H.P. Lovecraft

[Androxine Vortex]

I can not tell you how much praise I have heard that is given to this man. From what little research I know he was a very good horror author who wrote about thngs that were in a way too incomprehendable to fathom. I love that kind of stuff; where it really pushes the boundaries of your mind. But I'm not sure where to start. Apparently he is kind of hard to get into at first from what I hear. Where should I start and what are your feelings towards him?

 

[Steerpike]

Been quite some time since I read Lovecraft's stories. I really liked them, back when I read them. They are the kind of stories I enjoy. From your Location, I'm guessing you are a Warhammer fan. That setting has some Lovecraft influence.

 

[karriezai]

I actually read Lovecraft for the first time today. I reviewed someone's short horror story, and they recommended one of his stories to me because it was one of the larger inspirations behind their work. The Lovecraft title he recommended was "The Outsider."

His style is very different from what I normally read. The person who recommended it described it as baroque prose that's hard to read for most people unfamiliar with him. The link to the piece he gave me is here:

"The Outsider" by H. P. Lovecraft

I wouldn't read him regularly, I think, but it was certainly a nice experience.

 

[ThinkerX]

Should keep in mind that there was a 'Lovecraft Circle' and that several authors, including a big name or two today, got their start writing 'Lovecraftian' fiction. Lin Carter was a member of this 'group', as were Bloch, Campbell, and Derlith. Stephen Kings works show Lovecraftian influence. Modern authors continue to dabble in Lovecraft's 'world'; the one I find the most intriguing is Gary Meyers.

For actual print versions - Arkham House came out with a multiple volume collection of short Lovecraft fiction by other authors; you might be able to find them on Amazon or EBAY or something. Titles like 'The Hastur Cycle', The Azathoth Cycle',
'The Book of Iod', and the ever so handy 'Encyclopedia Cthulluania'.

For straight Lovecraft, there is a two or three volume set that contains pretty much all of his works. 'The Dream Cycle of HP Lovecraft' and 'Bloodcurdling tales of Horror and the Macrabe'.

The vast bulk of Lovecrafts work was short fiction, most of it only a few pages. There were few novella's and only one or two actual novels, 'Dream Cycle of Unknown Kadath', and even that is on the short side. Best story to start with is probably 'The Dunwich Horror', a sort of prototype for the detective-supernatural thriller of today. Quite a number of Lovecrafts stories are set in a sort of ...pocket dimension...that can be reached by powerfull dreamers on earth via a sort of Astral travel. This is a realm both fantastical and dangerous - ships sail off the end of the world and to the moon; telling a fantastical dream is the price of entry to one of the cities, and everywhere, just out of site lurk...nasty things. It is also worth keeping in mind that Lovecrafts descriptions of the horrific creatures his characters encounter are deliberately on the vague side. Quite a number of Lovecrafts charaters end up suffering severe mental problems as a result of their encounters. (Others end up dead or doomed). I have come across mention now and again that Howards 'Conan' and Liebers "Ffaferd and the Grey Mouser' were intended to be characters tough enough to tangle with Lovecraftian monstrosities and still retain body and soul afterwards, but I'm not going to swear to this.

 

[Ravana]

Start with Lovecraft himself, not the (now very extended) circle: the best of the latter won't make as much sense without the background, while the worst rank right up there with waterboarding.

The main things to keep in mind are that (1) he was writing in the 1920s and 1930s—and in a somewhat dated style even then, though it more closely resembles the rest of what was appearing in the pulps he submitted to; whereas (2) he took horror into completely uncharted territory… which is why he appears as the middle term in those lists that begin "Poe" and end "King," when speaking of the most important horror authors in English. Much of his writing had more in common with SF than with anything that came before it, and much that followed; in fact, you can probably find almost as many SF authors who credit him as an influence as you can horror authors (though not always for the same reasons). As long as you don't let the writing style throw you in the first few pages, you'll soon enough stop noticing it altogether.

As for where to begin—assuming you mean story, not book title, the obvious is to start with… well, the obvious: "The Call of Cthulhu." (And by extension, start by looking for any story collection of his that includes it.) Other short stories that top the must-reads for HPL include "The Dunwich Horror," "The Dreams in the Witch-House," "The Shadow over Innsmouth," "The Whisperer in Darkness," and "The Shadow out of Time." (Including, yes, "The Outsider": not much by way of an intro to what's generally referred to as his "mythos," which is mainly where his lasting influence resides, but a very good one to his style.)

All of these (and most others that get named personal favorites by most readers) can be found in the mass-market trade paperback Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre, which itself should be easy enough to locate (used, at the very least). There are, however, dozens of different titles that have his name on them, all of which reprint the same fairly small corpus, so if you're buying two books at once, be sure to check for the extent of overlap. And be sure to check whether he's the sole author of the stories or not, too: some of his "collaborations" are every bit as good as his own work—in fact, pretty much are his own work, the "collaborator" sometimes providing little more than a title; others, "completed" after his death by lesser beings… not so much.

Lovecraft wrote very little long fiction, and not all of that was horror; on the other hand, the two short novels that were, At the Mountains of Madness and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, are both outstanding examples of his work.

If you get hooked, then by all means start expanding into the broader "circle." I'm hoping to join it myself, some day.