H.P. Lovecraft: The Fiction (Library of Essential Writers) by H. P. Lovecraft

Synopsis

In the 1920s and ‘30s, H.P. Lovecraft pioneered a new type of weird fiction that fused elements of supernatural horror with the concepts of visionary science fiction. Lovecraft’s tales of cosmic horror revolutionized modern horror fiction and earned him the reputation as the most influential American writer of weird tales since Edgar Allan Poe.

This omnibus collects for the first time in a single volume all of Lovecraft’s groundbreaking fiction: “The Call of Cthulhu,” “The Dreams in the Witch House,” “The Haunter of the Dark,” “At the Mountains of Madness,” “The Shadow out of Time,” “The Shadow over Innsmouth,” the full-length novels The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, and many others.

H.P. Lovecraft: The Fiction is part of Barnes & Noble’s Library of Essential Writers. Each title in the series presents the finest works—complete and unabridged—from one of the greatest writers in literature in magnificent, elegantly designed hardback editions. Every volume also includes an original introduction that provides the reader with enlightening information on the writer’s life and works.

Biography

H.P. Lovecraft (1890-­1937) was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the city where he lived most of his life. He began writing poetry and fiction while an adolescent and contributed significantly to amateur press publications. In 1923, he made his first professional sale to Weird Tales, the pulp magazine that would publish most of his fiction. Five years later, Lovecraft published “The Call of Cthulhu,” a story that crystallized his concept of cosmic horror through its depiction of otherworldly monsters that represent the incomprehensible alienness of the universe to human thinking. In “The Dunwich Horror,” “The Whisperer in Darkness,” “The Haunter of the Dark,” “The Shadow out of Time,” “At the Mountains of Madness,” and other stories, Lovecraft further developed this unique approach to horror fiction, and created an elaborate mythology of alien creatures, forbidden books, and haunted New England towns to give it shape. The Shadow over Innsmouth, the sole book of his fiction published in his lifetime, appeared in 1936. Since his death, Lovecraft has become recognized as the greatest American writer of supernatural fiction after Edgar Allan Poe, and a leading influence on the modern weird tale.