Lovecraft Introduction from 'Supernatural Horror in Literature' Lovecraft was the subject of the first book by the leading contemporary French Novelist Michel Houellebecq. THE oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. In a fascinating introduction, Roger Luckhurst gives Lovecraft the attention he deserves as a writer who used pulp fiction to explore a remarkable philosophy that shockingly dethrones the mastery of man.įeaturing a chronology, bibliography, and informative notes, this is a must-have critical edition for Lovecraft aficionados, and the best introduction to his work for first-time visitors to his strange fictional world. The volume also includes vital extracts from Lovecraft's critical essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature, in which he gave his own important definition of weird fiction. The stories collected here include some of Lovecraft's finest, including The Call of Cthulhu, At the Mountains of Madness, The Dunwich Horror, The Colour Out of Space, The Shadow over Innsmouth, and The Shadow out of Time.
This new selection brings together nine of his classic tales, focusing on the Cthulhu Mythos, a cycle of stories that develops the mythology of the Old Ones, the monstrous creatures who predate human life on earth. The ornate language of his stories builds towards grotesque moments of revelation, quite unlike any other writer. Lovecraft developed an extraordinary vision of feeble men driven to the edge of sanity by glimpses of malign beings that have survived from human prehistory or by malevolent extra-terrestrial visitations. He often published in Weird Tales and has since become the key figure in the slippery genre of weird fiction. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was a reclusive scribbler of horror stories for the American pulp magazines that specialized in Gothic and science fiction in the interwar years. Lovecraft developed an extraordinary vision of feeble men driven to the edge of sanity by g H.