Lovecraft Newfag Here

I'm interested in the mythos of his stories, but I haven't read any of his works. Which book should I start with? Do I read them in the order he wrote them, thus starting with "The Tomb"?

Thanks Veeky Forums.

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Ever since reading the Sherlock Holmes series, I'm organzing all series by in universe chronology.

Started with sherlock holmes, then conan the barbarian.
Now I'm working on lovecrafts works.

I'm not done, so you're stuck with reading them as they were writen.

I think I'll do a song of ice and fire next.

Ah, so start with Dagon. Thanks user!

On a related note, Martin posted on his blog (about a fortnight ago) that he's still working on The Winds of Winter.

Lovecraft doesn't have an internal chronology, just a net of references. And the references are deliberately vague to evoke a mood anyway. They're split up usually between the "Mythos" stuff and the "Dream Cycle" stuff, and then the early Mythos stuff is much different from the later.

The Cthulhu Mythos is the most popular stuff and most people's first introduction to Lovecraft.

Two cheezy but good movies from the 80s adapted from Lovecrafts work I'd recommend after you read his stories are "From Beyond" and "ReAnimator".

Not really related but the movie "From Beyond" and reading the Gor series when I was in middle school during the 80s(my formative years) were significant to my interests in Kink/BDSM. I wore out a VHS cassette of the movie fapping to Barbara Crampton in that fetish gear.

do you not read sutter cane?

>do you not read sutter cane?

What?

referencing best lovecraft film, mouth of madness. chck it out, it has sam neill.

>do you not read sutter cane

youtube.com/watch?v=k-ZHNRKZlfc

There really isn't anything special about Lovecraft's writing or prose. You'd be better of just watching a synopsis of the Lovecraft mythos on YouTube or something.

Start with
"They Call Him, Niggerman" and work your way backward.

You can pick up some of the anthologies of his work!

QUICK SOMEBODY POST THE NIGGER POEM

That poem is the reason I read Lovecraft

there is no chronology ever, only references and reuse of certain things

just read these in no specific order

The mythos is the least interesting part of Lovecraft's stories. He made it up as he went along; it was just a tool to back up his descriptions of "ancient forbidden eldritch knowledge"

how old are you bro

is the doctor story the only lovecraft story set in providence?

Read them in the order they present themselves to you. Since you brought up "The Tomb" you must start here.

I fucking knew it. Prose that shitty has nothing hiding behind it. Someone I spoke to the other day about Lovecraft said something about how his 'ideas' were so great. What a crock. "Herbert West–Reanimator" was terrible. I can't imagine what vast internal mythological network prompted Lovecraft to make a severed head talk or to have the estranged body carry its own head in a suitcase.

There was none for that story. The mythos doesn't emerge until after his New York period.

Reanimator was a serial - and Lovecraft was required by the editor to recap the story. As a result it does sound repetitive outside of its original context. Even further, it was deliberate and unapologetic hack-work, written in a quasi-parody of those sorts of tales.

As for my general opinion on Lovecraft, he has a lot of early/mid period non-mythos stories that are good, especially all his ten page or so macabre stories: Pickman's Model, The Hound, The Outsider. The more restrained and concise of 'dream cycle' have some wonderful prose and imagined scenes: The Doom That Came Sarnath, Cats Of Ulthar. The Mythos is only part of three distinct literary mode

Also, to anybody reading Lovecraft for the first time, don't overdo it and don't get hung up on chronology. His stories were written to be read occasionally alongside other short stories, not cover-to-cover. Throw in some of his peers and correspondents like Robert Howard and Clark Ashton Smith.

theyre just spooky pulp stories, user, not philosophical allegory

Go in written Order, Id suggest The Statement of Randolph Carter, Followed by the Dream Cycle. Just skip Iranon, that is irritating.

>tfw Lovecraft's best work is secretly The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Give Hypnos a read.

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