Tales

by H.P. Lovecraft, Peter Straub (Editor)

A twentieth-century successor to Edgar Allan Poe as the master of “weird fiction,” Howard Philips Lovecraft once wrote, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” In the novellas and stories he published in such pulp magazines as Weird Tales and Astounding Stories—and in the work that remained unpublished until after his death, including some of his best writing—H. P. Lovecraft adapted the conventions of horror stories and science fiction to express an intensely personal vision, cosmic in its ramifications and fearsome in its shuddering view of human destiny.

In this Library of America volume, the best-selling novelist Peter Straub brings together the very best of Lovecraft’s fiction in a treasury guaranteed to bring fright and delight both to longtime fans and to readers new to his work. Early stories such as “The Outsider,” “The Music of Erich Zann,” “Herbert West–Reanimator,” and “The Lurking Fear” demonstrate Lovecraft’s uncanny ability to blur the distinction between reality and nightmare, sanity and madness, the human and non-human. “The Horror at Red Hook” and “He” reveal the fascination and revulsion Lovecraft felt for New York City; “Pickman’s Model” uncovers the frightening secret behind an artist’s work; “The Rats in the Walls” is a terrifying descent into atavistic horror; and “The Colour Out of Space” explores the eerie impact of a meteorite on a remote Massachusetts valley.

In such later works as “The Call of Cthulhu,” “The Whisperer in Darkness,” “At the Mountains of Madness,” “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” and “The Shadow Out of Time,” Lovecraft developed his own nightmarish mythology in which encounters with ancient, pitiless extraterrestrial intelligences wreak havoc on hapless humans who only gradually begin to glimpse “terrifying vistas of reality, and our frightful position therein.” Moving from old New England towns haunted by occult pasts to Antarctic wastes that disclose appalling secrets, Lovecraft’s tales continue to exert a dread fascination.

Table of Contents:
The Statement of Randolph Carter
The Outsider
The Music of Erich Zann
Herbert West—Reanimator
The Lurking Fear
The Rats in the Walls
The Shunned House
The Horror at Red Hook
He
Cool Air
The Call of Cthulhu
Pickman’s Model
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The Colour Out of Space
The Dunwich Horror
The Whisperer in Darkness
At the Mountains of Madness
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
The Dreams in the Witch House
The Thing on the Doorstep
The Shadow Out of Time
The Haunter of the Dark

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Short Stories, Fantasy, Classics, Science Fiction, Literature

850 pages, Hardcover

Published February 3, 2005

About the author

Howard Phillips Lovecraft, of Providence, Rhode Island, was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction.

Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.

Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.
See also Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

— Wikipedia

Reviews

[Leonard Gaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

H.P. Lovecraft is famous as one of the venerable fathers of literary horror, weird tales and science-fiction. Some of his short stories, like The Case of Charles Dexter Ward or At the Mountains of Madness, have become immensely popular. In a way, he could be considered the most prominent continuator of the gothic genre and, especially, the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Just like Poe, Lovecraft lived a rather lonely, obscure and unsuccessful existence. Still, he has become a cult author, with a large fandom and countless imitations and pastiches in prose, film, graphic design and video games. There is nothing quite like the author from Providence, RI.

Lovecraft wrote almost exclusively tales and short stories for pulp fiction magazines in the 1920s and 30s — and plenty of letters. His prose, mainly in the first-person narrative, told from the POV of a scientific investigator, is full of macabre imagery and atmospheric descriptions. Frightening nightmares, vile vegetation, crawling creatures, buried cities abound in his writing. But his literary endeavour goes much further than a bunch of spooky stories and an intense fascination for everything foul, nasty, slimy and rank. His tales compose, bit by bit, the complete mythology of human doom — the Cthulhu Mythos.

At its core, Lovecraft’s outlook on humanity’s place in the universe is deeply pessimistic: most of his tales are about some occult and brutal truth lurking underneath the perky surface of everyday life, and the discovery of some inescapable cosmic horror. Humankind may take comfort in the belief that there is some benign divinity babysitting us from some fluffy heaven. Yet Lovecraft shows us, on the contrary, that the universe not only doesn’t care about us, poor insignificant apes, but is populated with abominable entities that overwhelm our intellect, horrify our senses and even conspire against us. Lovecraft possibly had the last word on the nature of reality. At any rate, his stories are pretty intoxicating.

The Library of America edition of HPL’s Tales is in keeping with a similar volume on Poe’s Poetry and Tales. It includes some twenty of his most acclaimed stories. I have reviewed a few of these here:

- The Rats in the Walls
- The Shunned House
- The Call of Cthulhu
- The Case of Charles Dexter Wardt
- The Colour Out of Space
- The Dunwich Horror
- The Whisperer in Darkness
- At the Mountains of Madness
- The Shadow over Innsmouth
- The Dreams in the Witch House
- The Shadow Out of Time

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this volume long ago. I have since replaced it with a more comprehensive collection of Lovecraft's works. This seems like a cash-grab by Library of America, rather than a proper treatment of this writer's stories. You can find a cheaper, larger complete tales edition by Chartwell classics. It's 1112 massive pages compared to the 800 here. It claims completeness but contains fewer than 60 works. If you're like me, and feel the need to really read all of this man's unsettling stories, you will need to look elsewhere - there are many ebook editions with rare stories, letters and collaborations. In truth, Lovecraft wrote many thousands of letters and too many stories to bind in one volume, though his fame increases with time, his talent can be gleaned from a few clever and disturbing examples. You don't really need to worry about the clunkier, earlier tales.

Examining his sentences, dialogue or character choices are not necessarily a productive or enlightening exercise. But letting the stories wash over your unprepared mind, sinking into the whirling storm of imagery he conjures, and dreaming and revisiting the haunting, unimaginable dilemmas his stories continually present, is well worth the headache of trying to understand him as a writer, which very few probably ever will.

Like Poe, and Blackwood, Lovecraft is occasionally genuinely frightening. The uniquely thrilling aspects of his supernatural storytelling are often imitated but rarely equaled. Once you have savored the wonder and elegance of his most famous works, check out Clark Ashton Smith, who was a poet through and through and Arthur Machen, who took on the same subjects, but wrote more for aesthetic appreciation. There are a lot of purveyors of the weird these days, but Lovecraft may forever remain the king on the 'mountain of madness.'

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let's first acknowledge that Lovecraft is a master of hooking the reader with the first sentence. A few of the best:

"I repeat to you, gentlemen, that your inquisition is fruitless."
- The Statement of Randolph Carter

"Of Herbert West, who was my friend in college and in after life, I can speak only with extreme terror."
- Herbert West - Reanimator

"I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my advice without knowing why."
- At the Mountains of Madness

"It is true that I have sent six bullets through the head of my best friend, and yet I hope to shew by this statement that I am not his murderer.'
- The Thing on the Doorstep

"After twenty-two years of nightmare and terror, saved only by desperate conviction of the mythical source of certain impressions, I am unwilling to vouch for the truth of that which I think I found in Western Australia on the night of July 17-18th, 1935."
- The Shadow Out of Time

Lovecraft is of course a master of cosmic terror, a diabolical architect of supremely weird fiction. He has mapped out a whole new realm of mood, of vast and nameless horror. Everyone should give a chance to some of his more epic works, of which I'd name 'At the Mountains of Madness', 'Herbert West - Reanimator', 'The Shadow over Innsmouth' and the longest work 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward', all of which were epic, weird, horrible and unforgettable.

Iä-R'lyeh! Cthulhu fhtagn! Iä! Iä!

For some really interesting thought on Lovecraft, I'd also recommend the collection of Michel Houellebecq's essays H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life, which, along with this edition of Lovecraft as a new entry to the Library of America, might inadvertently bring Lovecraft out of the graveyard and parking lot - where he is revered by the trench-coat wearing, clove-smoking, dungeon & dragon playing goth crowd - where I believe he should firmly remain. This type of stuff is best experienced in solitude by disenfranchised outsiders because it is, as Houellebecq points out, staunchly nihilist and expresses Lovecraft's alienation from the world through his utterly fantastic and amazing creations. And I mean fantastic and amazing in the original and undiluted sense: in that they are both the stuff of fantasy, and that they truly inspire awe. All hail the true master of weird terror, the un-crowned king of cosmic, timeless horror.

In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"

[Woolrich13 · Rating 4 out of 5]

How odd a man was Howard Phillips Lovecraft? He was an atheist and Darwinist who insisted on marrying his Jewish wife at a high Anglican church service. Also, he gave a spoken abstract analytical review praising Hitler's "Mein Kampf" to same Jewish wife as well as Lovecraft's then literary agent (also Jewish), who proceeded to more or less ignore him and say, "Oh, that's Howard!" However, this was during Lovecraft's more sociable phase, such as it was, when he had a very, very unhappy stay in New York City, which, to him, was the most repugnant city on earth, with its lack of historical continuity, noise and clatter and endless hordes of foreigners. For the most part, Mr. Lovecraft stayed at home in Providence, Rhode Island and lived as a recluse--a writer who did most of his work at night--and socialized mainly with two maiden aunts. He disliked many, many people, and his racist views supported some of this enmity. Lovecraft saw no purpose to the Universe--none whatsover--and so he invented a strange pantheon of "gods" for atheists and agnostics--Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, Azatoth and their hideous, eldritch, ineffable kin. These same gods wanted nothing more than to be set loose on the world and devour everyone in it, and various of their agents (either often unsuspecting effete scholars or, alternately, mobs of plotting ethnic cultists) wanted to help them along. There's something quite compelling about these "Cthulhu Mythos" stories, and most of them are in this same Library of America volume. They represent a chaotic world of paranoia, where humanity's little hopes and dreams are worse than worthless. They are very dark, and it's easy to see why writers such as Michel Houellebecq have embraced Lovecraft as a literary influence.

Does Mr. Lovecraft have his faults, besides the personal ones listed? Yes, he repeats himself (as he was writing for pulp magazines such as "Weird Tales" mainly), he is inordinately fond of adjectives and a somewhat stuffy pseudo-18th century writing style (as he fancied himself an English gentleman of that era at times), and, in some of his earlier stories, he slavishly copies other writers (mainly Poe and Lord Dunsany). But, by tapping into his own fears, contempt for others, and hatred of religion, he created something quite unique in world literature and sui generis (until dozens of Lovecraft imitators followed him to the printed page). Some of his work reminds me a bit of Belgian fantasist and horror writer Jean Ray (q.v., "The Mainz Psalter" and others), but the two were rough contemporaries in the 1920s and 1930s and apparently knew nothing of one another's work! I suppress an odd shiver at this coincidence, as I suspect dread Cthulhu's influence, dear reader.

Anyway, let us ask ourselves, can a racist be a great writer? Yes, no matter how much we may deplore his or her personal opinions or worldview, he or she indeed may. It's absurd to suppress their work for this fault alone, and Orwellian academics who do are fools of the first rank. Is Lovecraft a great world writer? Well, he has his talents, and, while I can't compare him to Shakespeare or Swift, he has earned a deserved place at the front line of genre writers, particularly in the field of horror. What he does, he does very well and, if, as I do, you wince while reading parts of "The Horror at Red Hook" or "The Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" (which is basically a weak allegory concerning repugnance about miscegenation), it's likely to be made up for by the sweeping cosmic weirdness & terror of "The Call of Cthulhu," "At the Mountains of Madness," or "The Colour Out of Space." Take Mr. Lovecraft's work with a grain of salt, accept his human failings if you can, and you may be rewarded.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have little patience for schlock. I can't enjoy bad art ironically, and I can't seem to "turn my brain off" when I'm reading. The writer needs to intrigue me, and be doing something interesting. I try to read only "the good stuff," even within the bounds of "genre fiction" like science fiction and horror, and as such, I had always avoided Lovecraft. I had heard he was sub-par, a bad writer, a repetitive hack, and I had no reason to waste my time, when there are so many other great writers out there and unfortunately I only live once.

But I was wrong. And so are the people who dismiss Lovecraft out of hand. He is not sub-par. He is not mediocre. He is not a traditionally skillful prose stylist, true, but he is an extremely powerful storyteller, relying on a toolkit that is idiosyncratic and bizarre but functions spectacularly in the stories that work. He creates worlds and feelings that jab into your mind's eye and stay there. He is an acquired taste, indeed, but that taste can be acquired very easily within a few pages, just by reading slowly. That's all it takes. Settle into your chair, take a sip of your tea, and begin, and you'll soon discover you're in the hands of a master. Not a self-conscious master, I think, not someone who knew what he was doing intellectually, but someone with a wild and unique imagination who spurted his nightmares forth uncensored onto the page and thereby created art. Not every story here hits those high marks, but when they do, there is nothing else like them.

Of the early stories, The Music of Erich Zann is the best. It is low-key, but legitimately disturbing. Soon thereafter something happens, and Lovecraft's art takes a significant leap forward with The Call of Chthulu, which is a masterpiece. Lovecraft does not get the credit he deserves for his structural and formal choices - Call of Chthulu, like Frankenstein, is told in a web of nested narratives that are fascinating and bewildering, with the climactic horror (and it does not disappoint) buried at the center of the web. Then there is the absolutely splendid surprise of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, an unfairly neglected but masterful horror novel, with its detailed focus on a man going mad and its unforgettable image of creatures buried deep in wells beneath the Earth crying for food for centuries.

Sometimes it doesn't work so well. The Dunwich Horror and The Thing on the Doorstep both feel redundant, mere retellings of stories he already told much better before. And At The Mountains of Madness, while clearly skillful and influential, to my mind takes far too long to get where it's going. Dreams of the Witch-House is nothing special.

But the best ones are uncanny. They maintain a very particular tone of dread and expectation, gradually but, in the end, violently widening our perspective, and somehow that new perspective is itself the source of the horror. How does he do that? I don't know. But that's the most effective, the deepest kind of horror, isn't it, horror at the true nature of reality? Horror at our true place within it? The Colour Out of Space, The Whisperer in Darkness, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and The Color Out of Time are all masterpieces of the genre. These are fundamental tales of the smallness of humanity in the face of the universe, and they are brilliant. Anyone interested in horror (what Lovecraft and others have more usefully called Weird Fiction) needs to read at least the best of these stories.

[Mauoijenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovecraft at his best!!!

[Brittni · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s tough to give a rating to an anthology, but I have to give five stars for Lovecraft’s style and subject difference. My quote book is mostly filled with his horrifyingly beautiful words now. He’s truly a one-of-a-kind writer, although his stories share large similarities: a logical protagonist, not given to superstitions, encountering something to shake his beliefs; otherworldly entities; a certain book called The Necronomicon; the struggle against madness after learning too much...

I didn’t much like the gorier stories in this collection, such as “The Colour Out of Space”, “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”, and “Herbert West – Re-animator” (the last of which I was not keen on reading to begin with, knowing enough about the movie it inspired). My favorites, rather, were “The Rats in the Walls”, “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”, and—most favorite—“The Outsider”. These stories are the ones that end in a more particularly sad way. Every story’s protagonist has to deal with either deaths around him, or a complete weariness and horror in spirit after his ordeals, but my favorite selections were a bit different. In the first two, the protagonists feel revulsion for that which is going on around them, but in the end they become what it is they hate. This, in its own way, is more horrifying than anything else could be, because they can’t escape their fate. There’s a lingering finality to these stories that the others don’t have. In “The Outsider”, the protagonist is actually a horror all along, without knowing it, trying to reach out to others who run from him. There’s something both horrific and beautifully sad in that.

I was able to figure out the underlying mysteries in each story before the author actually revealed them, but that didn’t take away from the stories. Lovecraft makes a point of reiterating that there’s more beyond the scope of human knowledge, poking fun at the black-and-white mind of logical man. What could be more frightening to the practical person than to discover that what he used to deem impossible, actually exists? Even the most intellectual man, priding himself on his ability to stay unshaken, couldn’t handle what Lovecraft’s characters run into. This is a message of warning to everyone out there that it’s dangerous for the logical mind to believe with a certainty that there’s not something more out there, and I love it. Lovecraft seems to have been a logical man himself, but he’s poking fun at others who are so narrow-minded to presume they know what can and can’t be real.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I took one of those quizzes online to see which famous author "I write like" (iwl.me) and it came back as H.P. Lovecraft. Having never read his works, I think now would be a good time to start.

Oh man, this book was excellent! H.P Lovecraft was way ahead of his time in his writing. He was bizarro before bizarro was even a genre and his horror is right on - creepy and kind of gorey, but excellently done. He kept me on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next.

Even though I enjoyed all the stories in this awesome collection, my top 3 selections would be:

1. The Dunwich Horror - because of it's bizarre qualities.

2. The Call of Cthulhu - because he allows readers to glimpse "terrifying vistas of reality, and our frightful position therein."

3. The Thing On the Doorstep - because it's really creepy and was a fantastic Halloween treat!

I can now see how H.P. Lovecraft influenced horror, gothic, bizarro, and sci-fi genres and continues to inspire writers in these genres today.

[Dave Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I have not read the vast majority of horror fiction available, I would still be willing to stake a claim that no other writer has written in the genre more effectively in the last hundred years than Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

He is almost definitely the most influential. Any modern horror author worth his salt would almost certainly cite Lovecraft as an enormous influence; his last name alone has entered the Lexicon as a descriptive; the adjective "Lovecraftian" calls to mind images and themes almost as quickly as "Shakespearian," "Orwellian," or "Kafkaesque." Note that each word represents its own distinct genre of literature; it is telling, therefore, that Lovecraft would be the sole representative of his field.

And yet it would be lacking to simply describe Lovecraft's works as "horror" fiction. Perhaps psychological terror would be a better term--certainly, the dread his stories instill in the reader emanates just as much from what is unseen than what is seen, and in many cases a great deal more.

Consider, "The Colour Out of Space," in which he describes a terrifying extra-terrestrial force characterized by a colour completely alien to our spectrum of light. Not an enviable task, to be sure, and yet Lovecraft manages to describe the unquantifiable element, along with the maddening effect it has on all who witness it, in a way that not only is more than satisfactory, but genuinely frightening. In fact, it is this way of describing what simply cannot be described that informs his mezmorizing style--and though it is certainly verbose, no word or phrase is wasted.

It is for these and many other reasons that Lovecraft had defied transition to film for decades, though that has not stopped filmmakers from trying (and only one, Stuart Gordon, from succeeding with his wonderful "Re-Animator" franchise). After all, how does one create "The Thing [that] cannot be described--there is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order," in a special effects studio? The feeling one gets from reading Lovecraft's prose is almost as indescribable as the subjects of his tales themselves.

This volume collects 19 short stories, two novellas, and one serial novel, the aforementioned "Herbert West: Re-Animator." All of Lovecraft's tales more or less take place in the same "mythos," and many center around the fictional New England town of Arkham, and the enigmatic Miskatonic University. Though through this collection of the macabre we are led to visit many other places: the nearby seaside town of Innsmouth, where the strange and reclusive residents may hide a terrible secret; the hamlet of Dunwich, where an ancient evil waits to be reborn, and even to the Mountains of Madness in Antarctica, where an expedition from Miskatonic university learns how insignificant humanity really is in the cosmic maw of an indifferent universe. We even are given a glimpse of the distant past and future in "The Shadow Out of Time."

I read this book in October of 2005, and while it is certainly a great Halloween read, I would recommend this title any time of the year. It is best experienced in the dark, with only enough light to see the words on the page, but I defy to to read this book even in broad daylight and not be sucked into the masterful strokes of Lovecraft's fiction.

[Bam cooks the books · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."
This collection of 22 tales by Lovecraft was selected by Peter Straub.
1. 'The Statement of Randolph Carter': Carter's friend disappears in a cemetery while they are conducting an experiment and he is questioned by authorities. Short and eerie.
2. 'The Outsider': learns the truth in the mirror.
3. 'The Music of Erich Zann': "the ghoulish howling of that accursed viol..."
4. 'Herbert West--Reanimator': a brilliant doctor devotes his career to reanimating corpses with horrifying results!
5. 'The Lurking Fear': solving the mystery of the ghoulishly haunted Martense mansion.
6. 'The Rats in the Walls': an excellent story about the ancient family legacy hidden in the walls of Exham Priory.
7. 'The Shunned House': an investigation into a house of death goes horribly wrong.
8. 'The Horror at Red Hook': devil worship in Brooklyn!
9. 'He': Lovecraft apparently loathes NYC.
10. 'Cool Air': an undead doctor
11. 'The Call of Cthulhu': the cult of the Great Old Ones
12. 'Pickman's Model': an artist of the creepy and fantastic and his unspeakable model
13. 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward': tampering with Nature
14. 'The Colour out of Space': a meteor causes strange happenings
15. 'The Dunwich Horror': a force that didn't belong in our world
16. 'The Whisperer in Darkness': the fungi from Yuggoth!
17. 'At the Mountains of Madness': Lovecraft's famous novella about exploration in Antarctica.
18. 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth': young man learns the truth about his ancestry.
19. 'The Dreams in the Witch House': bad dreams and black magic.
20. 'The Thing on the Doorstep': demonic possession
21. 'The Shadow Out of Time': contact with the Great Race
22. 'The Haunter of the Dark': a young author awakens something monstrous.
Done!! Great collection spanning twenty years of writing.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

H.P. Lovecraft: Xenophobic? Check. Clunky and awkward word choice? Check. Creator of freaky and bizarre worlds and one of my new favorite authors? Big check.

Man oh man, this was a feat! Over 800 pages of the craziest stuff i've ever read. I can see why this is the guy that gives Stephen King nightmares.

As far as I'm concerned there are three names in American horror: Poe, Lovecraft and King. Lovecraft was clearly damaged goods that had more hate and fear in his heart than anything resembling love. Love interests in his stories are few and far between. Most interesting, the protagonist is almost always clearly him!

The racism was a speed bump that would unfortunately jolt me out of his stories sometimes. But it's that old timey Grandpa racism where he fears "lesser" Europeans. It's almost quaint.

I love how he's constantly pining for the good old days in the late 1800's. It never ceases to amaze me that people are always certain that things were better when they were kids. They weren't better, it's just better to be a kid!

Be prepared for this book to give you some funky dreams. You have been warned.

My favorites:
The Outsider
The Music of Erich Zann
The Lurking Fear
The Rats in the Walls
The Shunned House
He
Pickman's Model
The Case of Charles Dexter WArd
The Colour Out of Space
The Dunwich Horror (truly awesome, probably my favorite)
The Whisperer in Darkness
At the Mountains of Madness
The Shadow Over Innsmouth

[Greg Heaney · Rating 5 out of 5]

My acquaintance with Lovecraft felt much like one of his own stories, in retrospect. In reading what authors inspired my favorites, or lightly researching some famous novel, I occasionally heard his name come up. No one was ever specific about him, but he was always linked up with a foreboding sense of dread and terror. He remained a mystery to me.

That could not have kept up for long. After reading his stories, I realized that Lovecraftian influences have completely pervaded American culture. Every single association we find between horror and slime, green goo, tentacles, invisibility, aliens, they all came from him. It felt like reading the biography of my best friend: I kept seeing things I knew, but could now identify the “why.”

This volume of Lovecraft is the perfect introduction. It loosely follows his own career: humble beginnings as a pulp fiction writer, slowly evolving into a master of his craft. It is as if every story lead up to the next, continuing what was great and dropping what didn’t work. His so-called Dream Sequence is well represented with works such as The Lurking Fear, The Outsider, and my own favorite, The Rats in the Walls. Although a few intermediate works could have been left out to make room for more classics (i.e. getting rid of The Horror at Red Hook or Cool Air and adding Dagon,) the stories soon become the most notable works of the “Cthulhu Mythos.” Piecing together his horrid cosmic mockery of humanity without that occasional side effect of insanity is easy to do with this volume.
As a writer, Lovecraft was not much of a groundbreaker. His stories are generally written in the first person by individuals who are, essentially, all the same. He has the tendency to use a few words quite a few times (After all, something “indescribable” can only be describe, ultimately, one way.” Truly representing 1920’s mentality, females play almost no roles, and blacks are literally portrayed as animals. Herbert West: Reanimator and my own favorite, The Rats in the Walls best exemplify this. Although I believe it’s a dirty word and choose to refrain from using it, I could not help but laugh out loud at the name of the narrator’s cat in this last story: “Nigger Man.” Apparently, Lovecraft himself had a cat of this name. As with most instances of racism, it’s more humorously juvenile than offensive, and is best ignored as a part of 20’s culture.

So, although Lovecraft is not a groundbreaking writer, his is still a groundbreaker. I believe he can easily be compared to Tolkien: although he ignores some basic rules of “good” writing, he makes up for it a thousand fold in creativity. Lovecraft has created an extra-terrestrial universe so believable, even the most hardened horror fan feels some sort of anxiety after turning out the lights. Speaking of other famous authors, it would not be remiss to label Lovecraft as the 20th century Poe, as many scholars have done before. Both lost the women in their lives to horrid diseases, and died all too young, unknown, sickly, and drunk in a gutter. Both were plagued by demons that could only be released on the page. And we, the audience, are able and willing to reap the sweet rewards of their suffering.

It is important to remember while reading Lovecraft that many of the elements may seem familiar, often times spoiling part of the fun. This is not because Lovecraft is not as scary as modern horror writers, it is because modern horror writers have been so inspired by him. Stephen King and Peter Straub, the editor of this volume, freely admit Lovecraft as an idol. Therefore, don’t be surprised if the story of plot device seems a little overused; be happy that you are now reading it in the original form.

I fell in love with Lovecraft after reading this book. Besides a rather hefty price tag, it is of superb quality, excellent editing, and is an absolute must have for anyone who has ever expressed the tiniest grain of interest in horror, science fiction, or Americana. Alexander Pope said that he stood on the shoulders of giants, and I believe most modern writers can say the same. We are but the lookers, Lovecraft is the giant.

[Monty Circus · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hadn't heard of Lovecraft in my life until a few years ago, when I learned he was a grandmaster of horror. So I was very eager to check him out. So eager in fact, that not only did I purchase this handsome hardcover edition, no, I also bought a Lovecraftian board game, a Lovecraftian book of art, and a fan-made silent film.

I was "all-in".

Turns out I didn't like the stories, the game, or the film. The art is okay, but since I didn't like the writings...it kind of popped my balloon of hope and enthusiasm for it all.

I would give his subject matter 5-stars. Hardcore stories about assorted beasts from beyond the grave or another galaxy? Yes please! Unfortunately, I would give his writing no stars. My problems with his style include:
- Racism, which pervades his work (talk of "beastly" "lower races", and even resorts to use of the N-word, a lot of stories' themes revolve around the dangers of race-mixing and interbreeding with other species).
- Cardboard cut-out main characters which are entirely interchangeable from story-to-story. Other older genre writers commit the same sin (Asimov and Herbert to name two, also couldn't write an interesting character to save their lives).
- Overly ornate descriptions. His tales are riddled with thesaurus-busting old-timey wordage. He uses intentionally archaic language, it's like choosing to read the Old King James Bible, full of thines and thous. Every single story includes at least one variation on: "From the eldritch sepulchre came the unnameable, indescribable horror, horrific in its horribleness!!!" Absolutely tedious. Worst of all, after one story, I had to re-read the ending because I couldn't work out what the hell happened! Even after the 2nd read through, I was still confounded, and had to go online to find out exactly what transpired. And still didn't care! What a waste of effort.
- Abrupt endings. Lovecraft seems averse to the concept of the denouement. He much preferred to end his stories as if they cut from action straight to old-school TV static snow on full volume, leaving me to sit there like ".....that's it??"

In the end, I read over a dozen of his works before abandoning all hope of gleaning enjoyment from any more, as I found each and every one unrewarding. Indeed, they were all quite the slog to read through. I was particularly disgruntled after reading "Call of Cthulhu", which is regarded as one of his masterpieces. The only positive moment I can think of was from the first part of "Herbert West--Reanimator", which seems to be regarded as one of his worst attempts, but began as a fun re-telling of Frankenstein, and the end of the first part even got my blood pumping! But there were a few other parts of that story to come, and the story devolved quickly. So I wouldn't even recommend that one. Or any of the others. Not a one.

I was initially intending to come back to his work after some time away, thinking maybe it would "take", or I would "get it" at some future time. But in the 2 years since, I have never felt the slightest inclination to pick it up again.

But his influence is vast, and without him there would be no "Ghostbusters", "Evil Dead II" or "The Cabin in the Woods", so I can thank him at least for that (It seems his ideas are best when paired with humour). Just please don't subject me to any more of his prose, or I fear I will go insane and die.

[Shaun · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

Though not a complete works, at over 800 pages this Library of America collection edited by Peter Straub incorporates 22 of Lovecraft's tales and is a great way to explore his writings.

In addition to his Poe-esque stories, which often include some element of the occult, Lovecraft also created his own mythology, incorporating ancient and often alien beings into Earth's history. As a result, many of the stories have common and repeating themes and a similar structure/storyline. Likewise, his stories use a more archaic style of writing that may alienate some modern-day readers.

In several cases, Lovecraft's work incorporates elements of horror and sci-fi.

Another nice feature of this collection is the chronological catalogue of the writings included as well as interesting tidbits about the author's life and death.

In retrospect, it would have been nice to have a glossary of the recurring themes and terms used, as the Cthulhu mythology is complex and layered. I often found myself "looking back" to clarify who was who (or what was what).

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes the works of Poe and or Gothic (18th and 19th century)fiction, and particularly those who want a collection that provides a more comprehensive sampling of Lovecraft's work.

[Bill Tucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Xenophobic? Check! Racist? Again, check! Lovecraft had these faults, and many more besides, and I would venture to say that I wouldn't have much liked meeting the man, much less spending time with him. Insofar as his fiction is concerned, however, these shortcomings don't stop me from enjoying every word, and enjoy I did....literally every word.

The thing is, no other fiction harnesses the fear of the unknown as well as Lovecraft's. As horrific as his elder abominations are, they remain nebulous and just out of focus. He once offered advice (perhaps to an aspiring author, I don't know...any Lovecraftian scholars out there in the ether?) that amounted to "don't explain anything." I'm so glad he practiced what he preached.

[R. C. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read a quarter of the tales in the book and only one (not a Cthulhu tale) particularly sticks with me a week later. They were entertaining, the style light and strong, but all too much alike. By the fifth or sixth tale, they had become predictable, and predictable horror just isn't scary. Also, I understand and agree with Lovecraft that the unknown is what truly terrifies us, but I would have been more scared by his stories had he used descriptors more visceral than, "unfathomable," "ineffable," or "indescribable".

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were elements I enjoyed, but I'm less enamored with Lovecraft's writing than with his derivatives. He's certainly influential, and he has an important place in genre fiction, but his writing is repetitive and lazy. I think I'd have enjoyed this volume more if I picked it up occasionally to read one story at a time, but the volume together amounts to something less than the sum of its parts.

Not going to rehash the argument about Lovecraft's racism here, suffice it to say I found it off-putting and distracting.

[Jean · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just can't get into Lovecraft's writing. I find myself spacing out and when I finally do pay attention to what I'm reading I have no clue what he's going on about. He doesn't grip me at all.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

In many ways, the writing of H.P. Lovecraft is autobiography.

I don't mean that he believed in Cthulhu, or Nyarlathotep, or the Great Race that steals your body and casts your mind back to a vast, ancient, Cyclopean prison that serves as a library of all the knowledge of the cosmos, past, present and future. There are people who believe Lovecraft really believe in what he wrote about, or at least say they do, but that's not what I'm talking about. The writing of H.P. Lovecraft is autobiographical in exactly the same way it is resonant for me as genuinely reflective of the universe as I've experienced it. Lovecraft, born in the late 19th century but fascinated and in some ways trapped far earlier, felt the universe was far vaster than we knew, and far colder than we want to believe. Virtually every story of his, the most effective ones, especially, are grounded in the idea that we are all insignificant motes of dust in a momentary ray of light shining through a monstrous reality filled with old and illimitable powers playing out baroque scenarios our minds cannot comprehend without descending into gibbering madness.

Lovecraft's way of crafting words is very nearly viral, which is why he had such a profound effect on writers ranging from his own contemporaries, through to Alan Moore and others not yet born. Hell, I never use the words "illimitable," or "gibbering," but I bet both are to be found many times in Lovecraft Tales, a massive and entirely essential hardcover collection from The Library of America.

I bought the book somewhat on a whim, and under circumstances Lovecraft would have found familiar. He was an antiquarian, fascinated with the past and also in love with "weird fiction," which (and about which) he wrote quite eloquently and passionately. I was browsing a mammoth bookstore in New England (really, I was) when I spotted the dark, foreboding cover with the slightly eerie author photo. It seemed to raise genuine, half-remembered thrills and the promise of wonder. As I saw Lovecraft's name on it, I remembered reading some of his fiction in my very early teens. I remember gray paperback book covers with hints of distorted, mind-warping biology and rotting, dilapidated houses. "Lovecraft," I thought to myself. "I've read him before, but it was a long time ago." The volume promised to be a near-definitive collection (it's not complete, but it's completely fantastic and brilliantly edited by horror writer Peter Straub), and as I browsed the untold piles and shelves of books in this New England bookstore (all right, it was in Vermont, not Boston, or Arkham, but still, it was New England), I was (I really was!) gripped by the desire to, after all these decades, re-immerse myself in whatever dark wonders Lovecraft had led me into as little more than a child.

Reading the stories in this volume, every one a dark delight, made me realize just how deeply Lovecraft's shadowy vision is woven into the fabric of our modern fiction. He was inspired by Poe and other pre-20th century writers of strange tales, but, beginning to write his own fiction before he was even 10 years old, Lovecraft's ancient fascinations and sense of alienation combined with a sharp mind to allow him to generate, over the course of his writing career, a vast tapestry of madness and the unknown that self-refers again and again. The earliest tales here seem like avatars of ancient days, but as science and knowledge expanded rapidly in the early 20th century, Lovecraft's mind expanded with them. Quantum physics in general and relativity in particular lent his work more, not less, verisimilitude, even as greater life experience and exposure to the ideas of others seem to tamp down his earliest, most immature and frequently racist touches. The oldest stories in the book seem like stories that could have been told to (or by) precocious children by the fire in the late 18th century; more expansive (in length and ideas) stories near the end, particularly the masterworks The Shadow Out of Time and At The Mountains of Madness would not have been conceivable without Lovecraft's exploration of the then-burgeoning body of knowledge about Earth's true place in the great scheme of the cosmos. How strange, in fact, to experience this book as a whole and note the introduction, over its course, of the automobile becoming commonplace, or of Einstein being named and his theories hinted at as possible explanations for the existence of other dimensions and perverse, forbidden journeys made possible by the very different physics and thought-processes of the elder gods.

Lovecraft's work is essential, addictive prose that gripped my soul as a child and has excited and recharged my imagination as an adult. Others have played in his sandbox, but no one could ever hope to match the singular and unique voice he cultivated in his years as a writer. Lovecraft Tales is a true treasure of dark delights, and a book literally full from beginning to end with stories worth re-reading, pondering over, and hoping never, ever come true.

[Gregg Wingo · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this Library of America edition, Peter Straub has assembled an excellent collection of H. P. Lovecraft's greatest stories. He covers the gauntlet from "The Statement of Randolph Carter" to "The Haunter of the Dark". Straub includes the weird, the horror, and the science fiction of HPL from the beginning to the end of the author's pulp and post-pulp career.

The second story, "The Outsider", is a beautiful re-visualized telling of "The Beauty and the Beast" and far more moving than the fable. Film and science fiction/horror fans will be delighted to have access to the inspiration for Lovecraftian films and upcoming ones: Herbert West - Reanimator, Dagon ("The Shadow Over Innsmouth"), The Dreams in the Witch House, The Whisperer in the Dark, The Call of Cthulhu, The Dunwich Horror, and The Color Out of Space ("The Colour Out of Space").

The legacy of HPL is mixed due to his grounding in the racism of his time. But like all good literature it captures the zeitgeist of its time and people, and at times uses it for good effect and a realistic look at their thought processes. Lovecraft does this in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and captures the nature of acceptance of racism:

"But the real thing behind the way folks feel is simply race prejudice - and I don't say I'm blaming those that hold it. I hate those Innsmouth folks myself, and I wouldn't care to go to their town. I s'pose you know - though I can see you're a Westerner by your talk - what a lot our New England ships used to have to do with queer ports in Africa, Asia, the South Seas, and everywhere else, and what queer kinds of people they sometimes brought back with 'em. You've probably heard about the Salem man that came home with a Chinese wife, and maybe you know there's still a bunch of Fiji Islanders somewhere around Cape Cod."

While Innsmouth has it genuine aliens, Lovecraft's character is speaking the language not of the world of horror but of Americanism and the acknowledged prejudice of his time.

The book ends with "The Haunter of the Dark", a work inspired and dedicated to Robert Bloch. It is set in Lovecraft's native city, Providence, RI. Most of HPL's work is rooted in his beloved New England and this one is an ode to his only true home and final resting place. With the inclusion of full length works such as "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" and "At the Mountain of Madness", this is a definitive and portable edition of the Master of the Weird.

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

To paraphrase my friend and colleague Scott Tobias talking about Bret Easton Ellis, Lovecraft tends to turn fans into apologists. So, right off the bat: Yes, the antique affectations of his prose can be a bit much. Yes, the stories tend to repeat a pattern of grabby openings and mounds of exposition that build to a big shocking ending that can occasionally feel anti-climactic. Yes, whole passages can be taken up with fearful names from a mythology of his own making. The above makes him easy to parody. His naked racism and thinly veiled distrust of women make him suspect for other reasons. There's really no defending either and they're both integral parts of Lovecraft's world.

They're also part of a larger pattern. Lovecraft had two great gifts: An ability to write and an ability to fear. Lovecraft created monsters that would influence the horror and science fiction genres through today, but they're all born of the fears he expressed between the references to tentacled beasties and forbidden books. He feared women, foreigners, and other races, but also the passing of time, the unforeseen future, the untold corners of the past, the decay of the body, the possibility that madness would overcome him as it did his mother and father, and the tininess of humanity when measured against the vast sweep of a universe governed by cruelty and chaos, if governed by anything governed it at all.

I'd recommend this well chosen (by Peter Straub), 800+ page collection as the best place to start with Lovecraft. (And, for most, it will probably be enough.) I would also recommend reading it in order but spreading the reading out a bit. He does lean on a few reliable tricks and his style is exhausting to read in bulk. But there's hardly a dud here and read front-to-back the collection presents a vision of the universe that's chilling in its coherence, and its pitilessness.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually still had a few more stories to go when I abandoned this book as some of the stories were seeming repetitive. If you like scary/creepy stuff this is classic goose-bump material. However, be forewarned that along with the chills and thrills you will get a good dose of scientific detail, sleuth detection, and mythological references to the point where at times I found myself thinking "oh, get on with it!"
Lovecraft's formula, if there was one, seemed to have been: 1. something weird or creepy is going on in the rural hills or the basement of such and such a house 2.whatever horror is there is frightening and has killed people (or animals) and 3. we must get to the bottom of it. I personally prefer reading Poe, as he zip-edits his terror; Lovecraft takes his time with at least some, if not most of his tales. It's first-rate fright-movie fodder; the man had a wild imagination, to say the least, but if you've read 3 or 4 of his best you pretty much get his style and "craft". If reading late at night, keep a light on as this is material that can play with your imagination; a small, fluttering moth outside your window suddenly takes on ominous possibilities and becomes something more akin to..MOTHRA! OH THE HORROR!! (lol) Poe was mostly just a tragic, heartbroken romantic poet haunted by the loss of his beloved wife and seemed to have needed an outlet for his grief and angst. Lovecraft pours it on thick for the sheer joy of twisted imagery; he is rather merciless to the reader in his way. It is not surprising that movie makers have taken note of his writing and adapted it for the big screen, just as they have Poe. It is unnecessary to read a whole book of Lovecraft's handsomely mounted creepy-crawly tales to experience his talent; Mountains of Madness and a few others should suffice, but it can be fun.

[Susanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned that Cthulhu is pronounced Khlul-hloo .
Two syllables. The u in the first syllable sounding like the u in full.

I've been pronouncing it K-thoo-loo (three syllables). Oops.

Also, knowing that Lovecraft's paranoid, delusional mother kept him isolated for years and convinced him he was ugly makes The Outsider truly poignant.

My favorite story in this book is The Thing On The Doorstep. Waaay creepy.

Lovecraft's favorite was The Colour Out Of Space.
Also very creepy.

In fact, if you sit and read a bunch of these tales in one sitting you will get seriously weirded out. Which is actually the reason given by one big NY publishing house editor for why he rejected Lovecraft's work. (WTF??!)

Unfortunately, that editor was not alone in missing the point entirely.

Lovecraft never had commercial success in his lifetime. What with the "amateur" and "private" publications of his work, today he would probably be considered "self-published". He did sell some stories to Weird Tales magazine, but a few of his best pieces were published after he died.

Luckily he had the respect of his author friends, who recognized his talent, and he seems to have been happy writing for himself.

He also answered his fan letters, even encouraging Robert Bloch to write.

I hope wherever he is, Lovecraft knows how much a part of the culture his writing has become. For example, during one election season I saw a bumper sticker that read:

"VOTE CTHULHU - Why vote for a lesser evil?"

Now that is literary immortality.

[Trenton Hayes · Rating 5 out of 5]

It pleases me that this edition exists. Poor Howard, who was poor and near destitute and who's entire life was the horrified contemplation of beauty and affluence slowly receding like a block of ice melting on a warm day, and whose literary career was characterized by little recognition and much hardship...and here he is joining the western canon, the heir to Poe. And much deserved.

This book has much of his best. The Mountains of Madness, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Shadow over Innsmouth, The Thing on the Doorstep, The Dunwich Horror, The Whisperer in the Darkness, and of course--The Call of Cthulhu. All the stories I love best.

Again, this is Lovecraft. Its mannered, wordy, odd; its stiff with artifice, and the conventions and idiosyncratic word selection can drive some readers nearly mad, and in addition to the undercurrent of snobbery, there is that ugly strain of racialist thinking so repugnant to a modern reader. But the sheer inventiveness--sometimes its hard to see, because he has been so widely imitated for so LONG--make all of this well worth a visit, particularly in the cold, bleak, dark season of autumn. The evocative atmosphere makes me want to visit New England like nothing else ever has.

So the next time you find yourself in the bleak old house on the stormy night, or near the unquiet graveyard in the decaying town--or merely if you wish you were--give old HP a try. Assuming you don't go mad you wont regret it.

[Briana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually, I didn't finish this. But I've read as much of it as I'm going to...YES, Alex, I read "The Call of Cthulhu"...It was okay. I like Lovecraft's style. The only story that really jumped out at me was the first one in this collection...I forget the title...but it actually sent a shiver down my spine when I finished it. And that's never happened before, not with Edgar Allen Poe or Frank Peretti or Charles Williams...of course, I read it really late at night while everyone was asleep. HOWEVER, I also had happy jazz music playing while I read it, so it should've cancelled that out...

I have to give this three stars because...well...I really like Lovecraft's story ideas and his style...but the details of the stories sort of overwhelmed me. It's probably because I'm a skimmer at heart...it's a bad habit that I'm trying to get over. Plus, sort of like Edgar Allen Poe, I can only take so much dark gothic horror before it all starts to sound the same to me...even though I really like dark gothic stuff.

Basically, I really like the way that Lovecraft writes, but I'm not good enough of a reader to appreciate it in its entirety.

[Jesse L · Rating 5 out of 5]

*note: this review is for the 838 page hardcover edition which features MANY more stories

This was the first time I read Lovecraft and holy shit, he is as amazingly unique, brilliant, and terrifying as people say. I must, however, note that several of the stories in this book are mediocre and that it has a 5 star rating simply because virtually all Lovecraft publications are released in collections and not as stand alones and those stories that are amazing deserve 10 stars, let alone 5!

Oddly enough I didn't much like At The Mountains of Madness, the good stuff was amazing but it was too long and drawn out - something Lovecraft already suffers from in general and was exacerbated to extremes here. It's supposedly one of his best stories but I thought that a similar story, The Shadow Out of Time, was much better as it was more condensed and concise.

My favorite stories in this collection were:

The Music of Erich Zann
The Lurking Fear
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The Colour Out of Space
The Dunwich Horror
The Whisperer in Darkness
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
The Shadow Out of Time

[B. Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love it! I can see why so many avent-gardes in the horror genre list Lovecraft as a huge influence. Although the formality of his writing and the consistancy of most stories being told in flashback form prohibit readers from diving in as deeply as one might like, Lovecraft's visions are genuinly terrifying. He was light years ahead of his time in terms of how he treated the subject material with deep seriousness, and created a whole world history (and future) in loving bits and pieces. Certain stories may play out a little predictable, but I don't believe they would have been viewed so in the 30's. And some of his creatures are truly horrific, even by the standards of jaded slash flick fans. The fact that Lovecraft's weird fiction encompasses science-fiction as much as horror is a great comment on humanity's fear of the unknown, and in my mind lends credence to the most fantastic of stories.

[Bre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definately not for everyone but if you dig just plain weirdness and good old horror stories, this might be for you. I love Herbert West, which is partly the inspiration for King's Pet Semetary. Only thing I have to complain about this book is the cover. It's just...dull! Really, Lovecraft has such an epic imagination, so slap a picture of one of the "Old Ones" on the cover or something. If you read this book, you may never think of an octopus the same way again. (Shudders) Not to spoil anything, but I ended up laughing madly at the end of Call of Cthculu. I don't think it was supposed to be funny, but really, the mental picture of the old ones and the doorway on the beach got to be too much! If you can stand what might be called "flowery" pose, (lottts and lottts and heaping lots, of descriptions) and you want to be weirded/amazed out of your mind, I recommend this book!

[Dan Giaquinta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally finished the entire collection. Most (all?) of the Cthulhu mythos included + many but not all of the other favorites. Lovecraft remains my preferred master of the power of suggestion. very little overt horror is ever present in any of his writing, only the possibility of, only the suggestion of something so great and so terrible that the mind flees from or crumbles before even the idea. Of course the same can be said of his racist sensibilities in many of these works. It's easy to subscribe some of his ideas as symptoms of his society. His other writings make entirely clear however that nothing of the sort is appropriate. that said, Lovecraft remains my choice for placing humanity in the food trough of cosmic horror where modern times would say we belong. we're all equal to the palate Yog-Sothoth. Cthulhu 2020 'cause no lives matter.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I have the deepest admiration for how Lovecraft changed the face of horror with all things eldritch, his overwrought style, blatant racism, plodding first-person narrations that NEVER CHANGE in their constructions, and one-dimensional characters have always stuck in my craw. His ideas have always been better than his executions, and the former is where his true talents reside. It's what I thought decades ago when I first read him and it's what I think now after a painful re-read. Fight me.