I never cease to be amazed by literary language, specifically words wrought in English, that being the only language in which I am fluent.
Wrought as in deftly formed and finished, or intently delineated, styled, ornamented, disturbed or excited, or shaped by hammering and beating. Though the works differ, all my favorite writers are crafters of this sort.

I periodically experience word cravings. I’ll search the shelves for something to satisfy, and indulge in words with a pleasure akin to savori More...

It seriously took a publisher how much of a century to title a collection of Lovecraft's stories "Necronomicon"? Like seventy years? Did it really just not occur to anyone? Shouldn't the first collected volume of his stories have been called that? I blame August Derleth.

Speaking of whom, I don't believe this edition features the re-edited versions of the texts available in the Library of America edition of Lovecraft. Necronomicon includes the older editions as published by Derleth's Arkham House More...

A collection of Lovecraft, and what better collection is there? To reiterate and reflect the thoughts of countless individuals: this is essential supernatural horror. But, to put forward my own commentary, I shall endeavour:

The tales laid-out here are a trove of flawless narrative, impeccable originality and are told with such flair for language and charm; stories interweave, threads unravel and sanity is wholly drained throughout. Such keen attention to the progression of the stories, the hint More...

Influential writer in horror, fantasy and science fiction, sure. Inventor of the Cthulhu Mythos as well. And yet, as a prose writer, H.P. Lovecraft never really seemed to grasp what makes a story interesting, what creates tension, and makes you turn the pages of the book you're reading long after you should have put it down and gone to bed. The level of imagination and detail is impressive, but my greatest problem with Lovecraft is that he kills any tension there might have been by describing a More...

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

I honestly came across this book while eye-shopping at a local Fully Booked branch. The title and cover art snared me into an instant interest like some amateur reader. I ended up purchasing the thick, black book with cash purposefully saved for something besides a book.

Truth be told, despite being a huge Cthulu Mythos and H.P. Lovecraft now, I had very limited knowledge of what type of a writer Lovecraft would be before reading this book. I kne More...

This book is a collection of HP Lovecraft's "best weird tales," so I will review his writing styles and what I thought of some of the stories overall. HP Lovecraft is a writer of the fictional horror genre, but his stories aren't only frightening, but also accomplish being captivating and interesting. These weird tales are not of gruesome violence or blatantly obvious "monsters," but more of the effects of the journeys individuals have experienced through fright and terrifying scenarios and enco More...

Under normal circumstances I am not one to goggle at commemorative editions of novels or stories. For me it is the content that counts the most, not the presentation. But this commemorative edition is just too good not to praise. As a collection of Lovecraft stories in general, commemorative or not, it is very complete. All the essential tales are here, including the Radolph Carter/Dream-Cycle tales, and the often overlooked Herbert West: Reanimator. To any Lovecraft virgin simply looking to fin More...

As has been pointed out by many critics over time, Lovecraft is not without his flaws. Many of his plots are similar, and his characters are barely developed; most of his narrators could be mix-and-matched and the stories wouldn't change a bit. But the reason I still dig Lovecraft big-time, and give his collected stories five stars, is that I don't read Lovecraft for character development or story arc or deep emotional connection. I have other authors for that. Lovecraft does something very spec More...

NOTES ON THE STORIES
The Colour Out Of Space = WIN. And it's a stand-alone story. You don't need to know anything about the mythos for this one.
Pickman's Model = WIN. Another stand-alone story, without reference to the mythos. Actually very creepy.
The Shadow Over Innsmouth = WIN. A good introduction to the mythos, and a great introduction Lovecraft's story-telling. A perfectly crafted, perfectly creepy tale.

Schön gestaltet, qualitativ hochwertig

Über den Inhalt muss ich nichts sagen - der beste Horrorautor aller Zeiten versammelt hier seine besten Geschichten. Lovecraft muss man gelesen haben, neben seiner absolut zentralen Stellen im Horrorgenre nimmt er auch eine nicht vernachlässigenswerte Position außerhalb des Genres ein. Als der wohl wichtigste Autor aus der "Weird Tales"-Schmiede, neben C.A. Smith und R.E. Howard, war er der gemeinsame Nenner fast aller wichtigen Pulp-Schriftsteller der 20-30 More...

Un curioso libro sobre el Necromicón, con una primera parte dedicada a cuentos en que el Necromicón es protagonista o parte importante del relato... aunque muchas veces estos relatos de serie B, editados por revistas de relatos de epígonos de Lovecraft, auténtica pulp fiction, literatura de quiosco. Cuentos que a veces no tienen mucho que ver con los mismos mitos de Chtulhu.

La segunda parte es sorprendente. Recopila muestras del Necromicón. Desde re-escrituras como la de Lin Carter, que es una m More...

This is probably the best one-stop anthology of Lovecraft I've come across. It's a good selection but marred somewhat by sloppy proofreading. It's got all HPL's best stories, but it does go to show that his reputation rests on a handful of brilliant tales and a larger number of good to okay ones. Somewhat of a niggle, but I think I would have preferred a volume ordered by when written rather than when published - the development of HPL's ideas is a little blurred in by the ordering of the tales, More...

H.P. Lovecraft has definetely been an influence on most modern day horror writers. A visionary for the macabre, this collection of short stories is a must read for someone interested in the evolution of literary horror.

While I liked many of the stories here, there's no doubt that the writing can come off as dated. Quite often Lovecraft spends pages describing a dead town rather than focusing on the characters who people his stories. He leaves so much to the imagination it can be annoying for the More...

One of the genres I'm interested in and would like to write for in some capacity, what that capacity is irrelevant. The point being is that I would turn to H.P. Lovecraft and his short stories for inspiration. The ideas that Lovecraft churns out in his stories is what incredibly interesting, he creates this pantheon of alien gods that are above human conceptions of good and evil. More importantly is the way he describes the entities, he spends paragraphs unpon paragraphs describing something tha More...

Along with Eldritch Tales, The Necronomicon holds the complete works of HP Lovecraft in what are without doubt, the most beautifully bound editions of his works.

Being my favourite author of all time, the Necronomicon and Eldritch Tales would both receive 5 stars from me.

No one creates such a unique atmosphere as Lovecraft. A quote from the great man himself sums it up for me:

"If I could create an ideal world, it would be an England with the fire of the Elizabethans, the correct taste of the Geor More...

I bought this book because I thought the cover was neat looking, even though I own enough Lovecraft books already that this was entirely superfluous. Sometimes I am shallow!

I didn't like the layout at all. There was no rhyme or reason to the order the stories appeared. And although the illustrations are fantastic, they are rarely matched with the right story, and are, annoyingly, repeated over and over.

The map of Arkham is kind of nifty, though it's not exactly "canon" or whatever. Also, the bac More...

The Color Out of Space is still the single scariest story ever written.

Oh the joys of the way he played with words to create such beautiful yet dark works of literary art. I wish I could use the English language like Lovecraft. It still amazes me when people haven't heard of him, even people like my dad who enjoy reading horror. Even in today's world of the internet where you can't take two steps without seeing Cthulhu written somewhere people haven't heard of him. To cut this sort you're on goodreads which mean you're looking for a good read, so read this and all More...

Though I've seen this collection hounded somewhat, I can't fully understand why. It includes a great deal of Lovecraft's greatest and even a biography to finish it all off.

I have the hard-cover of this, bought for my as a gift from my wife. Its VERY nice and has a distressed look to it, I honestly wish I could buy a reading copy and keep that one safe - for some reason the lettering has a habit of smudging if you put any sort of moisture near it. Oh well, I still love this book and it will be th More...

I'm possibly a little biased, because this book is such a gorgeous edition physically, it's impossible to rate it down. It is a chronologically arranged collection of many of H.P. Lovecraft's short stories and poems, beautifully compiled. The stories within take you to so many different places, different races, different spaces; it is a treasure trove of weirdness and horror, with a large dollop of sci-fi for good measure. If you can afford this edition it is highly recommended as a comprehensiv More...

The Necronomicon is pretty much the complete works of H.P Lovecraft. I cannot go into depth on all of his stories so I'll try to cover his stories as a hole if I can, but first. His writing style! Lovecraft's style is complex, when it comes to him there are two types of people, those who will hate the way he writes horror and those who will love the way he writes horror. Most of the time when he describes creatures he will give the basics of what it looks like, i.e, "Something very big, loud an More...

A treasure trove of horror.

As a person HP Lovecraft was not the sort of man you would enjoy a drink with. Controversial in his racist and anti-Semitic views (even by the standards of the era he lived in) he was the living example of man's nature reflecting his work. The author Michael Moorcock is quoted as saying that the secret to Lovecraft's success is that everybody else is a better writer than him, that the reader fills the gaps of Lovecraft's writing by the employment of his own imaginatio More...

Long, long time ago during my period of nondiscriminating mass reading of fantasy-related literature, I read some works by Lovecraft. At the time i was quite unaware of his status as a classic or about his troublesomeness (his personal defects such as racism visible in some of his texts or his sometimes rather hacky writing) and read him as just another not-so-good author.

After years and years had passed and my knowledge of him had increased I came to buy this monster of a book, meaning to reint More...

Nowadays, partly due to Lovecraft's strong influence on following generations of horror writers, many of the twists and devices he employed have become common writing tools and many of his stories will appear predictable and clichéd to the modern reader. Some of the stories collected in this volume even appear to be ripping off each other. But you have to keep in mind that these were collected from all over Lovecraft's literary career in the last century, and he was the first to popularise many More...

This may not be a complete collection of all of Lovecraft's tales but my god it is a damn good one none-the-less. This anthology includes some of his best known works including The Statement of Randolph Carter, The Cats of Ulthar, Under the Pyramids, The Call of Cthulhu, The Dunwich Horror and At the Mountains of Madness and some os his lesser known tales and two of his poetry pieces. Pulled together by Stephon Jones from the original publications, there are a few typos and minor errors however More...

Fair warning -- all of Lovecraft's work is suffused with his racism and misogyny. He also tends to overwritten passages that are pure examples of purple prose. Yet he was, and is, a major influence on many writers and indeed, could be argued to be more of a presence in modern-day horror/science fiction than in mainstream horror novels. For the reader who is comfortable with prolixity or who wants to better understand writers such as Stross, reading Lovecraft is a necessity.

a big book, a compendium as such, of Lovecrafts works. Something that I find that I cant, nor want to, read from start to finish but come back to between books for a break and sometimes for a little scare. Brilliantly written short stories, horror from a different time, written prosaically, and grammatically perfectly, by one of the most influential ( and under rated by most ) horror writers of the 20th Century. Cthulu waits...

what i learned from this book is that h.p. lovecraft existed...and apparently i should have known this a long long time ago. when i saw it on the shelf at the bookstore all i could hear in my head was "you will never retrieve the necronomicon" over and over, from army of darkness. i had no idea what was behind that, but i'm loving this guy. a more cosmic/sci-fi edgar allen poe and the best part is that it's all new to me. :)

Actually I skipped around in this collection and haven't technically finished the entire volume. Seems comprehensive of all the major and many of the worthwhile minor stories---although I don't know that there's a Lovecraft scholar with the kind of authorial credibility who could make a judgment as to which are his "major" works. I certainly hope I don't live in a world where such a scholar exists....

Lovecraft is a genius. It's really a shame that when it comes to macabre stories Poe gets all of the publicity. If you don't feel like reading the entire collect, my favorite stories were probably "At the Mountains of Madness" and "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward". Yes, there are some stories that I didn't really like, most notably any of the Randolph Carter stories. Ultimately though, Lovecraft is quiet simply a brilliant writer. He really excels at creating atmosphere and blowing your mind wit More...