days later... I have finished reading this collection of HP Lovecraft's complete fiction. The master of weird fiction and cosmic horror delivers a range of different short stories and novellas, from chilling tales to the downright terrifying. one of the most highly-recommended stories, " the dunwich horror, used dialect, which is generally unforgivable, and certainly so here.

The Lurking Fear is a bit different than others on the list, and consequentially, I found it refreshing. For one thing, it’s less of a frame story. The narrator is the one who actually experienced the events of the story, which grants it a much better immediacy than the other stories. For another, instead of the horrors coming from outside of us, this is more about the horrors that dwell within us. The Tomb: Another jump to age 27; this is when Lovecraft started writing in earnest. It's a wonderfully creepy story, with only a questionable supernatural element, focused on the narrator's possible madness as he recounts his obsession with a certain abandoned family tomb from his asylum. Overshadowed by Lovecraft's reputation as a master of horror is his unique contribution as a science fiction visionary. There are no supernatural elements in his stories. None. All of his horrifying creations are creatures of an incomprehensible but strictly materialistic science. It does, however, include Through the Gates of the Silver Key which was in fact a collaboration with E. Hoffman Price, and Under the Pyramids which was a collaboration with Harry Houdini. We largely went with Mr. Joshi’s determination as to the contents of this collection. The first volume includes stories written just by HPL himself, with the exceptions of “Under the Pyramids” and “Through the Gates of the Silver Key”. The famed magician Harry Houdini gets a minor credit for “Under the Pyramids” as the general concept was his, but the writing of the story itself was left to Lovecraft. E. Hoffman Price also gets a minor credit for “Through the Gates of the Silver Key”. Price wrote a 6,000 word draft of the story and sent it to Lovecraft, who then expanded the story to some 14,000 words, out of which Price estimated that only about 50 were words from his original draft.The White Ship: A terrific early contribution to the Dreamlands. The first of many Lord Dunsany-inspired tales. The Lurking Fear: Like Reanimator, written for serial publication in the same magazine, but this story is vastly superior and more to Lovecraft’s usual form. The Horror at Red Hook: Often cited as Lovecraft's most racist story, I didn't see that. It was definitely xenophobic, and maybe the broadness of the fear of the other, of all immigrants, diluted that effect for me. The story didn't stand out for me.

As has been pointed out (many times, I'm certain), much of Lovecraft's work tends to ignore the character on the personal level and focus on the overarching plot, especially in the Cthulhu Mythos stories. Missing only one Story which was "In the walls of Eryx" co-written by Lovecraft and Kenneth J. Sterling.

Lovecraft’s stories often remind me of how nudity was depicted in early film. It was never shown directly. The Hays code didn’t allow it. Instead, you might see a silhouette. Or a dress fall to the ground at the woman’s feet. Or there’d be a bannister in the way. Lovecraft likewise has this propensity to avoid actually describing his cosmic horrors. His characters will instead simply say, ‘I cannot describe it, for my very mind rebelled against grasping such a reality! Mouth and teeth and tentacles!’ or ‘I refuse to share this knowledge, for it will inspire madness in all who hear it.’ It is, frankly, annoying.

In the story, the evil creature that haunts the church can't function except in complete darkness (hence the story's title), so it kind of reminded me of the vampire novels I've been reading recently. I'm unaware of Lovecraft ever writing about vampires, so I guess this is as close as it gets. It follows his common theme of deep time and elder gods, with a little bit of a twist that most of his stories have. And yes, there’s a whole bunch of criticisms to be made of Lovecraft’s writing style, a number of which I’m sure hold some academic weight. He was after all published in pulp and mostly self-taught, aspiring to the level of social, scholarly and artistic respect owed to an M.R. James but having no means of achieving it in his lifetime. Whether any of his work counts as ‘literature’ is a debate which could go on indefinitely. I can say that in general I enjoy Lovecrafts writing, since it is quite fitting for the types of stories he writes. He uses a wide range of vocabulary and often tends to use more antiquated words than simple ones. This is often fitting, due to his characters often being educated man, students of philosophy or similar characters. Still though, at times even I have to say that his lengthy descriptions and his lingering on certain unimportant details can be annoying. The Fungi from Yuggoth is mentioned as missing, but this is poetry anyway according to the Wikipedia bibliography. Truthfully there are precious few works here I don’t love to a greater or lesser degree and even in his supposedly lesser efforts I find much to admire. This is especially so with his later material such as The Haunter of the Dark, The Thing on the Doorstep and The Dreams in the Witch House which are little celebrated but favourites of mine. Perhaps my favourite of all is The Music of Erich Zann – hardly a conventional choice – although depending on mood I may have to give the nod to The Call of Cthulhu. The charms of the poster-child of weird fiction are not easily resisted.Now, on to the fiction itself. Lovecraft is regarded as one of the best authors of supernatural horror and weird fiction in the 1920s and 1930s, and is credited with turning the concept of horror in literature at that time on its head, casting the gaze of the reader out into the endless cold beyond our atmosphere while his precursors and many of his contemporaries dealt with far more terrestrial and comparatively homely methods of inspiring dread and fright.