling us who they were written to, and one must repeatedly turn to a couple of pages marked "sources" for this vital info. Lovecraft's tone and style, and openness or reticence, varied greatly with correspondent, and this is background info you have to have to appreciate a given letter.

Typographical errors are very few; I spotted only about four, all probably transcription errors in copying from Lovecraft's microscopically hand-written originals.

Like the majority of university press books I have seen over the past 40 long-suffering years, this one suffers from what Lovecraft himself might call "preternaturally odious" design. The cover consists of a fuzzy snapshot of Lovecraft superimposed on a collage of details from old engravings, and each major section is defaced by a grey blob that is probably imagined, by someone with no sense of design, to be decorative. Chapter headings seem to have been affected by word-processing runaway, so that for instance the index is headed "Marriage and Exile, Clinton Street and Red Hook"!

Let's just say I loved every word of it. After you read it, this should go right on the shelf with your worn, much-read volumes of Lovecraft fiction, and you'll find yourself dipping into it at random, at odd times. What a man! Recommended!

This book is definitely the best book to date on the market about the complexity that was Lovecraft's thoughts. In an easy, yet gratefully never over-simplifying, language, Joshi unfolds the philosophical contexts in both Lovecraft's letters and his stories. This is done in the best way possible: Joshi focuses on philosophical issues - i.e. metaphysics, ethics, aesthetical, and political thoughts - in, first, Lovecraft's enormeous bulk of letters, and then, second, as these issues come up in the stories that this horror-write wrote. In this tremendous and almost impossible process, Joshi manages to give a clear sight as to Lovecraft's change of views as well as his inspirations on the different issues.
A thing which stroke me as a wonderful addition to the elements discussed, is the fact that Joshi tries to stay true to the facts. For example, he stresses that Lovecraft - contrary to popular belief - did not invent the "cosmic indifferentism" that he is so famed for; instead it is clearly stated that this is a line of thought that was shared by many, more professional, contemporaries. If possible, such statements, instead of dimissing Lovecraft's originality, makes the reader appreciate the undesputable depth of Lovecraft's thoughts and original combination of philosophical insight with literary 'sleight-of-hand' even more.
Of course, one cannot always agree with Joshi, and sometimes it would have been nice with further arguments but overall this is a book no scholar of Lovecraft (professionally or amateurishly) can do without. It doesn't come any better than this.

This is a companion piece of sorts to Joshi's magisterial biography of Lovecraft, delving more into Lovecraft's literary and philosophical positions, and less into the details of his day-to-day life. Unavoidably, there is some duplication between the biography and this material.

Few writers are lucky enough to have a biographer-critic who achieves a good balance among sympathetic understanding, broad literary appreciation, and unbiased dissection, but Lovecraft is fortunate to have Joshi, who does have such a balance. Joshi's lack of an academic position is, however, a pretty clear indication of the low esteem the literary establishment has for Lovecraft scholarship. In the past 40 years I've seen Lovecraft's literary reputation rise steeply in academia, but he has quite a ways to go, and some academic critic who's looking for a writer to champion has only to pick up this book and find a superb introduction to the writer, his work and thought. Recommended.

very inventive. very original. and ha sure knows how to keep the reader from knowing what's going on. but he is too anarchicc in style, suddenly taking a long path AWAY from the horror. for example, he suddenly creates a love story in the middle of building a horror story with great promise. he can make a story become an unclear blur. he doesn't obey any rules, and it does not suit the stories.

Editor S.T. Joshi warns all the readers that Chambers can reach sometimes the nadir of literature and that he tried to not include the worst thing in this collection.
Nevertheless the disappointment is high as soon as you end the book and realize that only the first 88 pages are worth reading (that is the King in Yellow)on a total of 643.
In the remaining 555 pages ideas are scarce, character are monodimensional and there's a disturbing sense of racism.
I'll advise Cthulhu and Weird tales fan to get a book with only the Repairman of Reputation (which is indeed a marvelous story) unless they are truly collectors.

I eagerly bought this book based on the King in Yellow tales by Chambers I had read years before. Yipes! Chambers wrote a ton of really dreadful stuff--silly, immature nonsense. Despite editor Joshi's disclaimers in the introduction that Chambers wasted a lot of his talent pandering to popularity, I don't think his comments adequately criticized the awfulness of much of this massive volume. Chambers undoubtedly could create real chills, but how the author of the King in Yellow short stories could descend into such pap is beyond me--what a disappointment and what a bore. Unless one is a total fanatic and has to have everything Chambers wrote that has a "fantastic" element, save your money and buy a small volume about the Yellow King. The only thing "fantastic" about most of these stories is how fantastically dreadful they are.

i love blackwood at his best. this is not it. one great story, otherwise this detective doesn't work for me. if it only had been more crime-like, i might have liked it. these explanations, investigations, plots, are just not good enough. probably his worst work.

While I am a huge fan of Blackwood, I am not especially a John Silence fan. Yet, I must admit to a certain fascination with the character. And who exactly is John Silence? Blackwood's fictional character, part Sherlock Holmes, part Sigmund Freud, and part Exorcist. Using his unusual psychical gifts, John Silence is able to solve "cases" which defy others. Both his method of operation (asking Sherlockian/Freudian question) and his solutions bear a resemblance to his role models: Sherlock's solutions as often as not devolve to Moriarty; Freud's devolve to the subconscious and suppressed memories; with Silence the answer always lies in the supernatural.

And what do we make of the name "John Silence?" The name was obviously carefully chosen. Perhaps it is intended to signify an extraordinary man who, out of necessity or convenience, hides behind a commonplace and quiet persona.

While John Silence's solutions always involve the supernatural, it is readily possible to give the stories alternative explanations. Take my favorite, "Ancient Sorceries:" Arthur Vezin, a mild, forty-something Englishman on vacation in France, on sheer impulse, decides to make an unscheduled stop in a small remote town. There Vezin comes under the influence of a coquettish young women. She inveigles him into participating in certain secret rites, which results in his fleeing the town in terror. Upon his return to England he consults with John Silence, who reveals the "psychic" explanation. It seems this town was an ancestral town of Vezin's, and long ago was heavily involved in witchcraft. "Living forces" of Vezin's witch ancestors tried to reclaim him. OK, that was Silence's explanation; here is mine: Vezin represents a type of severely repressed individual known as a "defended" personality. Such individuals are unable to come to terms with their sexuality. While on his French trip Vezin runs into a young woman of such great sexual powers she overwhelms his defenses. Thoroughly "freaked out," Vezin flees to the security of his England ... OK ...maybe I do have a hidden agenda: could this apply to Blackwood as much as Vezin.

New topic. This collection contains a story rarely published, "A Victim of Higher Space." In 1905 Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity. This resulted in considerable speculation on the reality and meaning of spaces of dimension higher than three. Both "The Willows" and "A Victim of Higher Space" seem to have been inspired by this idea. In "The Willows" the concept enters only tangentially (though it is incomparably the better story), but it is the very essence of "A Victim of Higher Space." In some ways the latter reminds one of Abbott's "Flatland," but less scientific.

If you haven't read this volume yet, you're in for a rare treat! A little background:

In 1906-07, Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951) wrote a short story cycle telling of the adventures of psychic detective/ghostbuster John Silence, a sort of Sherlock Holmes meets H. P. Lovecraft meets Hermann Hesse. (That may sound strange, but Blackwood was truly inspired and it works brilliantly.) All but one of these stories were then published in a book titled John Silence--Physician Extraordinary (1908), which went on to be a huge hit, undergoing many reprintings. The omitted story, "A Victim of Higher Space", was published years later, but until now never in the same book as the other John Silence stories.

John Silence--Physician Extraordinary having been out of print for about 30 years, Dover Publications deserves our gratitude for recently bringing that collection back into print -- and including the heretofore separated story to assemble The Complete John Silence Stories (1997), consummately edited and introduced by the eminent horror literature scholar S. T. Joshi.

This is a publishing milestone and belongs on the bookshelf of every fan of classic detective fiction or classic horror fiction. John Silence and his adventures speak with a fresh, thrilling voice undiminished with the passing of nearly a century since it was first committed to paper. H. P. Lovecraft put it well long ago, in his Supernatural Horror in Literature, where he wrote that "these narratives contain some of [Blackwood's] best work, and produce an illusion at once emphatic and lasting."

This time around, editor Joshi has turned up little-known tales by familiar authors such as Blackwood and Machen, and even less well known tales by authors who'd rarely be suspected of such work, such as Edith Nesbit and H. L. Mencken. The overall literary standards are fairly high, with only two real bummers in the lot.

We begin with "ghost" tales by Arthur Quiller-Crouch, William Sharp, Robert Hichens (an interesting tale spoiled by being precisely two times too long!), Lafcadio Hearn, and Walter de la Mare. The ghost is a very problematical concept, internally contradictory--- an immaterial spirit could not be seen nor could it affect the waking world--- and almost guaranteed to lead the author artistically astray. Most of these tales do not avoid that trap, although one does not involve a ghost at all.

Next are some "haunted places" explored by W. W. Astor, Violet Hunt and James Hopper. The last of these tales suggests that the afterlife is to be spent attending the same school one attended as a child--- whether the experience was bliss or torture.

Next come "weird creatures," depicted by Gautier, Bierce, and W. F. Harvey. The best of these is Gautier's tale of the foot of the mummy of a lovely Egyptian princess... and with the foot in hand, guess who's not far behind.

Next we encounter "the superhuman," with tales by LeFanu, Barry Pain, Edith Nesbit (an excellent mad-scientist adventure!), H. L. Mencken (with a plot that would have made a good early 1940s Bela Lugosi movie) and Thomas Burke.

The low point of the collection is found in "terror of fantasy," with the contributions by Erckmann-Chatrian and Gertrude Atherton descending to depths of pure, mindless idiocy rarely encountered even in supernatural fiction.

Things pick up again with "cosmic terror," which contains a moving poem in prose by Lord Dunsany, a cautionary tale about the dangers of "knowing too much" by Blackwood, a short tale that contemplates the total destruction of the earth with what is probably the only possible dignified attitude, from J. D. Beresford, and finally Lovecraft protege R. H. Barlow, characteristically looking forward from 1940 to a theme that came to dominate science fiction in the early 1950s.

Worth the money and worth your time.