Picked this up, what are the best H.P Lovecraft stories? I'm reading Shadow Over Innsmouth right now

What do you think is the best work to start with?

The Horror in the Museum. He ghostwrote it for someone else if I remember well, but it's one of his best in my opinion. Also The Dunwich Horror is top. The Call
Of Cthulhu is pretty lame tho.

Definitely not, just a long story full of endless descriptions about everything. You will loose the sense of horror by this. Prefer the short ones. At the mountains of madness should be readed when you know pretty well the work of HPL.
Or you can choose it as first reading and get bored as fuck and just drop anything of this autor.

I like his dream cycle

Yes. But not in the beginning. Things that are hinted about in earlier stories are laid out more explicitly. It's should be one of the last stories to read.

Rats in the Walls, I loved this one high-key
Call of Cthuhlu (obvi)
Dunwich Horror
The Tomb
Mountrains of Madness (kinda long, very good)

Dagon

Cult of Cthulhu and the Whisperers in the Dark are my 2 favorites but I've never read anything by him that I didn't like.
*a 90 page infodump
ftfy

I like his poems

/ourguy/, always was, always will be

Colour out of space is like my favorite horror story ever. I listened to an audiobook during a thunderstorm with the fiftiest sounding guy I could find.

>readed

Whisperer in Darkness is one of his creepiest imo and has a really distinct atmosphere to it.

Mountains of Madness is probably my favorite, but like other posters said, you should wait until you've read a lot of his stuff before starting it.

He's got some great really short ones. "Dagon" and "Statement of Randolph Carter" are both just a couple pages long but are a good intro to Lovecraft. I recommended them to my younger siblings to get them into him and they liked them a lot.

Dagon
Nyarlathotep
The Picture in the House
The Nameless City
The Music of Erich Zann
The Statement of Randolph Carter - The Silver Key - The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath - Through the Gates of the Silver Key (these form a connected narrative)
The Festival
The Call of Cthulhu
Pickman's Model
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The Colour out of Space
The Whisperer in Darkness
The Shadow over Innsmouth
The Dreams in the Witch-House
The Haunter of the Dark
The Thing on the Doorstep
At the Mountains of Madness
The Shadow out of Time
The Fungi from Yuggoth (sonnet cycle)

My favorite story of his is "The Thing On The Doorstep". Anyone else feel the same way? It's actually really good, unironically. Kind of a very narcissistically wishful autobiography, I think.

>"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. At first I shall be called a madman—madder than the man I shot in his cell at the Arkham Sanitarium. Later some of my readers will weigh each statement, correlate it with the known facts, and ask themselves how I could have believed otherwise than as I did after facing the evidence of that horror—that thing on the doorstep."

youtube.com/watch?v=gHLEGzu8Dw8

I unironically relate to Edward Derby.

Other great ones are "The Colour out of Space", "Beyond the Wall of Sleep", "At the Mountains of Madness".

"You have been my friend in the cosmos; you have been my only friend on this planet—the only soul to sense and seek for me within the repellent form which lies on this couch. We shall meet again—perhaps in the shining mists of Orion’s Sword, perhaps on a bleak plateau in prehistoric Asia. Perhaps in unremembered dreams tonight; perhaps in some other form an aeon hence, when the solar system shall have been swept away.”

>"You have been my friend in the cosmos; you have been my only friend on this planet—the only soul to sense and seek for me within the repellent form which lies on this couch. We shall meet again—perhaps in the shining mists of Orion’s Sword, perhaps on a bleak plateau in prehistoric Asia. Perhaps in unremembered dreams tonight; perhaps in some other form an aeon hence, when the solar system shall have been swept away.”

I wish I had a cosmic brother of light.

I recently reread The Statement and that ending is chilling.

Cont. I'm not a big fan of "The Dunwitch Horror", but it's worth reading for the Necronomicon excerpt alone, the longest glimpse into the book Lovecraft ever provides and some great prose:

"Nor is it to be thought that man is either the oldest or the last of earth’s masters, or that the common bulk of life and substance walks alone. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them, They walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen. Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth’s fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread. By Their smell can men sometimes know Them near, but of Their semblance can no man know, saving only in the features of those They have begotten on mankind; and of those are there many sorts, differing in likeness from man’s truest eidolon to that shape without sight or substance which is Them. They walk unseen and foul in lonely places where the Words have been spoken and the Rites howled through at their Seasons. The wind gibbers with Their voices, and the earth mutters with Their consciousness. They bend the forest and crush the city, yet may not forest or city behold the hand that smites. Kadath in the cold waste hath known Them, and what man knows Kadath? The ice desert of the South and the sunken isles of Ocean hold stones whereon Their seal is engraven, but who hath seen the deep frozen city or the sealed tower long garlanded with seaweed and barnacles? Great Cthulhu is Their cousin, yet can he spy Them only dimly. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! As a foulness shall ye know Them. Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold. Yog-Sothoth is the key to the gate, whereby the spheres meet. Man rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where man rules now. After summer is winter, and after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall They reign again."

me too desu

>popular or sensational writing that is generally regarded as being of poor quality
hmmm

I remember that ending really got me the first time I read it, that was one of the 1st or 2nd Lovecraft stories I ever read. Must've been ten or so years ago now.

Also since this is turning into the Lovecraft general there are two stories I've been trying to track down that I can't remember the name of. One that ends with a guy finding out his ancestors were apes and he sits himself on fire or something. And another one where the mc walks down some haunted alley and gets shown a vision of a future were New York city has been taken over by Chinese people. Anyone else remember these?

The first one is the Facts concerning the late Arthur Jermyn and his family, I think.

The second is "He".

Only thing I hated about Dunwitch Horror was when he started writing in the locals dialect, it was insufferable to read.

I liked it a lot, I could even imagine them better that way. What I did hate though were those ye olde English in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Those were horrible.

Definitely seek out both the one-volume New Annotated and the older Joshi Annotated editions. Lovecraft had massive background and authenticity, many of his locations were real.

In the valley of Nis the accursed waning moon shines thinly, tearing a path for its light with feeble horns through the lethal foliage of a great upas-tree. And within the depths of the valley, where the light reaches not, move forms not meet to be beheld. Rank is the herbage on each slope, where evil vines and creeping plants crawl amidst the stones of ruined palaces, twining tightly about broken columns and strange monoliths, and heaving up marble pavements laid by forgotten hands. And in trees that grow gigantic in crumbling courtyards leap little apes, while in and out of deep treasure-vaults writhe poison serpents and scaly things without a name.
Vast are the stones which sleep beneath coverlets of dank moss, and mighty were the walls from which they fell. For all time did their builders erect them, and in sooth they yet serve nobly, for beneath them the grey toad makes his habitation.
At the very bottom of the valley lies the river Than, whose waters are slimy and filled with weeds. From hidden springs it rises, and to subterranean grottoes it flows, so that the Daemon of the Valley knows not why its waters are red, nor whither they are bound.
The Genie that haunts the moonbeams spake to the Daemon of the Valley, saying, “I am old, and forget much. Tell me the deeds and aspect and name of them who built these things of stone.” And the Daemon replied, “I am Memory, and am wise in lore of the past, but I too am old. These beings were like the waters of the river Than, not to be understood. Their deeds I recall not, for they were but of the moment. Their aspect I recall dimly, for it was like to that of the little apes in the trees. Their name I recall clearly, for it rhymed with that of the river. These beings of yesterday were called Man.”
So the Genie flew back to the thin horned moon, and the Daemon looked intently at a little ape in a tree that grew in a crumbling courtyard.

What makes eldritch horror scary?

The fact that it's all true.
>you are now aware that Dunwich was anti-Christian satire culminating in a parody of the Crucifixion

Innsmouth was good.

I didn't care for Cthulu or Mountains of Madness.

Dunwich Horror is probably my favorite.

Innsmouth is good as well as The Dunwitch Horror, Color out of Space, Call of Cthulhu, and for me personally, The Horror at Red Hook.

At the Mountains of Madness

The Thing on the Doorstep always stuck with me. Maybe because it's the most relatable for me.

These were exactly the ones I was looking for, thanks!

What I always liked about Dunwich horror was how he made Arkham University into this cozy little Ivy League school tucked away in New England that just happens to be the center of a whole bunch of unwholesome happenings. Made me wish I could go to school there.

where to start with lovecraft? just Shadow over Innsmouth? I'm not really obsessive over the mythology that was drawn up by later writers.

Start with the shorter stuff. See:Or just get any collection of his stuff and start reading. That's how I got into him. You definitely don't need to read any of his stuff sequentially to enjoy it, even the the Cthulu mythos/old ones stuff that's related can pretty much be read in whatever order you want, except Mountains of Madness which kind of ties everything together.

I just powered through Shadow over Innsmouth

God damn that was actually really good. Even from a purely mechanical perspective, Lovecraft is an incredibly talented writer. Zadok's allusion to the shoggoth is tense as fuck too, though generally the Deep Ones are not really scary (aside from the initial escape from the Gilman Hotel).

shadow over innsmouth is my favorite one desu senpai. it's all about the horrors of racemixing.

Start with the Thing on the doorstep. My favourite.

Alternatively, "The Color Out Of Space"

"West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut. There are dark narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight. On the gentler slopes there are farms, ancient and rocky, with squat, moss-coated cottages brooding eternally over old New England secrets in the lee of great ledges; but these are all vacant now, the wide chimneys crumbling and the shingled sides bulging perilously beneath low gambrel roofs."

"It is not because of anything that can be seen or heard or handled, but because of something that is imagined. The place is not good for the imagination, and does not bring restful dreams at night."

Dream Quest for Unknown Kadath and the Carter Cycle are the most enjoyable Lovecraft stories prove me wrong

I love this passage, after the very end of Zadok's storytelling:

There was nothing that I could see. Only the incoming tide, with perhaps one set of ripples more local than the long-flung line of breakers. But now Zadok was shaking me, and I turned back to watch the melting of that fear-frozen face into a chaos of twitching eyelids and mumbling gums. Presently his voice came back—albeit as a trembling whisper.

The suggestion of the "one set of ripples more local" is subtle and masterful.
In general, Lovecraft was getting subtler and better at writing as he went on. Too bad he died so young. I think he could have given the world a lot more great stuff, maybe better than anything he'd written before.

What's the best way to read Lovecraft's work?
Should I get his "complete works", or should I purchase his works individually?
I'm worried that his "complete works" won't actually be complete.

His best stories are the following:

The Temple

Dagon

Nyarlathotep

Ex Oblivione

Beyond the Wall of Sleep

Read these if you want to get black/white pilled.

I never go for complete works because

1: I may not actually want each and every one of them

2: They never include every single one and it's weird to have an anthology and a few small books also

3: it's more satisfying to just buy the books you want and have many in oyour shelve

...

I love this one.

>you are now aware that Dunwich was anti-Christian satire culminating in a parody of the Crucifixion

How the fuck didn't I realize this?

I know right, I also realised it when someone mentioned it. I was mostly creeped out and felt a bit sorry for Yog-Sothoth Jr. when he started calling for his father.

My personal favorites:
>The Cats of Ulthar
>The Call of Ctulhu
>Dagon
>The Music of Eric Zahn
>Pickman's Model
>The Rats in the Walls
>The Tomb

What a weird list

Shadow Over Innsmouth
The Call Of Cthulhu
The Colour Out Of Space
At The Mountains Of Madness

These ones are probably the ones to aim for.

You're wrong about Re-Animator. Even Lovecraft didn't like it but he was under duress from a publisher to write it.

You're right about Houellebecqs essay being important.

Yes. But HPL writes a lot. That story could lose a few pages to be honest.

Dagon. It's short, concise, and basically sums up what HPL is all about.

Based. He invented the notion of the redpill.

It's true? No, Cthulhu doesn't exist. But what does it represent? Mans insignificance in the face of reality. We are basically nothing. There is NO escape from life. If you find life objectionable, what choice do you have but to end yourself or just suck it up.

They were an extreme minority of his writings. They were escapism from himself. His true works were his depictions of the horrors of life.

youtube.com/watch?v=j22SJ-TSw8A

youtube.com/watch?v=mQlYOscvHeY&t=3s

Does anyone else think the Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath is comfy as fuck?

You bet.

I imagine this feeling stems from longing for your long lost placental twin who went unacknowledged, despised and was quickly forgotten.

I read two of his collections a decade ago and Rats in the walls did it for me. I liked that the story is somewhat plausible(I enjoyed the supernatural stuff too) and a bit of an adventure story. I just ordered the complete collection so i may revisit some.

Is this a good edition of his tales?

No that looks quite average, it's english just get an edition you like

>The Music of Erich Zann

This is my favorite too.
I really like The Outsider and The Tomb too. But not quite as much as Zann.
The Shunned House is good but it creeps me the hell out every time I read it.

THIS.

How do I into Lovecraft?

Here:

hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/d.aspx

hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/p.aspx

nope thats trash
the best collections are two rather large fake leather paperbacks titled "Necronomicon" and "Eldritch Tales" which together are his entire collected works
Library of America are usually the best publisher for finding a notable american author's complete oeuvre but in this case its a clearly diluted selection and honestly disappointing

I don't understand horror as a literary genre

how fucking lame do you have to be to be spooked by a fucking book?
>oh no words!

>horror
You must be mistaken; Lovecraft wrote weird fiction.

bait

I always wondered whether it was {spoiler} the fact that he was related to fishmen {/spoiler} that drove him crazy, or the fact that he attended Oberlin college. That place is fucking bonkers man.

BACK TO /POL/

Back to r/books

my dude, The Hound is listed as both your fifth and eighth top loves. what the heck?! Also, pickman's model is piss.

I don't see these mentioned a lot

>The White Ship
>Polaris
>Celephaïs
>The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Re-Animator is one of his worst, dude. Saying that, it does have some kinda cool moments.

>"But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean. Blue, green, grey, white, or black; smooth, ruffled, or mountainous; that ocean is not silent."

>Slumber, watcher, till the spheres
>Six and twenty thousand years
>Have revolv’d, and I return
>To the spot where now I burn.
>Other stars user shall rise
>To the axis of the skies;
>Stars that soothe and stars that bless
>With a sweet forgetfulness:
>Only when my round is o’er
>Shall the past disturb thy door.”

Very underrated stories. I wish Lovecraft had used these poetic overtones more often in his work.