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Post by Johnlprobert on Oct 26, 2010 15:10:31 GMT
H P Lovecraft - The Dunwich Horror & OthersIn the Vault Pickman s Model The Rats in the Walls The Outsider The Colour Out of Space The Music of Erich Zann The Haunter of the Dark The Picture in the House The Call of the Cthulhu The Dunwich Horror Cool Air The Whisperer in Darkness The Terrible Old Man The Thing on the Doorstep The Shadow Over Innsmouth The Shadow Out of Time Yes it's time to get away from intellectualism and where better than with the Godfather of Pulp fiction and with a collection that begins by referencing this message board . I've been meaning to write about old HPL for ages and as Christmas is approaching and Cthulhu's getting fat on the blood of unbelievers I thought it was time to revisit some old classics. Notes in a bit.
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Post by weirdmonger on Oct 26, 2010 15:58:49 GMT
Yes it's time to get away from intellectualism and where better than with the Godfather of Pulp fiction . HPL is where I started. With THE OUTSIDER. His work is both intellectual and non-intellectual. So I disagree. HPL is ... HPL.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Oct 26, 2010 16:14:54 GMT
With some exceptions (most of them in that particular collection, in fact), Lovecraft's stories are not particularly "action" oriented. They are not so much about what it feels like to be eaten by giant crabs. They are more about sitting around shivering at how large the universe is.
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Post by andydecker on Oct 26, 2010 17:54:52 GMT
With some exceptions (most of them in that particular collection, in fact), Lovecraft's stories are not particularly "action" oriented. They are not so much about what it feels like to be eaten by giant crabs. They are more about sitting around shivering at how large the universe is. I love Lovecraft dearly, but his action is always terrible. His heroes behave like morons. I particulary like both protagonists of "Whisperer in Darkness". The narrator has seemingly a photographic memory but is naive enough to reach over every bit of evidence to the villian while the victim on the farm is shooting it out for days with the lobstermen from Pluto and writing long letters instead of fetching help. Even bumbling Dr. Trowbridge wouldn´t have been that dense. And don´t get me started on poor old Olmstead in Shadow over Innsmouth and the unbreachable hoteldoor ;D Asfar as collections goes, this is a good line-up. Not a bad one except The Terrible Old Man, which is kind of blah.
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Post by weirdmonger on Oct 26, 2010 18:01:39 GMT
As I say, HPL is HPL. There are certain literary or plot-consistency standards one need not apply to his fiction.
Over recent years, I've even grown into 'The Terrible Old Man'.
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Post by dem bones on Oct 26, 2010 21:39:59 GMT
sorry Lord P., i'm afraid i don't have a copy of The Dunwich Horror so i'll scan in the glorious Ian Miller artwork for The Haunter Of The Dark instead! H. P. Lovecraft - The Haunter Of The Dark (Panther, 1972) Ian Miller August Derleth - An Introduction to H. P. Lovecraft
The Outsider The Rats in the Walls Pickman’s Model The Call of Cthulhu The Dunwich Horror The Whisperer in darkness The Colour out of Space The Haunter of the Dark The Thing on the Doorstep The Music of Erich ZannWarning! You are about to Enter a New Dimension of TERROR... When you open this book you will be lost - lost in a world of nightmare brought to screaming life by the century's greatest master of adult fantasy and horror H. P. Lovecraft Here is a collection of the most famous stories of this unparalleled writer: The Rats in the Walls, Pickman's Model, The Colour out of Space, The Call of Cthulhu and The Haunter of the Dark, plus other tales you would be best advised not to read late at night if you hope for untroubled sleep ...Panther ran the rest of the stories from The Dunwich Horror (and plenty more besides) in companion volume The Lurking Fear
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Post by weirdmonger on Oct 26, 2010 21:45:32 GMT
! H. P. Lovecraft - The Haunter Of The Dark (Panther, 1972) [ Yes, it was an earlier version of that 'Haunter of the Dark' Panther that started me off. Michel Parry in 1965 picked it off the shelf in the Colchester WH Smiths as he recommended it to me. I never looked back. des
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Post by weirdmonger on Oct 26, 2010 21:54:16 GMT
That early Panther edition of 'Haunter of the Dark', that means so much to me, I lost. Not seen the cover for ages. I would love to see it again. I think it had a hand on it? des
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Post by dem bones on Oct 26, 2010 22:31:43 GMT
i think the one with the hand on was his, um, 'collaboration' with Derleth, The Shuttered Room? Here's the cover of the Panther 1963 edition, posted by Vault man James Diog. And .... H. P. Lovecraft - Cry Horror! (WDL, 1959) The Lurking Fear The Colour Out Of Space The Nameless City Pickman’s Model Arthur Jermyn The Unnameable The Call Of Cthulhu Cool Air The Moon-Bog The Hound The Shunned HouseBlurb; Terror-filled tales of the inhuman and incredible! I WAS TRAPPED ... in the suffocating depths of the earth. WHAT HORROR! Was that my voice screaming ... whimpering . . . imploring? I was sorry that I had not been taken by THEM before - because this was the worst way of all! ... AND THEN I SAW IT!
Nothing in Heaven or Hell - and certainly nothing on earth - can equal the detailed spectres of horror and terror portrayed in these pages by H. P. Lovecraft. WARNING: Do not read too much at a single sitting - and never late at night!' A WORLD DISTRIBUTORS BOOK Cry Horror! is the one Michel selected for Stephen Jones & Kim Newman's Horror: 100 Best Books (Xanadu, 1988), the first paperback edition of Lovecraft's work to be published in the UK. "I can still remember the elation of the discovery and the satisfaction I felt as I read the stories and found them to be every bit as affecting as I had hoped." i'm almost certain the uncredited cover artwork is by Richard Powers.
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Post by David A. Riley on Oct 26, 2010 23:03:21 GMT
Cry Horror was the very first collection of Lovecraft stories I ever bought. It was a badly battered, sellotaped copy I picked up for next to nothing from a second hand bookstall on Accrington market.
I loved it.
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Post by weirdmonger on Oct 27, 2010 7:22:10 GMT
i think the one with the hand on was his, um, 'collaboration' with Derleth, Thanks, dem, I know that book you mean. But, no, the Panther 'Haunter of the Dark' paperback I bought in 1965 - following the chance meeting with Michel Parry in Smiths - was definitely a simple design front cover - a single dark image - and I *think* it was a hand coming out of the darkness - a photograph?
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Post by dem bones on Oct 27, 2010 7:50:12 GMT
stick around, Des, as i'm sure one of the ghastly crew will come up with it.
as far as i'm aware, Cry Horror! isn't especially difficult to get hold of but it took me 'til April this year to finally land a copy. Hard to believe that this slightly uneven selection is arguably among the most influential influential paperbacks to be published in the UK this past 51 years. Christine Campbell Thomson included three of his stories in the Not At Night's, and there were sporadic anthology appearances over the next two decades but the WDL edition of Cry Horror!was his first full-blown Lovecraft collection to be published over here - imagine how many authors-to-be and lifelong fans of the genre got their first proper taste of HPL from this odd-looking 190 pager?
a previous owner has written 'The Mummy' at the back of my copy. Whoever it was, they have lovely handwriting.
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Post by weirdmonger on Oct 27, 2010 7:54:24 GMT
stick around, Des, as i'm sure one of the ghastly crew will come up with it. That would indeed be great. Hmm, maybe it was a photo of a face coming out of the darkness, not a hand??
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 27, 2010 8:19:24 GMT
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Post by weirdmonger on Oct 27, 2010 8:23:47 GMT
Interesting cover, that. But no, the one I have in mind is definitely Panther, definitely 'The Haunter of the Dark' and definitely bought new by me in 1965. A photographic cover - a face or a hand. I now think it is a man's face.
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