Hi, this is my first post and I'd like to begin to read some books of H.P Lovecraft but I don't know where to start.
His works are numerous and he possesses a mythology all by himself, so does it have a particular order of reading to better understand his universe ?
Sorry if I made spelling mistakes, English is not my mother tongue and thanks you for your answers.
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You can read most of his works as standalone stories. Honestly, I just got several books of collected works and started reading the ones that appealed the most to me.
Lovecraft did a lot of standalone stories, none of them really relate to each other. Some people will reccommend starting with the first of his work and read onwards.
Personally I own 3 Books of Lovecraft's work.
First was 5 or so stories,
Second had about 10 stories
Third book I got was the complete collection with all stories.
I've read them all and can honestly say in my opinion order doesn't matter, I read them in the order I bought them from page 1 to x.
That being said if you want to start off with the first story I read of his you can: The Dunwich Horror.
I think it is a good entry piece, it gives you a very good feel of Lovecraft, or if you want to read another good story you can always start with my favourite The dreams in the witch house
I think I'll follow your advice and start wih "The Dunwich Horror", I found a book with the whole collection of his stories, but it's in English, do you think his books are easy to read for someone who speaks quite good English ?
Honestly as an Englishmen all I know is English. I really couldn't say, I never tried to learn a new language and I don't know how hard it would be.
He does use some less modern words which may be a struggle for a non native speaker.
I'm Italian and despite some archaic sounding adjectives i found it pretty understandable.
I red two of his books and am reading a third one at the moment. He is a true genius and i think that you can only begin to think about the mythos once you finish all of his works. For instance "The book of Eibon" apears only in the later works. I think that you can start to think about it only one you read all of his stories
Good god are you serious?! The story to start with is "The hound" or "Dagon", but it is in no way "The Dunwich horror"
I only had some problems with vocabulary and just about all the words I had to look up had a french/latin origin. Otherwise it's not hard to read him.
It was my first as well and i found it quite intriguing honestly
For me it was "The hound" and it lays out the basics and makes it easier to read and to understand his work
Considering it was my first story from Lovecraft and I went onto reading all his work. I would say it was a good start. Your opinions are yours and mine are mine.
Thanks to all for your answers.
Anyway I intend to read all his works during my holidays.
I think I will bye the complete collection in English, this will improve my English.
*buy
pick up the biggest cheapest compendiums
penguin have him compiled in three volumes i think? theres a few complete editions, and then the old 25 cent short novels with a few stories i them. Lovecraft is also public domain by now, you can even get the complete edition for free on amazon.
>I don't know where to start
Dagon and Polaris. They are among his earliest stories, and already set up the mood of themes of his later work. If you like them, you can proceed chronologically or read whichever one you like.
The Colour Out of Space is my favorite. Definitely check this one out if you're into cosmic horror.
Start here, with his first story:
hplovecraft.com
It's only about 3 paragraphs long and should give you an idea of whether you'll like his style or not.
Good taste man!
Shadow Over Innsmouth is my personal favorite
Start with Houellebecqs book on him
My man. shadow over innsmouth was my first and is my favorite Lovecraft story. But as many have already pointed out, OP can really start anywhere and not miss a beat
I'm halfway through his work (reading chronogically) and Polaris is the first one that left a big impression on me, it was great
Reanimator is a good place too imo
Here's the wiki's chart; Recommend reading chronologically, as most Lovecraft anthologies are organized.
There's a thing with reading chronologically though
I bought a complete anthology and started reading in that order, having never read anything of his prior to it
What happened is i found myself going super quickly through it because i wanted to get to the good stuff, like dunwich or innsmouth, as fast as possible
It really sucked the enjoyment out of it since it's over half the volume before the mythos really gets started
So here's what i recommend
Read in the order you want
If you tell yourself that you have to go through his earlier work before what he's known for, it'll be a chore instead of something you'll enjoy
If you start with the juicy stuff right away, say innsmouth, interest for his other works will come naturally instead of forcing yourself
Here's the version I have, it's complete and in chronological order
Lovecraft Reading Guide Part 1
I havn't read every Lovecraft story, but I have read one anthology that was his "complete collection" which basically had all the works he wrote that aren't poems or under someone else's name There is no real consistency between his works other than references to other characters in his "mythology" so you can basically start anywhere. He also didn't write any novels but he did write really large short stories that feature a lot of his most important characters. If you had to break em up, you'd discover the following categories:
>Very early shit.
Shit he wrote as a kid and when he was just starting out. Short and interesting (although sometimes cliched) stories with some like Dagon being my absolute favourites. Many of these are about a page long.
Try: Dagon, The Alchemist, Hypnos, The Cats of Uthar, Polaris, The Doom That Came to Sarnath
>More Advanced Shit
Stuff taken from his earliest and latest writings but aren't necessarily considered part of the larger and complex works shit he is most well known for.
Try: Beyond the Wall of Sleep, Celephais, The Music of Eric Zahn, the Hound, The Nameless City
>Even better shit
A natural progression of the previous category. Longer but still not really the same as the categories below. Has some of my favorites.
Try: the Festival, Rats in the Walls, Pickman's Model, Haunter in The Dark, The Colour out of Space, Dreams in the Witches House, Thing on the Doorstep.
Lovecraft Reading Guide Part 2
>Monster shit
A combination of his most famous work which I'd say requires some familiarity with the other categorises before you dive in. Features all the famous characters he is known for. You'd be hard pressed to find any one of the stories that hasn't been turned into a video game or movie.
Try: Call of Cthulhu, Dunwich Horror, Shadow over Insmouth, Mountains of Madness, Shadow out of Time, The Whsiperer in the Darkness, Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward.
>Literally Drugs: Dream Shit
Bits and pieces of his stories had nothing to do with science fiction and aliens but rather his fantasy world called the "Dream Lands" (pic related). They normally deal with ordinary humans wandering into an alternative dimension where humans can shape the landscape through dreaming. Largely inspired by classic and pulp fantasy but given a sense of dread caused by inter-dimensional beings known as The Other Gods. The main storyline details the dreams of a wizard called Randolph Carter who is mentioned in The Tomb and The Statement of Randolph Carter (which I haven't read but apparently are now considered semi-prequels). The weirdest shit you will ever read of his.
Prerequisite reading: Celaphis, Cats of Uthar, The White Ship, Nyarlothep, The Doom That Came To Sarnath, The Other Gods, Pickman's Model, Dream in the Witch's House.
Randolph Carter Trilogy: The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, The Silver Key, Through The Gates of the Silver Key.
"Sequels": Out of Aeons, Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward.
>Other shit
Stuff I've only read bits and pieces of that he other wrote with others or ghost wrote. The best one of these is "Imprisoned With The Pharohs" that he wrote with Houdini. In fact this story characterises his early work almost perfectly.
By all means dive into the monster shit, but try reading some of his other stuff first to get used to his style. These categorises aren't fixed and the suggestions are non-exhaustive. Other than the instructions I gave under dream shit you can jump around as much as you want. I haven't dipped my toes in later Lovecraftian lit like the stuff made by his friends which basically created what we now know as the Cthulhu mythos (although Lovecraft himself would have called it the "Yog-sothoth mythos" and most fans hate his mate August Derelith).
yes, a humorous story he wrote as a teen is a great basis from which to judge the work he produced during his mature era
This.
There's a book that contains the entirety of his work. I have it and I've read about half of it. I honestly don't want to read any more that much.
I don't think you'll find much in Lovecraft that can't be understood with a quick word search.
What I mean is that some words may be obscure, but the phrasing and style is straightforward.
The complete works of H. P. Lovecraft:
pdf -- cthulhuchick.com
epub -- cthulhuchick.com
mobi -- cthulhuchick.com
Some good stories are listed below. You might want to alternate between the two lists to get a balance between the longer, heavier mythos stories and the (mostly) shorter, dreamlike, otherworldly ones. Of course, when it comes to Lovecraft, "longer" tends to mean novella-length.
DREAMLIKE, OTHERWORLDLY & SHORT STORIES -- read in any order, but put the longer Dream-Quest towards the end
The Outsider
The Doom That Came to Sarnath
The Colour Out of Space
The Nameless City
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
The White Ship
CORE MYTHOS (all longer stuff) -- probably better if read in roughly the order listed
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
The Call of Cthulhu
At the Mountains of Madness
The Shadow Out of Time
The files come from here: cthulhuchick.com
>a particular order of reading
No, Lovecraft never planned to make a mythos. If you read his stories expecting to find a coherent mythos you will find nothing but plot-holes. Any order will do. Some of his stories just rehash the same idea (EG: Dagon is basically The Call Of Cthulhu, lite version).
>do you think his books are easy to read for someone who speaks quite good English
His writing style is a bitch to get used to I think and he occasionally uses archaic language on purpose.
>this will improve my English
Please note that in conversational English we don't really say words like eldritch, gibbous, blasphemous or nameless.
Call of Cthulu, Case of Charles Dexter Ward, Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, At the Mountains of Madness, Shadow Over Insmouth, Whisperer in Darkness, Shadow Out of Time.
Good for you. As for the order of reading... pick up "The Complete Fiction." It has ALL of the stories he's written