By Ian Godfrey
Before there was Stephen King, Clive Barker, or Anne Rice, there was H.P. Lovecraft(1897 – 1937) the proclaimed father of the modern horror genre. Now you can have sixteen of his most famous works in one collection: Best of H.P. Lovecraft : Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre.
Lovecraft has a unique writing style that separates him from most other horror writers I have read, a tenaciously descriptive style with lots of rare old syllables. Most of the horrors are either dimly described or not described at all, leaving a lot up to the reader’s imagination, in line with Lovecraft’s famous sentence: “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” What we can’t see certainly does scare us!
This is the collection that true fans of horror fiction have been waiting for: sixteen of H.P. Lovecraft’s most horrifying visions, including Lovecraft’s masterpiece, The Shadow out of time–the shocking revelation of the mysterious forces that hold all mankind in their fearsome grip. Stephen King says “I think it is beyond doubt that H.P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the Twentieth Century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale.”
Some of the best known stories like “The Call of Cthulhu” and “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” are essentials, and my 4 personal favourites “The Shadow Out of Time”, “The Whisperer in Darkness”, “The Rats in the Walls”, and of course Lovecraft’s own favourite: “The Colour Out of Space”.
Highly recommended! If you like it get the other 2 books in the series, or one of the Arkham House hardbacks if available.
CARDINAL GRADE: A horrific A!
