What do you think?
Rate this book
The Lovecraft Library Volume 1: Horror Out of Arkham
One of H.P. Lovecraft's most famous creations, the city of Arkham, Massachusetts, plays a prominent role in many of the influential author's tales of the macabre. This collection of six classic tales of horror all feature the Lovecraft Country locale, including:
● Herbert West - Reanimator
● The Unnamable
● The Colour Out of Space
● The Dunwich Horror
● The Dreams in the Witch House
● The Thing on the Doorstep
Featuring lavish, full-color illustrations by painter Menton3 and an introduction by Arkham House editor and noted author Robert Weinberg.
This is one book that true horror fans can't do without!
● Herbert West - Reanimator
● The Unnamable
● The Colour Out of Space
● The Dunwich Horror
● The Dreams in the Witch House
● The Thing on the Doorstep
Featuring lavish, full-color illustrations by painter Menton3 and an introduction by Arkham House editor and noted author Robert Weinberg.
This is one book that true horror fans can't do without!
232 pages, Hardcover
First published October 25, 2011
4 people are currently reading
94 people want to read
About the author
H.P. Lovecraft
5,958 books19k followersHoward Phillips Lovecraft, of Providence, Rhode Island, was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction.
Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.
Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.
See also Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
— Wikipedia
Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.
Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.
See also Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
— Wikipedia
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 13, 2013
The Lovecraft Library Vol 1: Horror Out of Arkham is a gorgeous book newly published from IDW. IDW is more notable for their comics and is currently publishing a series The Dunwich Horror, a sequel of sorts to HPL's story scripted by Joe Lansdale. Horror Out of Arkham is a very nice hardcover with 231 pages, with an introduction by Robert Weinberg. List price is a rather expensive but it is a very handsome volume. The premise is that it collects some of HPL's stories in which Arkham the city plays a prominent role.
The main attraction is the incredibly beautiful art and cover by menton3. I counted about 18 full color, full page illustrations and they (and the cover) are marvelous.My favorite was a ramshackle house on page 226, perhaps the Whateley estate? Any collector of Lovecraftian art simply must have a copy of this book. As long as menton3 is contributing to this project I will get every issue.
Now we get to the reason I just can't give this book a 5 star recommendation. Here are the contents:
Herbert West - Reanimator
The Unnamable
The Colour Out of Space
The Dunwich Horror
The Dreams in the Witch House
The Thing on the Doorstep
This is neither a very generous nor very comprehensive HPL collection. All of these stories are in the public domain and available for free online; I wish the editor had given us a discussion of the provenance of the text so we knew it was ST Joshi approved. At the least there could have been some more analysis of Arkham's role in these particular stories. There are more economical ways for readers who want to have print copies of these stories. For example, The Library of America has a comprehensive collection of Lovecraft (ISBN 978-1931082723). Gollancz has a very generous selection of HPL' works (ISBN 978-0575081574) which also has nice illustrations. Finally Barnes & Nobles has a complete collection of HPL's fiction (ISBN 978-1435122963; get the 2nd edition which is corrected).
So, for me this is a 5 star product for the art and an unnecessary purchase for the stories.
The main attraction is the incredibly beautiful art and cover by menton3. I counted about 18 full color, full page illustrations and they (and the cover) are marvelous.My favorite was a ramshackle house on page 226, perhaps the Whateley estate? Any collector of Lovecraftian art simply must have a copy of this book. As long as menton3 is contributing to this project I will get every issue.
Now we get to the reason I just can't give this book a 5 star recommendation. Here are the contents:
Herbert West - Reanimator
The Unnamable
The Colour Out of Space
The Dunwich Horror
The Dreams in the Witch House
The Thing on the Doorstep
This is neither a very generous nor very comprehensive HPL collection. All of these stories are in the public domain and available for free online; I wish the editor had given us a discussion of the provenance of the text so we knew it was ST Joshi approved. At the least there could have been some more analysis of Arkham's role in these particular stories. There are more economical ways for readers who want to have print copies of these stories. For example, The Library of America has a comprehensive collection of Lovecraft (ISBN 978-1931082723). Gollancz has a very generous selection of HPL' works (ISBN 978-0575081574) which also has nice illustrations. Finally Barnes & Nobles has a complete collection of HPL's fiction (ISBN 978-1435122963; get the 2nd edition which is corrected).
So, for me this is a 5 star product for the art and an unnecessary purchase for the stories.
January 6, 2013
A nicely constructed book: sturdy and printed on good quality paper (take that, e-readers!). The illustrations match the stories excellently, for the most part, and in any event are well executed and atmospheric. The stories are themed around Lovecraft's eerie New England town of Arkham, Massachusetts:
Herbert West - Reanimator: One of my favourite Lovecraft stories, and a good opener to the collection. There is a certain degree of repetition, which I assume is due to it having been serialised in a pulp magazine, thus being furnished with regular recaps. That aside, it's a fine piece of ghoulish work. It also seems that Herbert West anticipated the use of embryonic stem cell therapy by about 80 years or so! Hopefully, nobody will be foolish enough to seek to recreate the research of the frightful Dr West! 5/5 stars.
The Unnamable: The narrator of this short story is a writer whose friend criticises his overuse of words such as "unmentionable" and "unnamable" as a puerile device when referring to the horrors of which the author writes. I guess that Lovecraft may have had this criticism levelled at him, and here he pokes fun both at himself and his critic. Typically, this debate about the ineffability of cosmic horrors takes place in a graveyard, atop a shattered tomb, next to an ancient, abandoned house in the derelict outskirts of Arkham. Needless to say, indescribable horror pays a call.
The story is accompanied by a great illustration, let down by its quite easily describable subject, so while it's a nice piece of art, it doesn't really complement the narrative. 4/5 stars.
Herbert West - Reanimator: One of my favourite Lovecraft stories, and a good opener to the collection. There is a certain degree of repetition, which I assume is due to it having been serialised in a pulp magazine, thus being furnished with regular recaps. That aside, it's a fine piece of ghoulish work. It also seems that Herbert West anticipated the use of embryonic stem cell therapy by about 80 years or so! Hopefully, nobody will be foolish enough to seek to recreate the research of the frightful Dr West! 5/5 stars.
The Unnamable: The narrator of this short story is a writer whose friend criticises his overuse of words such as "unmentionable" and "unnamable" as a puerile device when referring to the horrors of which the author writes. I guess that Lovecraft may have had this criticism levelled at him, and here he pokes fun both at himself and his critic. Typically, this debate about the ineffability of cosmic horrors takes place in a graveyard, atop a shattered tomb, next to an ancient, abandoned house in the derelict outskirts of Arkham. Needless to say, indescribable horror pays a call.
The story is accompanied by a great illustration, let down by its quite easily describable subject, so while it's a nice piece of art, it doesn't really complement the narrative. 4/5 stars.
September 3, 2012
Lovecraft truly is one of the most innovative and potent horror authors of all-time, which is why there is seemingly an unlimited amount of collections of his short stories. Well, here is another one. This is an illustrated, hardcover volume with 6 stories all based out of Lovecraft's fictional town of Arkham (yep, this is where DC Comics got the name for Arkham Asylum...the place the Joker has escaped from 400 times and counting).
The stories themselves are great, for the most part. The Thing On The Doorstep & The Colour Out Of Space are 2 of his best; replete with lush and vivid imagery and leaving you creeped to the core. The book itself is nice as well, with art by menton3 (his Christian name?) and a faux-aged look to pages which I thought was kind of cool. The only fault I have with this edition is the inclusion of The Dunwich Horror. Not my favorite by a long shot. In fact, my least favorite Lovecraft yarn...starring the precocious demonic goat-boy Wilber Whateley.
All in all, a worthy tome but if you want a larger sampling I'd suggest the Del Rey collections, especially "The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft: Dreams of Terror and Death".
The stories themselves are great, for the most part. The Thing On The Doorstep & The Colour Out Of Space are 2 of his best; replete with lush and vivid imagery and leaving you creeped to the core. The book itself is nice as well, with art by menton3 (his Christian name?) and a faux-aged look to pages which I thought was kind of cool. The only fault I have with this edition is the inclusion of The Dunwich Horror. Not my favorite by a long shot. In fact, my least favorite Lovecraft yarn...starring the precocious demonic goat-boy Wilber Whateley.
All in all, a worthy tome but if you want a larger sampling I'd suggest the Del Rey collections, especially "The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft: Dreams of Terror and Death".
November 17, 2015
To a Batman fan Arkham is an insane asylum in Gotham City, but nothing in that asylum can match the weird and wonderful events of H P Lovecraft's fictional Massachusetts city of Arkham-a conduit to the terrifying parallel dimensions housing such ancient monsters as Cthulhu (latterly of South Park fame) and Nyarlathotep. Needless to say Arkham and it's surrounds is also home to many a deranged and in - bred dabbler in the occult keen to breach the barriers between the worlds and bring forth such terrors into this one. It also, of course has mad scientists and extra - terrestrial visitations - all of which feature in the half dozen stories in this volume written between 1922 and 1937. It's many a year since I read H P Lovecraft but I absolutely loved re - acquainting myself with his mythical world of "cosmic horror". It certainly won't be to everyone's taste and some may think there is enough horror in the world without reading more - but I would say there is plenty of crime in the world too, but that doesn't stop crime novels flying off the shelf! Try it, and lose yourself for a while in Lovecraft's unique imagination.
May 22, 2012
Very good book. I wasn't crazy about a few of the stories, but most of them were very good. Plus, I loved the book itself, very nice hard cover book with quality paper, very nice graphics, etc. It's one of the reasons I bought it. If you like Lovecraft, pick this book up.
May 26, 2014
Técnicamente varios relatos ya los había leido en mi infancia. Sea como sea Lovecraft es y será siempre uno de los amos del terror, excelente libro, excelente edición y genial autor ¿Qué más pueden pedir?
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews