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Post by dem bones on Oct 15, 2009 6:23:11 GMT
Originally published in the one volume Tales Of The Cthulhu Mythos (Arkham House 1969). Not being a great one for the Mythos, i leave it up to others to comment. 'pologies for lack of scan for vol 1 and, indeed, incredibly boring post. Bruce Pennington August Derleth (ed.) - H. P. Lovecraft & Others: Tales Of The Cthulhu Mythos Vol. 1 (Panther, 1975) August Derleth - Beyond the Threshold Robert E Howard - The Black Stone H P Lovecraft - The Call of Cthulhu August Derleth - The Dweller in Darkness J Vernon Shea - The Haunter of the Graveyard Frank Belknap Long - The Hounds of Tindalos Clark Ashton Smith - The Return of the Sorcerer Henry Kuttner - The Salem Horror Frank Belknap Long - The Space-Eaters Clark Ashton Smith - Ubbo-SathlaAugust Derleth (ed.) - H. P. Lovecraft & Others: Tales Of The Cthulhu Mythos Vol. 2 (Panther, 1975) Robert Bloch - The Shambler From The Stars H. P. Lovecraft - The Haunter Of The Dark Robert Bloch - The Shadow From The Steeple Robert Bloch - Notebook Found In A Deserted House Ramsey Campbell - Cold Print Brian Lumley - The Sister City Brian Lumley - Cement Surroundings James Wade - The Deep Ones Colin Wilson - The Return Of The Lloigor
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Post by andydecker on Oct 15, 2009 11:11:35 GMT
This isn´t boring. ;D What a great cover!
Basically this is a who´s who of early Mythos tales. Vol.1 is all Weird Tales and some other magazines, but all pre-1950.
Vol.2 is the next generation, with the exception of the first 2 stories.
You really see the generation gap in those stories.
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Post by dem bones on Oct 15, 2009 12:55:33 GMT
The first volume is like a My First Big Cthulhu Book for those like me who never really got into the whole Mythos thing and just want the greatest hits. I think i've read all of them bar a few, enjoyed The Call of Cthulhu and The Salem Horror most, but The Black Stone didn't strike me as up there with the best Robert E,. Howard; is Ubbo-Sathla the one where the narrator devolves through time and discovers that man originated from a blob of slime? Vol II. I adore Ramsey Campbell's Cold Print - it's one of his funniest (not to mention, kinkiest) horror comedies and Bloch's Notebook ... hit the spot, but some of the more recent efforts left me cold. i would imagine the generation gap is even more pronounced in Ramsey Campbell's New Tales Of The Cthulhu Mythos (Grafton, 1980) Tim White Ramsey Campbell - Introduction
Stephen King - Crouch End A. A. Attanasio - The Star Pools Brian Lumley - The Second Wish Frank Belknap Long - Dark Awakening Basil Copper - Shaft Number 247 T. E. D. Klein - Black Man with a Horn H. P. Lovecraft & Martin S. Warnes - The Black Tome of Alsophocus David Drake - Than Curse the Darkness Ramsey Campbell - The Faces at Pine Dunes Notes on Contributors
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Post by andydecker on Oct 15, 2009 18:19:44 GMT
I never did get this cover.
What has a slightly overripe housewife in a boring, ugly negligee, her dead afternoon lover and the monster from under the couch to do with The Mythos?
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Post by mattofthespurs on Oct 15, 2009 18:25:22 GMT
What has a slightly overripe housewife in a boring, ugly negligee Oi that's my wife!
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Post by weirdmonger on Oct 15, 2009 21:04:30 GMT
For the record, same cover illustration on this:
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Post by dem bones on Oct 15, 2009 22:13:07 GMT
What has a slightly overripe housewife in a boring, ugly negligee Oi that's my wife! Never mind your wife, that's my "boring, ugly" negli-what-am- I- saying Actually, its the Tim White covers that decided me to buy this and other Grafton Lovecraft/ Cthulhu editions. His work really compliments the material, or so it seems to me. We had the makings of a good Skeleton Crew thread on Vault MK I, but it hasn't really taken off on here. perhaps if des and david want to copy their contributions across? the stub on here is: Skeleton Crew
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Feb 16, 2012 18:25:00 GMT
All I will say about the Grafton cover of New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos is that inspired me to spend the extra money to buy a battered copy of the Arkham House edition.
Taken as a whole, the stories are a fairly solid bunch. Klein's Black Man with a Horn would be a highlight in any anthology, and Campbell's The Faces at Pine Dunes is one of my new favorite stories of his. Both manage to pay tribute to Lovecraft while also being original and distinctive.
The Copper story, Shaft Number 247, is effective, thought it's more dystopian science fiction than horror and not ostensibly a Cthulhu Mythos story at all (not that that's a bad thing).
Lumley's The Second Wish is not as derivative as some of his Lovecraft-inspired tales, but not one of his best, either.
I don't remember King's Crouch End very well--I had read it elsewhere, so I skipped it this time--but I recall it as being a decent effort (I think I like his "Jerusalem's Lot" better as far as Lovecraft tributes go).
David Drake's Than Curse the Darkness could be described as "The Dunwich Horror" meets "Heart of Darkness."
The Black Tome of Alsophocus is a posthumous completion of a Lovecraft fragment, "The Book." I didn't think that the additions improved on the original.
And then there's Attanasio's The Star Pools, which mixes heroin-dealing gangsters, a Haitian cult, and cosmic monstrosities. I'm not sure that I would call it good, but it isn't boring.
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Post by andydecker on Jun 5, 2020 15:14:35 GMT
Instead of a new thread a re-issue today, as most of John Holmes' covers have been gone. Content: The Cthulhu Mythos (1969)- August Derleth The Call of Cthulhu (1928) - H. P. Lovecraft The Return of the Sorcerer (1931) - Clark Ashton Smith Ubbo-Sathla (1933) - Clark Ashton Smith The Black Stone (1931) - Robert E. Howard The Hounds of Tindalos (1929) -Frank Belknap Long The Space-Eaters (1928) Frank Belknap Long The Dweller in Darkness (1944) - August Derleth Beyond the Threshold (1941) -August Derleth The Salem Horror (1937) - Henry Kuttner The Haunter of the Graveyard (1969) - J. Vernon Shea When I first got this at the end of the 70s, I neither realized how old these stories all were nor how much Derleth re-wrote the story of the Mythos in his foreword. This all was new to me. And as an introduction this still holds up. Lovecraft, CAS, Howard - you don't need more. And the cover by Holmes is still an eye-catcher, even if there is no tentacle in sight. (Or maybe because of it.)
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Post by cromagnonman on Jun 5, 2020 18:55:07 GMT
I see that Holmes. I'll raise you two Penningtons and a Tim White. Bruce Pennington Tim White [Grafton one volume reissue 1988]
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Post by andydecker on Jun 8, 2020 8:24:29 GMT
Here is the second volume of the John Holmes edition from 1973. Content: The Shambler from the Stars (1935) - Robert Bloch The Haunter of the Dark (1936) - H. P. Lovecraft The Shadow from the Steeple (1950) - Robert Bloch Notebook Found in a Deserted House (1951) - Robert Bloch Cold Print (1969) - Ramsey Campbell The Sister City (1969) -Brian Lumley Cement Surroundings (1969) - Brian Lumley The Deep Ones (1969) - James Wade The Return of the Lloigor (1969) - Colin Wilson As there were no introductions to the stories, at least not in this paperback edition, I never realized the (loose) connection of the first three stories. Bloch killed Lovecraft's stand-in in his first story, Lovecraft returned the favour by killing his hero Robert Blake in his last published story, and Bloch wrote a sequel, but years later. Maybe also interesting may be the fact, that the 1969 stories were commissioned for the original Arkham edition. Seems nobody could sell Mythos stories in the 60s to magazines any longer. (Or was not interested in doing so, as nobody knew Lovecraft any longer except a devoted circle).
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Post by cromagnonman on Jun 8, 2020 11:13:02 GMT
Or it could be potential writers were too scared to try after Derleth had previously pressured McIlwraith not to accept anymore Lovecraftian fiction for Weird Tales from the likes of C. Hall Thompson and Gardner Fox. A churlish and wholly unenforceable exercise in proprietariness on Augie's part.
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Post by helrunar on Jun 8, 2020 11:48:57 GMT
Not nice at all of Derleth to pressure McIlwraith not to publish "Mythos" fiction in WT. It's not anything I have researched at all, but my impression is that there was a definite growing interest in Lovecraft's work already starting in the early 60s. Various stories appeared in a number of anthologies from that period that have been discussed in these scarlet pages. Here in the US, Phyllis Fraser's important anthology Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural came out first in the Modern Library series in 1944 and was reprinted, I believe, several times subsequently--she included HPL's "Dunwich Horror" in that book, and I think that may have been my first exposure to the Gentleman from Providence's work at some point in the late Sixties.
Thanks Andreas for following up with this scan. I should get hold of this paperback since I still have my old copy of the first volume. Those Bloch tales are a nice set to have on one's shelf.
Interesting that Derleth promoted the work of Colin Wilson in this.
H.
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Post by andydecker on Jun 8, 2020 13:14:45 GMT
Phyllis Fraser's important anthology Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural came out first in the Modern Library series in 1944 and was reprinted, I believe, several times subsequently--she included HPL's "Dunwich Horror" in that book, and I think that may have been my first exposure to the Gentleman from Providence's work at some point in the late Sixties Interesting that Derleth promoted the work of Colin Wilson in this. H. It would be interesting to know if she paid Derleth for the reprint rights or not. Seems nobody tried to contest his claim that he owned all the HPL rights. Which is highly dubious. There is a chapter in Joshi's Lovecraft bio about this, if I remember correctly. The Wilson anecdote goes that Wilson trashed Lovecraft's work in a review - which actually may have been Derleth's "contributions" in reality (or was this James Blish who made the error?) Anyway, Derleth complained at Wilson, they held contact, and as an answer Wilson wrote his Mythos novels with Augie's endorsement.
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Post by helrunar on Jun 8, 2020 15:03:19 GMT
I haven't had the opportunity to read Mr Joshi's research on the situation with the legal rights to Lovecraft's work. It's so horrible that HPL lived in such poverty (I think de Camp used the phrase "shabby genteel" which was popular a long time ago to describe people with a wealthy-class education and outlook who wind up with no money to live on--a LOT of novels and plays have explored the various ins and outs of what happens to these people, or what they make happen). And then decades after his death, the "Mythos" became a monster moneymaker. Who can figure.
What I have read is that HPL willed all the rights to that "fortunate Floridian," RH Barlow, but a couple of HPL's adult friends refused to accept this provision in Lovecraft's will. But whether they acquired the rights legally or simply by main force, I do not know. I have the impression from what I have read that Barlow really did not have the means or background to manage HPL's literary estate so Derleth may have been able to take over by default once he got Arkham House going. I really doubt whether Derleth saw much money from those books prior to the 1960s, but who knows.
H.
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