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Haunter of the Dark and Other Tales of Horror
Warning! You are about to enter a New Dimension of TERROR...
When you open this book you will be lost... lost in a world of nightmare brought to screaming life by the century's greatest master of adult fantasy and horror
H.P. Lovecraft
Here is a collection of the most famous stories of this unparalled writer. The Rats in the Walls, Pickman's Model, The Colour Out of Space, The Call of Cthulhu and The Haunter of the Dark, plus other tales you would be best advised not to read late at night if you hope for untroubled sleep.
Terror in the fourth dimension... a master of cosmic horror - Punch
Cover Illustration: Ian Miller
When you open this book you will be lost... lost in a world of nightmare brought to screaming life by the century's greatest master of adult fantasy and horror
H.P. Lovecraft
Here is a collection of the most famous stories of this unparalled writer. The Rats in the Walls, Pickman's Model, The Colour Out of Space, The Call of Cthulhu and The Haunter of the Dark, plus other tales you would be best advised not to read late at night if you hope for untroubled sleep.
Terror in the fourth dimension... a master of cosmic horror - Punch
Cover Illustration: Ian Miller
303 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1969
About the author
H.P. Lovecraft
6,430 books19.6k 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
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 28, 2019
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.”
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How good is that quote! 👆
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This was an awe inspiring Lovecraft collection. A bit of a “best of”, it seems. I enjoyed this one even more than the last one I read a couple of months back which could be due to me becoming more familiar with the writing style and mythology or just because these stories are awesome, as was H.P!
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You don’t get character development with Lovecraft. You have to be in the mood and concentrate. If you are like me you will instantly forget most of the details of a story after reading it. The stories are all sort of similar with some variations. From what I can tell the narrator in each story is basically a thinly veiled version of the same character. I don’t really even find the stories overly scary or shocking but I love where I go in my mind when reading his stories!
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What you do get with H.P is atmosphere!! Trippy scenes and imagery! Existential dread! Cosmic horror! The Necronomicon! Creatures, monstrosities, aliens, elders, great old ones, antiquities, ancient architecture, Egypt, megaliths, cyclopean cities, sacred geometry, , hidden grottos, tombs, tablets, cryptograms, religions, cults, witchcraft, esoteric lore, changelings, art, music, cycles of eternity, the stars, languages, time, the universe, primal mystery, a reference to Chamber’s The Yellow Sign... I could go on and on!
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It’s basically like Indiana Jones goes on an hallucinogenic trip!! 😂
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The Outsider ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️.
The Rats in the Walls ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.
Pickman’s Model ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫.
The Call of Cthulhu ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.
The Dunwich Horror ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.
The Wisperer in Darkness ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.
The Colour out of Space ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫.
The Haunter of the Dark ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.
The Thing on the Doorstep ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.
The Music of Erich Zann ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.
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Overall 5⭐️
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The Haunter of the Dark, H.P. Lovecraft. Panther, 1972 edition. Cover art: Ian Miller #ianmiller #ianmillerart .
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#peterruysbookreviews .
November 6, 2017
In Lovecraftian horror, magic is not a whimsy to be lightly invoked for amusement or simple pleasure. There is a weird, ancient, wholly alien history and presence underlying all we do. To wield magic is to actually be wielded by these forces, beyond understanding, beyond sanity.
In Lovecraftian fiction, we are ill at ease to discover that we are far less than we believe. Mere specks are we, in an ancient story, in a vast universe. We are tempted with a nihilism by the unknown, crushed beneath the weight of our insignificance. The monsters of Lovecraft do not chase us by some motivation we can understand. The are horrified because the monsters of Lovecraft barely recognize our existence, never mind our significance. Against such power we cannot reason nor resist.
I love Lovecraftian fiction, and the influence of Lovecraft on any fiction. I saw Lovecraft very recently in Denis Villeneuve's beautiful film, Arrival. Rick and Morty, one of the best shows on television right now, oozes Lovecraft. One of my favourite films, Alien, is thoroughly Lovecraftian, an element which was lost in its sequels, but has been resurrected in Ridley Scott's new Alien films.
I also love fiction that directly follows from Lovecraft's mythology. Alan Moore's Neonomicon comes immediately to mind, a graphic novel that exists in the world of Cthulu. A Satanist and Anarchist, Alan Moore's Watchmen is also influenced significantly by Lovecraft.
Yet I have never truly loved reading Lovecraft.
I am giving this book four stars generously. Based only in how I enjoyed it, I would give it three. But I do recognize in every single piece in this book the elements of horror and imagination that were first introduced by this unique and singular artist. Unfortunately, I simply struggle to be moved by the pseudo intellectual vocabulary, which consistently pulls me out of the narrative and forces me to notice the interesting and rarely used words. I have a similar difficulty when reading literature from the eighteenth century and before. However, old works have a consistency of language that matches their tone and setting, while Lovecraft's language always feels out of place and awkward to me. His stories strike me as overwritten. They are almost Poe, whom I love, but never feel much more than that to me.
I did enjoy and appreciate this book, though more for what it has given literature than for what it is on its own. These stories were mostly new to me. All of them are among the best of Lovecraft I have read. Still, not once did I find myself really looking forward to reading it, and it took me a while to get through, since I never really fully entered it.
I will probably return again to Lovecraft, even to this book. I want to enjoy him, be moved by him, more than I am. As I say, I love all that he has inspired. Maybe one day I'll catch the spark.
In Lovecraftian fiction, we are ill at ease to discover that we are far less than we believe. Mere specks are we, in an ancient story, in a vast universe. We are tempted with a nihilism by the unknown, crushed beneath the weight of our insignificance. The monsters of Lovecraft do not chase us by some motivation we can understand. The are horrified because the monsters of Lovecraft barely recognize our existence, never mind our significance. Against such power we cannot reason nor resist.
I love Lovecraftian fiction, and the influence of Lovecraft on any fiction. I saw Lovecraft very recently in Denis Villeneuve's beautiful film, Arrival. Rick and Morty, one of the best shows on television right now, oozes Lovecraft. One of my favourite films, Alien, is thoroughly Lovecraftian, an element which was lost in its sequels, but has been resurrected in Ridley Scott's new Alien films.
I also love fiction that directly follows from Lovecraft's mythology. Alan Moore's Neonomicon comes immediately to mind, a graphic novel that exists in the world of Cthulu. A Satanist and Anarchist, Alan Moore's Watchmen is also influenced significantly by Lovecraft.
Yet I have never truly loved reading Lovecraft.
I am giving this book four stars generously. Based only in how I enjoyed it, I would give it three. But I do recognize in every single piece in this book the elements of horror and imagination that were first introduced by this unique and singular artist. Unfortunately, I simply struggle to be moved by the pseudo intellectual vocabulary, which consistently pulls me out of the narrative and forces me to notice the interesting and rarely used words. I have a similar difficulty when reading literature from the eighteenth century and before. However, old works have a consistency of language that matches their tone and setting, while Lovecraft's language always feels out of place and awkward to me. His stories strike me as overwritten. They are almost Poe, whom I love, but never feel much more than that to me.
I did enjoy and appreciate this book, though more for what it has given literature than for what it is on its own. These stories were mostly new to me. All of them are among the best of Lovecraft I have read. Still, not once did I find myself really looking forward to reading it, and it took me a while to get through, since I never really fully entered it.
I will probably return again to Lovecraft, even to this book. I want to enjoy him, be moved by him, more than I am. As I say, I love all that he has inspired. Maybe one day I'll catch the spark.
June 20, 2022
I have never made any apologies or excuses for being a scholar of H.P. Lovecraft, one of the most influential and important writers of weird fiction, and as such the horror genre as a whole. Writing in the 1920’s and 30’s, his plots and imagination are as prevalent now as at any other time, even if the near omnipotence of ‘Cthulhu’ can overshadow his other work. However, the man is a controversial figure and whilst many trade off the back of his work, the man is dismissed all to easily. Yes, he held some challenging views, but his downfall is that he wrote them down (Lovecraft being one the most voluminous writers of letters in all history – check it out). This leads to easy soundbites, misrepresentations and out of context quotes, which, in our modern society, we are all too familiar with how these are used to destroy an individual and their reputation.
I believe that Lovecraft is much more complex than that, and as such have read his letters, biographies, recollections from friends and colleagues and any source I can, to build a much rounder picture of the ‘Old Gent’. By consequence, it’s been ages since I actually read any of his stories…but a recent opportunity to see a staging of two stories ‘Pickman’s Model’ and ‘The Music of Erich Zann’, allowed me to pick up this collection and delve back into his work.
Lovecraft himself dismissed the majority of his own work, and probably rightly so, there is a lot of fairly mundane ‘hack’ writing for the periodicals of the day…but when he was good, I would stand his work up against anyone else in his field. This collection ‘The Haunter of the Dark & Other Tales of Terror’, published by Gollancz in 1950, serves as an introduction to the British audience who may have struggled to obtain the early Arkham House publications; and what a great collection it is too.
Shorter works ‘The Outsider’, ‘The Rats in the Walls’ and the aforementioned ‘Pickman’s Model’ and ‘The Music of Erich Zann’ give a wide brushstroke of pure horror, existential malaise and cosmic madness…a great introduction in themselves, but we also get some of the longer tales where Lovecraft is at the height of his work. ‘The Dunwich Horror’, ‘The Call of Cthulhu’, ‘The Whisperer in Darkness’, ‘The Colour Out of Space’, ‘The Thing on the Doorstep’ and ‘The Haunter of the Dark’ are tales to be enjoyed over and over again. They also give a good indication of an element of HPL which I always feel doesn’t get the credit it deserves – he wrote amazing opening lines. The ability to grip a reader right from the start is one of his crowning achievements:
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”
“West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut.”
“It is true that I have sent six bullets through the head of my best friend, and yet I hope to show by this statement that I am not his murderer.”
“When a traveller in north central Massachusetts takes the wrong fork at the junction of the Aylsebury Pike, just beyond Dean’s Corners, he comes across a lonely and curious country.”
Read the story, go back, read the beginning and feel the weight of the word ‘wrong’, for now you are in Dunwich…
If you want a tale that won’t ‘scare’ you, but instead stay in your mind, it’s uncanniness working it’s way into your dreams and tainting the way you look upon the ordinary world around you, as you seek the glimmers of what is happening beneath the surface…then this is a pretty good place to start.
I believe that Lovecraft is much more complex than that, and as such have read his letters, biographies, recollections from friends and colleagues and any source I can, to build a much rounder picture of the ‘Old Gent’. By consequence, it’s been ages since I actually read any of his stories…but a recent opportunity to see a staging of two stories ‘Pickman’s Model’ and ‘The Music of Erich Zann’, allowed me to pick up this collection and delve back into his work.
Lovecraft himself dismissed the majority of his own work, and probably rightly so, there is a lot of fairly mundane ‘hack’ writing for the periodicals of the day…but when he was good, I would stand his work up against anyone else in his field. This collection ‘The Haunter of the Dark & Other Tales of Terror’, published by Gollancz in 1950, serves as an introduction to the British audience who may have struggled to obtain the early Arkham House publications; and what a great collection it is too.
Shorter works ‘The Outsider’, ‘The Rats in the Walls’ and the aforementioned ‘Pickman’s Model’ and ‘The Music of Erich Zann’ give a wide brushstroke of pure horror, existential malaise and cosmic madness…a great introduction in themselves, but we also get some of the longer tales where Lovecraft is at the height of his work. ‘The Dunwich Horror’, ‘The Call of Cthulhu’, ‘The Whisperer in Darkness’, ‘The Colour Out of Space’, ‘The Thing on the Doorstep’ and ‘The Haunter of the Dark’ are tales to be enjoyed over and over again. They also give a good indication of an element of HPL which I always feel doesn’t get the credit it deserves – he wrote amazing opening lines. The ability to grip a reader right from the start is one of his crowning achievements:
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”
“West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut.”
“It is true that I have sent six bullets through the head of my best friend, and yet I hope to show by this statement that I am not his murderer.”
“When a traveller in north central Massachusetts takes the wrong fork at the junction of the Aylsebury Pike, just beyond Dean’s Corners, he comes across a lonely and curious country.”
Read the story, go back, read the beginning and feel the weight of the word ‘wrong’, for now you are in Dunwich…
If you want a tale that won’t ‘scare’ you, but instead stay in your mind, it’s uncanniness working it’s way into your dreams and tainting the way you look upon the ordinary world around you, as you seek the glimmers of what is happening beneath the surface…then this is a pretty good place to start.
July 12, 2025
The Outsider, The Whisperer in Darkness, The Colour Out of Space, and The Thing on the Doorstep were my favorites of this bunch.
June 4, 2021
Very good collection of horror, bizarre, supernatural and fantasy stories. I especially liked the pure horror stories in the collection like"The Haunter of the Dark", "The Shunned House", "The Colour out of Space", 'The Shadow over innsmouth" and "The thing on the doorstep". My only complain was that the Cthulhu mythos were not so frequent in this collection. Also, i found most of the Randolph Carter adventures dragging. But overall a very good collection of weird and macabre, to sit and enjoy on a rainy day with a cup of coffee :)
December 31, 2022
“When a traveller in north central Massachusetts takes the wrong turn at the junction of the Aylesbury pike...”
It’s a long, long time since I last visited the Lovecraft shelf. I blew the dust of decades from the browning paperbacks and brushed aside the cobwebs, as is fitting, and selected this anthology of some of his best-known short stories.
I surprised myself by enjoying them more than I expected. Well, a few of them anyway. Lovecraft’s prose style is somewhat more restrained than I remembered and he is particularly good at establishing an ominous locale at the edge of the familiar world, whether it’s in a forgotten quarter of a city or down the wrong turn of the Aylesbury pike.
In fact, nearly all his stories begin well. Thereafter it’s a bit hit or miss. The pulp fiction trope of the protagonist who is always several steps behind the reader is never a winner and - though the Whateleys are wonderful - lobster-men from Pluto don’t really cut it, even if their electrons have a wholly different vibration rate.
Youthful enthusiasms do not always wear well, but by and large I enjoyed this. Next time the twilight seems endless, I may ascend the worn and aged stairs and after an infinity of awesome, sightless climbing, enter the haunted and venerable library, sinister with startled bats, and blow the dust off some of his other long-forgotten tomes.
It’s a long, long time since I last visited the Lovecraft shelf. I blew the dust of decades from the browning paperbacks and brushed aside the cobwebs, as is fitting, and selected this anthology of some of his best-known short stories.
I surprised myself by enjoying them more than I expected. Well, a few of them anyway. Lovecraft’s prose style is somewhat more restrained than I remembered and he is particularly good at establishing an ominous locale at the edge of the familiar world, whether it’s in a forgotten quarter of a city or down the wrong turn of the Aylesbury pike.
In fact, nearly all his stories begin well. Thereafter it’s a bit hit or miss. The pulp fiction trope of the protagonist who is always several steps behind the reader is never a winner and - though the Whateleys are wonderful - lobster-men from Pluto don’t really cut it, even if their electrons have a wholly different vibration rate.
Youthful enthusiasms do not always wear well, but by and large I enjoyed this. Next time the twilight seems endless, I may ascend the worn and aged stairs and after an infinity of awesome, sightless climbing, enter the haunted and venerable library, sinister with startled bats, and blow the dust off some of his other long-forgotten tomes.
February 24, 2014
This collection pulls together some of Lovecraft's best known tales including The Call of Cthulhu, The Dunwich Horror and The Haunter of the Dark, many of which have been included in other anthologies. However this collection was one of the first to be pulled together for Lovecraft and shows of his talents as a writer of the macabre, reflecting the many British influences he had (given the lack of American authors in the genre before and during Lovecraft's life...Poe not withstanding of course). A great collection for any Lovecraft fan and a superb one for those unfamiliar with his work.
March 11, 2007
Some genuinely creepy tales in this collection. Aagghhh the eldritch horror !
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews