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The Horror in the Museum: Collected Short Stories Volume Two
My eyes, perversely shaken open, gazed for an instant upon a sight which no human creature could even imagine without panic, fear and physical exhaustion...
A wax museum in London boasts a new exhibit, which no man has seen and remained sane... A businessman is trapped in a train carriage with a madman who claims to have created a new and efficient method of capital punishment... A doctor plans a horrible revenge, using as his murder weapon an insect believed capable of consuming the human soul...
Within these pages, some of H P Lovecraft's more obscure works of horror and science fiction can be found, including several fantastic tales from his celebrated Cthulhu Mythos. No true Lovecraft aficionado dare be without this volume.
The Horror in the Museum: Collected Short Stories Volume Two contains these texts:
"The Green Meadow" (with Elizabeth Berkeley)
"Poetry and the Gods"
"The Crawling Chaos" (with Elizabeth Berkeley)
"The Horror at Martin's Beach"
"Imprisoned with the Pharaohs"
"Two Black Bottles"
"The Thing in the Moonlight"
"The Last Test"
"The Curse of Yig"
"The Electric Executioner"
"The Mound"
"Medusa's Coil"
"The Trap"
"The Man of Stone"
"The Horror in the Museum"
"Winged Death"
"Out of the Aeons"
"The Horror in the Burying-Ground"
"Till A' the Seas"
"The Disinterment"
"The Diary of Alonzo Typer"
"Within the Walls of Eryx"
"The Night Ocean"
A wax museum in London boasts a new exhibit, which no man has seen and remained sane... A businessman is trapped in a train carriage with a madman who claims to have created a new and efficient method of capital punishment... A doctor plans a horrible revenge, using as his murder weapon an insect believed capable of consuming the human soul...
Within these pages, some of H P Lovecraft's more obscure works of horror and science fiction can be found, including several fantastic tales from his celebrated Cthulhu Mythos. No true Lovecraft aficionado dare be without this volume.
The Horror in the Museum: Collected Short Stories Volume Two contains these texts:
"The Green Meadow" (with Elizabeth Berkeley)
"Poetry and the Gods"
"The Crawling Chaos" (with Elizabeth Berkeley)
"The Horror at Martin's Beach"
"Imprisoned with the Pharaohs"
"Two Black Bottles"
"The Thing in the Moonlight"
"The Last Test"
"The Curse of Yig"
"The Electric Executioner"
"The Mound"
"Medusa's Coil"
"The Trap"
"The Man of Stone"
"The Horror in the Museum"
"Winged Death"
"Out of the Aeons"
"The Horror in the Burying-Ground"
"Till A' the Seas"
"The Disinterment"
"The Diary of Alonzo Typer"
"Within the Walls of Eryx"
"The Night Ocean"
450 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 4, 2021
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About the author
H.P. Lovecraft
6,111 books19.2k 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 - 30 of 59 reviews
December 6, 2016
When I found this collection of short stories, I was a bit confused at first. Having read all of the Del Rey Lovecraft collections during the 1980s, and then worn them dog-eared in the decades that followed, I was sure I had read all of Lovecraft long ago. But, I only recognized one or two of the titles of these stories? Had someone discovered new Lovecraft?
Well, I got my answer by reading the Introduction. These are all stories that Lovecraft “collaborated” on with other authors – often doing the hard labor of rewriting their vague ideas and turning them into fully-fledged stories for a few dollars (when they bothered to pay) and then receiving no credit when they published under their own name. Only a few of these did show up in those Del Rey collections, and they are far from the best ones. I greatly enjoyed the opportunity to read new-to-me Lovecraft, so many years after discovering him. I will review each story separately, as I have done for the previous collections reviewed on goodreads.
“The Green Meadow” was written in collaboration with Winifred Virginia Jackson, and is a poetic or mythic prose tale of doom that cuts off in the middle to suggest the destruction of its world of origin. It is full of the kind of evocative visuals that Lovecraft excelled in, but with a somewhat different flavor.
“Poetry and the Gods” was written with Anna Helen Crofts and concerns an aesthete who dreams that he will one day usher in a new era of poetry and classical values – or at least serve one who does. It actually has a somewhat fascist sentiment, similar to the kinds of prose that was being written in Italy by Futurists. It seems less obviously Lovecraftian than the typical dread of “gods” and other supernatural powers.
“The Crawling Chaos” is another collaboration with Jackson and uses an opium dream as its premise, but soon goes into much the same kind of apocalyptic vision we saw in “Green Meadow.” I have reviewed it previously with the collection “The Doom That Came to Sarnath.”
“The Horror at Martin’s Beach” was written in collaboration with Sonia Haft Greene, the woman to whom Lovecraft was briefly and unhappily married. It is a typical sea monster story, with definitely Lovecraftian elements, which actually parallels the monster movie “Gorgo” in that it begins with the discovery of a large infant, only to have the even larger adult version come looking.
“Imprisoned with the Pharoahs” was a collaboration with the famous Harry Houdini (it is understood that Lovecraft did most of the actual writing). I have covered this one in my review of The Tomb and Other Tales.
“Two Black Bottles” is an interesting story about a pair of evil wizards located in a church that reminded me in some ways of “The Haunter of the Dark,” which is also centered around a church. It is one of several revisions Lovecraft made for Hazel Drake Heald.
“The Thing in the Moonlight” is a dream or nightmare that Lovecraft told to J. Chapman Miske that was slightly altered after Lovecraft’s death by another writer, Donald Wandrei. It is included as a “fragment” in “The Tomb and other Tales,” and I have reviewed it there.
“The Last Test” is the longest of the new piece to this point, and is Lovecraft’s “revision” of a story by Adolphe de Castro. Although it is basically a mad scientist story with some Bierce-ian elements, Lovecraft has slipped in references to some of his mythos gods, and ultimately the scientist turns out to be a wizard ala Charles Dexter Ward. There is an unusually prominent (for Lovecraft) female character/love interest, and a lot of high-level politics that to me rather slows the plot down, but it is ultimately satisfying.
“The Curse of Yig” was written from an outline by Zealia B. Reed, and concerns an Indian snake god in the American Southwest. Lovecraft (or Reed) has improved its effectiveness by adding a double surprise ending: one surprise you clearly see coming, but then it is followed by a second which was in no way telegraphed.
“The Electric Executioner” was another collaboration with de Castro, and for me it works somewhat better than “The Last Test,” not least because it is shorter. It uses the confinement of a railway car to create a claustrophobic environment for a man trapped with a lunatic. The payoff suggests that the madman may actually have been telling the truth, but goes further to suggest truths beyond even his knowledge, and ties in nicely with Lovecraft’s mythos monsters.
“The Mound” is a very long story (65 fairly long pages), and to me the most satisfying new story so far. It is supposedly based on a bit of folklore passed along to Lovecraft by Zealia B. Reed, but unlike “The Curse of Yig,” it shows almost no sign of another author. It neatly works in the Lovecraft mythos, and partially explains how Cthulhu (rendered in this tale as “Tulu”) became such a prominent figure in it. Unlike “The Last Test,” it puts its length to good use in building up a new world and drawing the reader into it. It was not published in his lifetime, unfortunately.
“Medusa’s Coil” has a similar structure to Lovecraft’s “The Picture in the House,” in that it involves a traveler seeking shelter in an apparently abandoned house only to hear a bizarre story told by its hermit-like inhabitant. It is another collaboration with Zealia B. Reed, but again it shows little sign of anyone else’s style but HPL’s. It manages to update Greek myth into his particular style and mythos, and the character of the artist has some parallels to “Pickman’s Model” as well.
“The Trap” was a singular story produced from an idea of Lovecraft’s by the Reverend Henry St. Clair Whitehead. It involves the familiar story of a person “trapped” inside of a mirror, but uses extra-dimensional travel and an immortal warlock with some similarities to Joseph Curwen of “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” to make the well-trodden ground appear novel.
“The Man of Stone” is a Lovecraft re-write of a story by Hazel Drake Heald. It involves a love triangle and an unfortunate person petrified by chemical processes. It is written in a somewhat unlikely diary format (the author knows too much of what is to happen before it does, and also confesses far more than anyone should on paper), but is still a good chilling story, in part because the victim knows what is happening.
“The Horror in the Museum” is another re-write of Heald, and it takes as its premise the story of a man forced to spend a night in a horrific setting, which was often used (and sometimes satired) by Bierce, Lovecraft, however, brings in an eldritch alien God and other mythos elements to produce one of the most frightening stories in the collection, which takes its name from this tale.
I found “Winged Death,” also a collaboration with Hazel Drake Heald, to be a bit of a let-down after “Museum,” but that’s a tough act to follow. It involves a scientist who conspires to kill a rival with an infected fly (perhaps the first example of bacteriological warfare in a horror story), only to have a highly suitable revenge enacted upon him.
“Out of the Aeons” once again was written in collaboration with Heald, and is about an ancient mummy that is brought to a small Boston museum and promptly becomes the focus of cult activity and madness. I was surprised to find a hint of the “Elder Gods vs. Old Ones” conflict that I had believed originated with August Derleth in this story.
“The Horror in the Burying Ground” is, I think, the last of the Heald collaborations. It is something of a black comedy along the lines of “Herbert West: Reanimator” in which Lovecraft indulged his enjoyment of rustic legends and dialects.
Next up is “Till A’ The Seas,” which was written with Lovecraft’s prodigy Robert Hayward Barlow when the latter was still a teenager (rumors among Lovecraft fans abound that the two were lovers). This story involves a dystopian image of the world drifting closer to the sun and human civilization dying in the heat over centuries. As an early climate change story, it will remind people of many more recent fictions.
“The Disinterment” was a collaboration with Duane W. Rimel, intended to launch a new magazine that would be edited by them both. It involves a mad doctor, voodoo secrets, and a mysterious transplant. It is told from a subjective first-person point of view by a narrator who holds back the truth until the very end, making it similar in structure to “The Outsider.”
“The Diary of Alonzo Typer” is a re-write of a story by William Lumley, told in the format of a series of journal entries. It hints at cosmic horrors of a “mythos” nature, but avoids specific references to most of Lovecraft’s gods. The “Necronomicon” and various other books do make an appearance, however, and the story is good on the whole, though the denouement is painfully predictable.
“Within the Walls of Eryx,” written in collaboration with Kenneth J. Sterling, is included in “The Tomb and Other Tales,” and I have reviewed it there. It is a surprisingly conventional sci fi story of the period, although much darker and more critical of colonialism than would be typical at the time.
The final story is “The Night Ocean,” also written with Barlow. It is a rather poetic and even hopeful story of horror coming from the seas, but its resolution is unsatisfying, perhaps because Barlow and Lovecraft together couldn’t bring themselves down from their delight in one another’s company enough to be really frightened for the future.
Well, I got my answer by reading the Introduction. These are all stories that Lovecraft “collaborated” on with other authors – often doing the hard labor of rewriting their vague ideas and turning them into fully-fledged stories for a few dollars (when they bothered to pay) and then receiving no credit when they published under their own name. Only a few of these did show up in those Del Rey collections, and they are far from the best ones. I greatly enjoyed the opportunity to read new-to-me Lovecraft, so many years after discovering him. I will review each story separately, as I have done for the previous collections reviewed on goodreads.
“The Green Meadow” was written in collaboration with Winifred Virginia Jackson, and is a poetic or mythic prose tale of doom that cuts off in the middle to suggest the destruction of its world of origin. It is full of the kind of evocative visuals that Lovecraft excelled in, but with a somewhat different flavor.
“Poetry and the Gods” was written with Anna Helen Crofts and concerns an aesthete who dreams that he will one day usher in a new era of poetry and classical values – or at least serve one who does. It actually has a somewhat fascist sentiment, similar to the kinds of prose that was being written in Italy by Futurists. It seems less obviously Lovecraftian than the typical dread of “gods” and other supernatural powers.
“The Crawling Chaos” is another collaboration with Jackson and uses an opium dream as its premise, but soon goes into much the same kind of apocalyptic vision we saw in “Green Meadow.” I have reviewed it previously with the collection “The Doom That Came to Sarnath.”
“The Horror at Martin’s Beach” was written in collaboration with Sonia Haft Greene, the woman to whom Lovecraft was briefly and unhappily married. It is a typical sea monster story, with definitely Lovecraftian elements, which actually parallels the monster movie “Gorgo” in that it begins with the discovery of a large infant, only to have the even larger adult version come looking.
“Imprisoned with the Pharoahs” was a collaboration with the famous Harry Houdini (it is understood that Lovecraft did most of the actual writing). I have covered this one in my review of The Tomb and Other Tales.
“Two Black Bottles” is an interesting story about a pair of evil wizards located in a church that reminded me in some ways of “The Haunter of the Dark,” which is also centered around a church. It is one of several revisions Lovecraft made for Hazel Drake Heald.
“The Thing in the Moonlight” is a dream or nightmare that Lovecraft told to J. Chapman Miske that was slightly altered after Lovecraft’s death by another writer, Donald Wandrei. It is included as a “fragment” in “The Tomb and other Tales,” and I have reviewed it there.
“The Last Test” is the longest of the new piece to this point, and is Lovecraft’s “revision” of a story by Adolphe de Castro. Although it is basically a mad scientist story with some Bierce-ian elements, Lovecraft has slipped in references to some of his mythos gods, and ultimately the scientist turns out to be a wizard ala Charles Dexter Ward. There is an unusually prominent (for Lovecraft) female character/love interest, and a lot of high-level politics that to me rather slows the plot down, but it is ultimately satisfying.
“The Curse of Yig” was written from an outline by Zealia B. Reed, and concerns an Indian snake god in the American Southwest. Lovecraft (or Reed) has improved its effectiveness by adding a double surprise ending: one surprise you clearly see coming, but then it is followed by a second which was in no way telegraphed.
“The Electric Executioner” was another collaboration with de Castro, and for me it works somewhat better than “The Last Test,” not least because it is shorter. It uses the confinement of a railway car to create a claustrophobic environment for a man trapped with a lunatic. The payoff suggests that the madman may actually have been telling the truth, but goes further to suggest truths beyond even his knowledge, and ties in nicely with Lovecraft’s mythos monsters.
“The Mound” is a very long story (65 fairly long pages), and to me the most satisfying new story so far. It is supposedly based on a bit of folklore passed along to Lovecraft by Zealia B. Reed, but unlike “The Curse of Yig,” it shows almost no sign of another author. It neatly works in the Lovecraft mythos, and partially explains how Cthulhu (rendered in this tale as “Tulu”) became such a prominent figure in it. Unlike “The Last Test,” it puts its length to good use in building up a new world and drawing the reader into it. It was not published in his lifetime, unfortunately.
“Medusa’s Coil” has a similar structure to Lovecraft’s “The Picture in the House,” in that it involves a traveler seeking shelter in an apparently abandoned house only to hear a bizarre story told by its hermit-like inhabitant. It is another collaboration with Zealia B. Reed, but again it shows little sign of anyone else’s style but HPL’s. It manages to update Greek myth into his particular style and mythos, and the character of the artist has some parallels to “Pickman’s Model” as well.
“The Trap” was a singular story produced from an idea of Lovecraft’s by the Reverend Henry St. Clair Whitehead. It involves the familiar story of a person “trapped” inside of a mirror, but uses extra-dimensional travel and an immortal warlock with some similarities to Joseph Curwen of “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” to make the well-trodden ground appear novel.
“The Man of Stone” is a Lovecraft re-write of a story by Hazel Drake Heald. It involves a love triangle and an unfortunate person petrified by chemical processes. It is written in a somewhat unlikely diary format (the author knows too much of what is to happen before it does, and also confesses far more than anyone should on paper), but is still a good chilling story, in part because the victim knows what is happening.
“The Horror in the Museum” is another re-write of Heald, and it takes as its premise the story of a man forced to spend a night in a horrific setting, which was often used (and sometimes satired) by Bierce, Lovecraft, however, brings in an eldritch alien God and other mythos elements to produce one of the most frightening stories in the collection, which takes its name from this tale.
I found “Winged Death,” also a collaboration with Hazel Drake Heald, to be a bit of a let-down after “Museum,” but that’s a tough act to follow. It involves a scientist who conspires to kill a rival with an infected fly (perhaps the first example of bacteriological warfare in a horror story), only to have a highly suitable revenge enacted upon him.
“Out of the Aeons” once again was written in collaboration with Heald, and is about an ancient mummy that is brought to a small Boston museum and promptly becomes the focus of cult activity and madness. I was surprised to find a hint of the “Elder Gods vs. Old Ones” conflict that I had believed originated with August Derleth in this story.
“The Horror in the Burying Ground” is, I think, the last of the Heald collaborations. It is something of a black comedy along the lines of “Herbert West: Reanimator” in which Lovecraft indulged his enjoyment of rustic legends and dialects.
Next up is “Till A’ The Seas,” which was written with Lovecraft’s prodigy Robert Hayward Barlow when the latter was still a teenager (rumors among Lovecraft fans abound that the two were lovers). This story involves a dystopian image of the world drifting closer to the sun and human civilization dying in the heat over centuries. As an early climate change story, it will remind people of many more recent fictions.
“The Disinterment” was a collaboration with Duane W. Rimel, intended to launch a new magazine that would be edited by them both. It involves a mad doctor, voodoo secrets, and a mysterious transplant. It is told from a subjective first-person point of view by a narrator who holds back the truth until the very end, making it similar in structure to “The Outsider.”
“The Diary of Alonzo Typer” is a re-write of a story by William Lumley, told in the format of a series of journal entries. It hints at cosmic horrors of a “mythos” nature, but avoids specific references to most of Lovecraft’s gods. The “Necronomicon” and various other books do make an appearance, however, and the story is good on the whole, though the denouement is painfully predictable.
“Within the Walls of Eryx,” written in collaboration with Kenneth J. Sterling, is included in “The Tomb and Other Tales,” and I have reviewed it there. It is a surprisingly conventional sci fi story of the period, although much darker and more critical of colonialism than would be typical at the time.
The final story is “The Night Ocean,” also written with Barlow. It is a rather poetic and even hopeful story of horror coming from the seas, but its resolution is unsatisfying, perhaps because Barlow and Lovecraft together couldn’t bring themselves down from their delight in one another’s company enough to be really frightened for the future.
October 30, 2023
TL;DR Some solid and varied Halloween stories. 3.5/5 stars rounded up to 4.
A short review today since 1) I am writing this during a class I am the teaching assistant for, and 2) I really don't have too much to say about this one. H.P Lovecraft has been part of my Halloween tradition now. I enjoy the stories with some notable exceptions (*cough cough* "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" was trash *cough cough*), and this one is no different. This volume includes stories that Lovecraft had a significant impact on or collaborated with another author to write. Since they are not entirely Lovecraft's creations, they are much more varied than normal, although Lovecraft's influence is certainly felt - often a sickly, timid young man writes in his journal about some indescribably horrific thing/event he witnessed. There is usually some eldritch theme to it, and an overall tone of menace that crescendos at the end of the story. That being said, there are some pleasant variations on this formula. Overall, "The Electric Executioner", "The Horror in the Burying Ground", and "Till A' The Seas" were my favorites, with "Till A' The Seas" being, in my opinion, the best story. It is both cosmically horrifying and frighteningly relevant to this day and age.
I'll end on the same note I generally end on - if you like Lovecraft and have read a lot of his main stories, you'll find some little-known gems in this one. If you've read the main stories and weren't impressed, you won't find much here. They are traditionally scary, but generally they are ominous and entertaining. Read if you dare and other such spooky phrases.
A short review today since 1) I am writing this during a class I am the teaching assistant for, and 2) I really don't have too much to say about this one. H.P Lovecraft has been part of my Halloween tradition now. I enjoy the stories with some notable exceptions (*cough cough* "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" was trash *cough cough*), and this one is no different. This volume includes stories that Lovecraft had a significant impact on or collaborated with another author to write. Since they are not entirely Lovecraft's creations, they are much more varied than normal, although Lovecraft's influence is certainly felt - often a sickly, timid young man writes in his journal about some indescribably horrific thing/event he witnessed. There is usually some eldritch theme to it, and an overall tone of menace that crescendos at the end of the story. That being said, there are some pleasant variations on this formula. Overall, "The Electric Executioner", "The Horror in the Burying Ground", and "Till A' The Seas" were my favorites, with "Till A' The Seas" being, in my opinion, the best story. It is both cosmically horrifying and frighteningly relevant to this day and age.
I'll end on the same note I generally end on - if you like Lovecraft and have read a lot of his main stories, you'll find some little-known gems in this one. If you've read the main stories and weren't impressed, you won't find much here. They are traditionally scary, but generally they are ominous and entertaining. Read if you dare and other such spooky phrases.
August 17, 2021
The Green Meadow - 2.5
Poetry and the Gods - 4
The Crawling Chaos - 3
The Horror at Martin's Beach - 3
Imprisoned with the Pharaohs - 4
Two Black Bottles - 3
The Thing in the Moonlight - 3.5
The Last Test - 3
The Curse of Yig - 3
The Electric Executioner - 3
The Mound - 3.5
Medusa's Coil - 4
The Trap - 3.5
The Man of Stone - 3
The Horror in the Museum - 3.5
Winged Death - 3
Out of the Aeons - 3.5
The Horror in the Burying Ground - 3
Till A' the Seas - 3.5
The Disinterment - 2
The Diary of Alonzo Typer - 3
Within the Walls of Eryx - 3.5
The Night Ocean - 1
Poetry and the Gods - 4
The Crawling Chaos - 3
The Horror at Martin's Beach - 3
Imprisoned with the Pharaohs - 4
Two Black Bottles - 3
The Thing in the Moonlight - 3.5
The Last Test - 3
The Curse of Yig - 3
The Electric Executioner - 3
The Mound - 3.5
Medusa's Coil - 4
The Trap - 3.5
The Man of Stone - 3
The Horror in the Museum - 3.5
Winged Death - 3
Out of the Aeons - 3.5
The Horror in the Burying Ground - 3
Till A' the Seas - 3.5
The Disinterment - 2
The Diary of Alonzo Typer - 3
Within the Walls of Eryx - 3.5
The Night Ocean - 1
August 16, 2023
- "'Never mix up with secret and ultimate horror, young man, if you value your immortal soul.'"
- "Too often a grain of incredible truth lurks behind the wildest and most fantastic of legends."
- "they think us strange who love the mystery of the ancient and unending deep."
- "Then all shall be dark, for at last even the white moon on the distant waves shall wink out. Nothing shall be left, neither above nor below the sombre waters. And until that last millennium, and beyond the perishing of all other things, the sea will thunder and toss throughout the dismal night."
- "Too often a grain of incredible truth lurks behind the wildest and most fantastic of legends."
- "they think us strange who love the mystery of the ancient and unending deep."
- "Then all shall be dark, for at last even the white moon on the distant waves shall wink out. Nothing shall be left, neither above nor below the sombre waters. And until that last millennium, and beyond the perishing of all other things, the sea will thunder and toss throughout the dismal night."
June 4, 2024
This took me a while to finish. Not because I would not like it, but because I find it very hard to read Lovecrafts writing. He has a writing style, that is complicated enough for a non-native speaker to struggle a bit. But easy enough, that it still is understandable and enjoyable.
But stories themselves are interesting. Was a pleasure to read this.
But stories themselves are interesting. Was a pleasure to read this.
January 22, 2024
Lovecraft at his most racist and uninspired, avoid.
November 23, 2025
The stories in this compilation are presented chronologically, and honestly, I recommend you skip the first 10-12 stories. When Lovecraft is good, he’s fantastic! But it took a decade or so for him to get there, and most of his early stories are quite pretentious, and surprisingly dull.
My favorite in here (apart from Shadow over Innsmouth) was The Thing on the Doorstep! Short, effective, and wonderfully creepy!
My favorite in here (apart from Shadow over Innsmouth) was The Thing on the Doorstep! Short, effective, and wonderfully creepy!
October 10, 2017
A collection of most of H.P. Lovecraft’s “revisions,” “The Horror in the Museum” showcases the tales co-written by Lovecraft and other would be weird tale writers and correspondents. Ostensibly consisting of stories edited by Lovecraft most, in practice, were completely ghost written by him following a few sparse plot points and published under another’s name. While for the most part lacking the refinement of Lovecraft’s solo works, there are still some very interesting stories included.
Whether Lovecraft himself was experimenting or through the interaction between himself and another writer, many of these tales tackle subjects and ideas not often seen in Lovecraft’s own stories. Other settings are featured (California, Oklahoma, Mexico, even Venus) and many have a much greater use of interpersonal relationships (especially regarding women). In addition, he develops a lot of the ideas of a shared “Cthulhu” universe by including cameo appearances by many of the weird forbidden tomes, beings, and cults created by himself and others in these revisions. By no means, however, can any of these stories be counted among Lovecraft’s best. At times, they reflect the absolute worst writing excesses that he has been accused of (overly purple prose, needless verbosity, etc.) and include by far the worst Lovecraft story I’d ever read, Medusa’s Coil. A few read more like simple writing exercises than complete, coherent short stories.
There are few gems included, however that make amusing and creepy, if not masterful, reads; I particularly liked “The Curse of Yig,” written with Zealia Bishop, a spooky tale set on the Oklahoma prairie, and “Winged Death,” with Hazel Heald. The namesake story “The Horror in the Museum,” also with Heald, is probably one of the most self-referencing stories in the “Cthulhu Mythos” and is pretty wacky, in a fun way. Still, this collection is not the best place to start for people new to Lovecraft’s writing.
Postscript: There seem to be numerous editions of the collection banging around, often containing or neglecting various stories; this a review of the Wordsworth Edition, part of the Tales of Mystery and the Supernatural Series
Whether Lovecraft himself was experimenting or through the interaction between himself and another writer, many of these tales tackle subjects and ideas not often seen in Lovecraft’s own stories. Other settings are featured (California, Oklahoma, Mexico, even Venus) and many have a much greater use of interpersonal relationships (especially regarding women). In addition, he develops a lot of the ideas of a shared “Cthulhu” universe by including cameo appearances by many of the weird forbidden tomes, beings, and cults created by himself and others in these revisions. By no means, however, can any of these stories be counted among Lovecraft’s best. At times, they reflect the absolute worst writing excesses that he has been accused of (overly purple prose, needless verbosity, etc.) and include by far the worst Lovecraft story I’d ever read, Medusa’s Coil. A few read more like simple writing exercises than complete, coherent short stories.
There are few gems included, however that make amusing and creepy, if not masterful, reads; I particularly liked “The Curse of Yig,” written with Zealia Bishop, a spooky tale set on the Oklahoma prairie, and “Winged Death,” with Hazel Heald. The namesake story “The Horror in the Museum,” also with Heald, is probably one of the most self-referencing stories in the “Cthulhu Mythos” and is pretty wacky, in a fun way. Still, this collection is not the best place to start for people new to Lovecraft’s writing.
Postscript: There seem to be numerous editions of the collection banging around, often containing or neglecting various stories; this a review of the Wordsworth Edition, part of the Tales of Mystery and the Supernatural Series
July 17, 2021
Sombrío, espeluznante e inteligente
(Al final de la reseña voy a dejar videos a youtube donde pueden escuchar los relatos)
Si de verdad aún no se animan a leer o al menos a escuchar los relatos de Lovecraft, haganlo. No por nada es mi autor favorito del género de terror / terror cósmico y hasta misterio.
Lovecraft siempre transmite un aura pesado, oscuro y tenebroso al comenzar a leer sus palabras, en este tomo nos dan 23 relatos de terror que son una maravilla. Me sucedió lo mismo con ' October Country' de Bradbury, me refiero a que estos relatos en específico me encantaron por completo y todos tienen ese ambiente tan fascinante, algunas historias son de verdad increíbles y hasta llegué a pensar el cómo las personas de 1920/30 se han de haber sentido después de encontrarse con estos relatos, pues inclusive a mi me dan miedo y es precisamente lo que me encanta de Lovecraft, que ha pesar de ser textos, puedes imaginar sin problemas como se ven las criaturas que describe y te puedes encontrar en estas ciudades húmedas, grisáceas, frías y nubladas mientras que sientes, como algo en el ambiente está mal...
Fue una experiencia que recibí con los brazos abiertos y sobre todo, al ser relatos relativamente cortos, pues uno los puede leer esporádicamente, más esta versión, con estos relatos, es exquisita.
Mis favoritos fueron :
Within the Walls of Eryx
The disinterment
Winged Death
The horror in the Museum
The Man of Stone
Medusa's Coil
Out of de Aeons
La maldición de Yig
Enlaces:
El Lazo de Medusa (Parte 1 y 2):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBsTC...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6bWh...
La maldición de Yig :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLbGO...
En los muros de Eryx :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZM3A...
La Exhumación :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlcgU...
El hombre de piedra:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmIG2...
Muerte Alada:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aarFY...
Más Allá de los Eones :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1gdx...
Horror en el Museo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opvbQ...
(Al final de la reseña voy a dejar videos a youtube donde pueden escuchar los relatos)
Si de verdad aún no se animan a leer o al menos a escuchar los relatos de Lovecraft, haganlo. No por nada es mi autor favorito del género de terror / terror cósmico y hasta misterio.
Lovecraft siempre transmite un aura pesado, oscuro y tenebroso al comenzar a leer sus palabras, en este tomo nos dan 23 relatos de terror que son una maravilla. Me sucedió lo mismo con ' October Country' de Bradbury, me refiero a que estos relatos en específico me encantaron por completo y todos tienen ese ambiente tan fascinante, algunas historias son de verdad increíbles y hasta llegué a pensar el cómo las personas de 1920/30 se han de haber sentido después de encontrarse con estos relatos, pues inclusive a mi me dan miedo y es precisamente lo que me encanta de Lovecraft, que ha pesar de ser textos, puedes imaginar sin problemas como se ven las criaturas que describe y te puedes encontrar en estas ciudades húmedas, grisáceas, frías y nubladas mientras que sientes, como algo en el ambiente está mal...
Fue una experiencia que recibí con los brazos abiertos y sobre todo, al ser relatos relativamente cortos, pues uno los puede leer esporádicamente, más esta versión, con estos relatos, es exquisita.
Mis favoritos fueron :
Within the Walls of Eryx
The disinterment
Winged Death
The horror in the Museum
The Man of Stone
Medusa's Coil
Out of de Aeons
La maldición de Yig
Enlaces:
El Lazo de Medusa (Parte 1 y 2):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBsTC...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6bWh...
La maldición de Yig :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLbGO...
En los muros de Eryx :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZM3A...
La Exhumación :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlcgU...
El hombre de piedra:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmIG2...
Muerte Alada:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aarFY...
Más Allá de los Eones :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1gdx...
Horror en el Museo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opvbQ...
July 23, 2014
It's always difficult to rate short story collections, because while there are inevitably some gems, there is also invariably some dross. That is certainly true of this second volume of Lovecraft's short stories. This collection covers those stories which are not generally considered to be part of Lovecraft's Mythos Cycle, the series of loosely connected tales where C'thulhu and the Elder Gods make their first appearance. That said, several of the stories, such as The Curse of Yig, The Mound, the titular story -- The Horror in the Museum, and The Diary of Alonzo Typer in this collection that do touch on the Mythos. Several of the Mythos mainstays, such as the Book of Eibon and Nameless Cults, make their first appearances in these stories. However, there are also other stories completely unrelated to the Mythos cycle. Overall, the collection seems to be fairly random, without any unifying theme apart from their authorship. The book would have been enhanced if the tales had been organized into Mythos and Non-Mythos stories, as I've seen in other H.P. Lovecraft collections, or if one or the other had simply been omitted. My favorite story in the collection was Till A' the Seas, a short mediation on the last day of the last surviving human on an Earth destroyed by global warming (not man-made global warming in the story, but poignant nonetheless). I would suggest skipping The Green Meadow and Poetry and the Gods, neither of which made much sense.
December 19, 2015
To say I "enjoyed reading" this book is a bit misleading - I found it quite difficult to read - not because it was in any way boring, but because the language was a bit more flowery than I am used to, with words that seemed to be crammed into the pages. I kept picking it up and putting it down in favour of "easier" reads. I'd had it on my list for about a year and decided to just get in there and read the thing.
Some stories I found a bit too "sci-fi" for me, but most of them I absolutely loved, and some of them scared me to death - especially The Mound and Medusa's coil. Lovecraft just has a knack for taking something grotesque and turning it against you, so that after reading you're checking in cupboards and under your bed for monsters.
So when I say it was a struggle - I don't mean that the stories were bad - I mean that you have to absolutely tune everything else out of your brain, sit uninterrupted in silence somewhere and take in every single word, and once you have achieved that - what reveals itself is a beautifully woven collection of stories. Some people may read Lovecraft easily - breezing through each page - I am not one of them unfortunately.
So in summary - a well worth while read, but not the type of book you can pick up and read anywhere.
Some stories I found a bit too "sci-fi" for me, but most of them I absolutely loved, and some of them scared me to death - especially The Mound and Medusa's coil. Lovecraft just has a knack for taking something grotesque and turning it against you, so that after reading you're checking in cupboards and under your bed for monsters.
So when I say it was a struggle - I don't mean that the stories were bad - I mean that you have to absolutely tune everything else out of your brain, sit uninterrupted in silence somewhere and take in every single word, and once you have achieved that - what reveals itself is a beautifully woven collection of stories. Some people may read Lovecraft easily - breezing through each page - I am not one of them unfortunately.
So in summary - a well worth while read, but not the type of book you can pick up and read anywhere.
December 29, 2018
A collection of stories by other people that were actually pretty much written by Lovecraft. The Cthulhu mythos is plain to see throughout the collection and I really enjoyed most of the stories. Highlights for me were the Harry Houdini story "Imprisoned with the Pharoahs", the one set in the wax museum "The Horror in the Museum" and the story about the gorgon in the painting at the creepy old house "Medusa's Coil".
Overall some good creepy stories and an interesting look at how a writer can earn a few dollars writing for other people without any credit.
Overall some good creepy stories and an interesting look at how a writer can earn a few dollars writing for other people without any credit.
January 26, 2023
The Horror in the Museum is a decent collection of some of H.P. Lovecraft's more obscure works. I had never heard nor read any of the stories contained within. Many were difficult to get through but there were a few hidden gems that I enjoyed. It is worth a read if you are a fan of Lovecraft as an author; however, I'd give it a miss if you are only interested in what is known as "Lovecraftian Horror", because while this anthology does contain elements of that it isn't the popular tales.
February 9, 2025
''Into what strange hell of living nightmare am I plunged?"
I thought this collection a bit dense to read all at once, yet reading some between other books I found these some of the most memorable short stories I have read. They still 'thunder and toss throughout' my enfeebled mind.
I thought this collection a bit dense to read all at once, yet reading some between other books I found these some of the most memorable short stories I have read. They still 'thunder and toss throughout' my enfeebled mind.
Read
October 28, 2016My copy is with a different cover. And I am not too excited about the Introduction.
October 30, 2019
Rating: 2,5 ⭐️⭐️
Don’t know how to rate this, some stories were pretty good and others were just boring and not interesting at all.
Don’t know how to rate this, some stories were pretty good and others were just boring and not interesting at all.
May 31, 2024
When Lovecraft succeeds he excels, when misses he fails.
December 13, 2023
When I was in college, I really wanted to like Lovecraft. The people I spent the most time with were happily on the Lovecraft bandwagon (although I'm not sure how many of them had ever read him) and they all seemed swept up by the weird grand horror vibe that has been carried into myriad other forms of entertainment in the century since his prime. I envied their enthusiasm -- I wanted to feel swept away by something too, and, to mix metaphors, the grass seemed so green and vivid on their side of the fence.
I read a few of the big stories -- Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, At the Mountains of Madness -- and some years later bought the first volume in this two-volume set of Lovecraft short stories. Hoping to find that one gem, that evocative spark that made it all make sense, and out of a need to avoid owning incomplete sets I picked this volume up as well. And after having spent three months trudging through it, first hoping that my appetite for the horrific would be nourished by it in the weeks leading up to Halloween, then cursing his lore-love, I'm admitting now that I don't really feel the fervor that I thought my college friends were feeling.
I probably have the same issue with Lovecraft that I have with Mark Twain: while both may have been monumentally inventive at the time, they've since been so copycatted and outdone that they're pretty underwhelming to the modern reader. Lovecraft in particular, I have to say, didn't have as good a handle on the dramatic as he's supposed to have had. He ruins his own punchlines, often going on for far too long after the big twist has been revealed. More rarely, he ends on a note that he probably thought was chilling, but stops a little short of being truly punchy. He overindulges in worldbuilding and scene-setting, making some stories (like The Mound) truly a slog. Other times he drops hints so heavy they shatter the illusion of mystery completely, leaving you to read the latter half of a thirty-page story the ending of which you already know (although somehow the main character never figures it out until the last second so we can have their moment of pure maddening terror described to us with many a Victorian flourish). Every once in a while he has a cool idea and executes it pretty well, as in the titular story, or shares an interesting abstract piece that seems like a dream he had once that he wanted to capture, but for the most part, I feel his stories are too purple-prosed to evoke a real sense of horror (when he decides to actually attempt to describe horrifying things), and his best stories abandon all the cosmic lore and ancient blasphemous worship. Unfortunately, Lovecraft loved him some blasphemous worship.
Special shout out to The Horror at Martin's Beach, which started out with potential but descended into goofiness. If it had been a movie, I would have been yelling at the screen.
The idea of a collection of collaborations is an interesting one, and I'd like to have seen more explanation about the nature of each collaboration -- did he write every story based on ideas supplied by his collaborators? Does 'collaboration' mean 'his friend typed it up for him and fixed his spelling errors'? The foreword is a bit lacking in detail about a number of these stories.
The best story, in my opinion, is the very last one in the collection -- The Night Ocean. It's the least Lovecraftian of them all in the typical sense of the word; very little about it is cosmic or affectedly dramatic, there is no lore dump, and the classic Lovecraftian 'too horrific to describe' gimmick is blessedly absent. Instead, it reads like a love letter to the ocean, written by someone who took a long and much-needed holiday by the sea and had a lot of time to take in its multifaceted beauty. It's basically plotless, instead serving as a series of portraits of increasing atmospheric quality that carry a sense of looming dread better than the hundreds of pages of miscellaneous drama that preceded it. It reminds me a little of Tom Cox's landscape writing and a little of the dark dreaminess of The Lighthouse, among other things. It feels very honest -- I'd be willing to guess that it's perhaps one of the most honest things he's written -- and personal, and extremely relatable. It was a surprising showcase of talent at the end of a book that was a lot of style and very little substance.
I read a few of the big stories -- Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, At the Mountains of Madness -- and some years later bought the first volume in this two-volume set of Lovecraft short stories. Hoping to find that one gem, that evocative spark that made it all make sense, and out of a need to avoid owning incomplete sets I picked this volume up as well. And after having spent three months trudging through it, first hoping that my appetite for the horrific would be nourished by it in the weeks leading up to Halloween, then cursing his lore-love, I'm admitting now that I don't really feel the fervor that I thought my college friends were feeling.
I probably have the same issue with Lovecraft that I have with Mark Twain: while both may have been monumentally inventive at the time, they've since been so copycatted and outdone that they're pretty underwhelming to the modern reader. Lovecraft in particular, I have to say, didn't have as good a handle on the dramatic as he's supposed to have had. He ruins his own punchlines, often going on for far too long after the big twist has been revealed. More rarely, he ends on a note that he probably thought was chilling, but stops a little short of being truly punchy. He overindulges in worldbuilding and scene-setting, making some stories (like The Mound) truly a slog. Other times he drops hints so heavy they shatter the illusion of mystery completely, leaving you to read the latter half of a thirty-page story the ending of which you already know (although somehow the main character never figures it out until the last second so we can have their moment of pure maddening terror described to us with many a Victorian flourish). Every once in a while he has a cool idea and executes it pretty well, as in the titular story, or shares an interesting abstract piece that seems like a dream he had once that he wanted to capture, but for the most part, I feel his stories are too purple-prosed to evoke a real sense of horror (when he decides to actually attempt to describe horrifying things), and his best stories abandon all the cosmic lore and ancient blasphemous worship. Unfortunately, Lovecraft loved him some blasphemous worship.
Special shout out to The Horror at Martin's Beach, which started out with potential but descended into goofiness. If it had been a movie, I would have been yelling at the screen.
The idea of a collection of collaborations is an interesting one, and I'd like to have seen more explanation about the nature of each collaboration -- did he write every story based on ideas supplied by his collaborators? Does 'collaboration' mean 'his friend typed it up for him and fixed his spelling errors'? The foreword is a bit lacking in detail about a number of these stories.
The best story, in my opinion, is the very last one in the collection -- The Night Ocean. It's the least Lovecraftian of them all in the typical sense of the word; very little about it is cosmic or affectedly dramatic, there is no lore dump, and the classic Lovecraftian 'too horrific to describe' gimmick is blessedly absent. Instead, it reads like a love letter to the ocean, written by someone who took a long and much-needed holiday by the sea and had a lot of time to take in its multifaceted beauty. It's basically plotless, instead serving as a series of portraits of increasing atmospheric quality that carry a sense of looming dread better than the hundreds of pages of miscellaneous drama that preceded it. It reminds me a little of Tom Cox's landscape writing and a little of the dark dreaminess of The Lighthouse, among other things. It feels very honest -- I'd be willing to guess that it's perhaps one of the most honest things he's written -- and personal, and extremely relatable. It was a surprising showcase of talent at the end of a book that was a lot of style and very little substance.
Read
November 21, 2025A collection of largely lesser known tales (collaborations) wholly or partially written by H.P. Lovecraft. (In order to make ends meet, HPL did a lot of revision and ghost-writing work over his career.) A few of the tales are well-known and occur in other collections (like "The Crawling Chaos", "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs", and "Within the Walls of Eryx"), others are relatively hard to find. A few of the works have a William Hope Hodgson or Lord Dunsany feel to them (dreamscapes, imaginings of the ultimate fate of the universe, etc.), others are in the Cthulu mythos vein (Elder Gods, etc.), and a couple are in Lovecraft's New England gothic style (creepy churches, premature burials). Of all of them, for me the stand-outs are probably: "The Horror in the Museum", "Winged Death", "Out of the Aeons", and "Till A'the Seas".
A word of warning about racism: Lovecraft's odious treatment of non-white characters is well known, but a couple of these tales have some particularly repugnant touches (like the lead character in "Winged Death" blithely trying out his murderous scheme on an unwitting African servant), and the frequent mention of "n--rs" and "d-rkies" in "Medusa's Coil" (which is set on an ex-plantation) makes what would otherwise be a pretty good tale quite loathsome.
A word of warning about racism: Lovecraft's odious treatment of non-white characters is well known, but a couple of these tales have some particularly repugnant touches (like the lead character in "Winged Death" blithely trying out his murderous scheme on an unwitting African servant), and the frequent mention of "n--rs" and "d-rkies" in "Medusa's Coil" (which is set on an ex-plantation) makes what would otherwise be a pretty good tale quite loathsome.
December 25, 2021
Wordsworth editions heeft vier prachtige verhalenbundels van Lovecraft uitgeven. ‘Horror at the Museum’ is het tweede deel in het kwartet en bevat niet de meest bekende, maar desondanks niet minder enge verhalen, die literatuur zijn.
De verhalen zijn verbonden door verschillende motieven. Een voorbeeld daarvan is ogen. Dit vormt een connectie met ‘Out of the Aeons’ en ‘The diary of Alonzo Typer’. Ogen zijn de spiegel van de ziel en dat wordt door de horror grootmeester op een gevarieerde manier gebruikt. In het eerste verhaal is het niet alleen angstaanjagend, maar ook tragisch en in het tweede verhaal is het eng en macaber.
Daarnaast is het verhaal ‘The Mound’ geniaal. Tijdens het lezen van dit meesterwerk moest ik denken aan de verhalenbundel ‘Black star constellations’ van @Tim Meyer. Het verhaal is niet alleen geweldige horror, maar laat ook de invloed van Lovecraft zien op volgende generaties horrorschrijvers. Niet alleen qua overeenkomsten, maar ook de verschillen tussen beide boeken zijn ontzettend interessant.
Hoewel deze bundel niet de meest bekende werken van Lovecraft bevat, zijn ze wel ieder op een eigen manier gruwelijk. Zoals ‘Winged Death’, waarin de intrigerende thematiek wetenschap – bijgeloof op een meesterlijke wijze beschreven wordt. En met ‘The last Test’ vormt het een prachtig tweeluik over dit onderwerp.
En het dystopische verhaal ‘Till A’ the Seas’ is vanwege het milieu uiterst actueel. De cynische wending op het eind is geweldig en laat zien dat de verhalen van de Amerikaanse horrorgrootmeester tot literatuur gerekend mogen worden.
Verder is het motief van gevaarlijke/verboden kennis een soort rode draad door deze verhalen. Van de constructieve en originele manier waarmee de auteur dit in zijn werk aan bod laat komen heb ik enorm genoten. Soms gaat het om een verslag of om een oud (mythisch) boek. Deze variatie doet mij denken aan hoe in zijn oeuvre niet iedere ontwikkeling een stap vooruit is, het kan ook achteruitgang zijn of wetenschap die gebaseerd is op bijgeloof.
Dus voor de fans van Lovecraft is ‘Horror at the Museum’ een aanrader. Hoewel het niet de meest bekende verhalen zijn, zijn ze ieder afzonderlijk goed voor een heerlijke angstaanjagende leeservaring. #horroratthemuseum #hplovecraft #wordswortheditions
De verhalen zijn verbonden door verschillende motieven. Een voorbeeld daarvan is ogen. Dit vormt een connectie met ‘Out of the Aeons’ en ‘The diary of Alonzo Typer’. Ogen zijn de spiegel van de ziel en dat wordt door de horror grootmeester op een gevarieerde manier gebruikt. In het eerste verhaal is het niet alleen angstaanjagend, maar ook tragisch en in het tweede verhaal is het eng en macaber.
Daarnaast is het verhaal ‘The Mound’ geniaal. Tijdens het lezen van dit meesterwerk moest ik denken aan de verhalenbundel ‘Black star constellations’ van @Tim Meyer. Het verhaal is niet alleen geweldige horror, maar laat ook de invloed van Lovecraft zien op volgende generaties horrorschrijvers. Niet alleen qua overeenkomsten, maar ook de verschillen tussen beide boeken zijn ontzettend interessant.
Hoewel deze bundel niet de meest bekende werken van Lovecraft bevat, zijn ze wel ieder op een eigen manier gruwelijk. Zoals ‘Winged Death’, waarin de intrigerende thematiek wetenschap – bijgeloof op een meesterlijke wijze beschreven wordt. En met ‘The last Test’ vormt het een prachtig tweeluik over dit onderwerp.
En het dystopische verhaal ‘Till A’ the Seas’ is vanwege het milieu uiterst actueel. De cynische wending op het eind is geweldig en laat zien dat de verhalen van de Amerikaanse horrorgrootmeester tot literatuur gerekend mogen worden.
Verder is het motief van gevaarlijke/verboden kennis een soort rode draad door deze verhalen. Van de constructieve en originele manier waarmee de auteur dit in zijn werk aan bod laat komen heb ik enorm genoten. Soms gaat het om een verslag of om een oud (mythisch) boek. Deze variatie doet mij denken aan hoe in zijn oeuvre niet iedere ontwikkeling een stap vooruit is, het kan ook achteruitgang zijn of wetenschap die gebaseerd is op bijgeloof.
Dus voor de fans van Lovecraft is ‘Horror at the Museum’ een aanrader. Hoewel het niet de meest bekende verhalen zijn, zijn ze ieder afzonderlijk goed voor een heerlijke angstaanjagende leeservaring. #horroratthemuseum #hplovecraft #wordswortheditions
January 7, 2019
A collection of over a dozen Lovecraft stories (Volume 2). I really enjoyed some, while others not so much. Most of these stories were ghost written my Lovecraft and published under other authors (including one 'by' Harry Houdini, the escapist!) or never published at all. The best stories (to me) were: Imprisoned with the Pharaohs (getting stuck in an Egyptian pyramid), The Mound (discovering the secret of what's underneath an ancient haunted mound in Nebraska), Medusa's Coil (an old house haunted by the presence of the former terrifying heiress), The Horror in the Museum (scary story about sleeping the night in a wax museum), Winged Death (revenge tale of death by stinging insect), Out of the Aeons (another museum, this one haunted by the presence of a Polynesian mummy) and Within the Walls of Eryx (colonisation on Venus that leads to a terrifying tale of being trapped in a labyrinth. This is one of the few written stories that actually scared the life out of me, and its probably not what you'd expect!).
In typical Lovecraft fashion, the real world is woven with tales of aliens, Old Ones, gods like Yig, Cthulu, Shun-Niggurath, Ghatanthoa and more. Scifi, horror, mystery, and fantasy all wrapped up in one. Most of these stories are shorter than Vol 1, between 10-25 pages. Usually, there's a narrator, a bit too curious for their own good (reminiscent of contemporary and influencer MR James), often telling a tale to someone, listening to someone else's tale, or keeping a diary about their terrible experiences, who gets mixed up in something terrifying and supernatural. Some of the tales, esp. the shorter ones, run together. But in general, a great dive into Lovecraft's more obscure and oft overlooked writings, with a solid intro to tell you the backstory of some of the tales in this book.
If you're a fan of Lovecraft, most of these tales will be fascinating!! However, if you're just getting into Lovecraft, I'd say start with the more classic tales in Vol. 1, which is called Whisperer in Darkness (notably, the stories I recommend are: At the Mountains of Madness, the Call of Cthulu, the Case of Charles Dexter Moore and the Dunwich Horror).
In typical Lovecraft fashion, the real world is woven with tales of aliens, Old Ones, gods like Yig, Cthulu, Shun-Niggurath, Ghatanthoa and more. Scifi, horror, mystery, and fantasy all wrapped up in one. Most of these stories are shorter than Vol 1, between 10-25 pages. Usually, there's a narrator, a bit too curious for their own good (reminiscent of contemporary and influencer MR James), often telling a tale to someone, listening to someone else's tale, or keeping a diary about their terrible experiences, who gets mixed up in something terrifying and supernatural. Some of the tales, esp. the shorter ones, run together. But in general, a great dive into Lovecraft's more obscure and oft overlooked writings, with a solid intro to tell you the backstory of some of the tales in this book.
If you're a fan of Lovecraft, most of these tales will be fascinating!! However, if you're just getting into Lovecraft, I'd say start with the more classic tales in Vol. 1, which is called Whisperer in Darkness (notably, the stories I recommend are: At the Mountains of Madness, the Call of Cthulu, the Case of Charles Dexter Moore and the Dunwich Horror).
April 18, 2014
If the first volume of Lovecraft's stories contained many tales that were overlong, the second volume contains many that are tantalisingly short, and somehow I wanted them to continue.
There are a few scrappy stories that don't amount to much, but the general quality of stories is very high. This is all the more surprising, as the stories were written in collaboration with other authors. Intriguingly, one tale was written in collaboration with Harry Houdini and contains an escapologist (no prizes for guessing who this represents) who falls foul of superstitious Egyptians and encounters long-dead gods.
As in the first volume, portrayals of other races and nations are essentially racist, though there are a few prominent female characters here who we can identify with.
It would be stretching a point to say that Lovecraft's stories possess a sense of justice or poetic justice. However, there is often a strange morality that runs through them, however imperfectly. The forces of darkness are generally destroyed or contained, a plot necessity since otherwise there would be nobody to narrate the stories, and nobody to listen to the narration.
However, the human agents are also frequently hoisted by their own petard. Those who become consumed by study of the darker forces will be destroyed or corrupted by them. Vicious revengers will fall victim to their instruments of revenge. Avaricious adventurers will become trapped by their own greed.
The stories also touch on the famous Cthulhu Mythos. However, whereas each tale in The Whisperer in Darkness adds to our knowledge of that horrific world, here the stories are not so much extensions as side-orders, giving us a little extra information, but not developing our understanding of that world.
Overall, the stories are a notch down on the first volume, but with many exciting moments that make this another good read.
There are a few scrappy stories that don't amount to much, but the general quality of stories is very high. This is all the more surprising, as the stories were written in collaboration with other authors. Intriguingly, one tale was written in collaboration with Harry Houdini and contains an escapologist (no prizes for guessing who this represents) who falls foul of superstitious Egyptians and encounters long-dead gods.
As in the first volume, portrayals of other races and nations are essentially racist, though there are a few prominent female characters here who we can identify with.
It would be stretching a point to say that Lovecraft's stories possess a sense of justice or poetic justice. However, there is often a strange morality that runs through them, however imperfectly. The forces of darkness are generally destroyed or contained, a plot necessity since otherwise there would be nobody to narrate the stories, and nobody to listen to the narration.
However, the human agents are also frequently hoisted by their own petard. Those who become consumed by study of the darker forces will be destroyed or corrupted by them. Vicious revengers will fall victim to their instruments of revenge. Avaricious adventurers will become trapped by their own greed.
The stories also touch on the famous Cthulhu Mythos. However, whereas each tale in The Whisperer in Darkness adds to our knowledge of that horrific world, here the stories are not so much extensions as side-orders, giving us a little extra information, but not developing our understanding of that world.
Overall, the stories are a notch down on the first volume, but with many exciting moments that make this another good read.
December 14, 2025
I will preface this brief review by admitting that I am an unapologetic, unabashed fan of Lovecraft's writing. Whilst his personal attitudes were problematic at best, and deplorable at worst, his writing is vivid, finely-crafted, and utterly gripping. Whilst some stories may lack substance, his writing always makes them entertaining and enjoyable. For me, there are few authors whose writing grips me quite the way Lovecraft's does.
As such, I loved the entirety of this collection, which gathers together some of the more acclaimed examples of Lovecraft's collaboration works. The introduction implies that many of these were written predominantly by the aforementioned master of cosmic horror and merely ascribed to other authors; reading them, this is entirely believable, as they are all coloured by Lovecraft's oft-imitated prose. You can rest assured that you will encounter the word "Cyclopean" regularly (though I only recall one use of "stygian").
Not all of the collaborations are present in this collection, though the majority certainly are. These certainly seem to be amongst the finest, however.
Amongst my favourites are the headlining story "The Horror in the Museum", "The Crawling Chaos", "The Electric Executioner", "Medusa's Coil" (despite some unsavoury language), and "The Diary of Alonzo Typer". I do not think I would say that any of them were unlikeable, though, and as such I certainly recommend this classic collection not only for fans of Lovecraft's fiction, but also for lovers of weird tales in general.
As such, I loved the entirety of this collection, which gathers together some of the more acclaimed examples of Lovecraft's collaboration works. The introduction implies that many of these were written predominantly by the aforementioned master of cosmic horror and merely ascribed to other authors; reading them, this is entirely believable, as they are all coloured by Lovecraft's oft-imitated prose. You can rest assured that you will encounter the word "Cyclopean" regularly (though I only recall one use of "stygian").
Not all of the collaborations are present in this collection, though the majority certainly are. These certainly seem to be amongst the finest, however.
Amongst my favourites are the headlining story "The Horror in the Museum", "The Crawling Chaos", "The Electric Executioner", "Medusa's Coil" (despite some unsavoury language), and "The Diary of Alonzo Typer". I do not think I would say that any of them were unlikeable, though, and as such I certainly recommend this classic collection not only for fans of Lovecraft's fiction, but also for lovers of weird tales in general.
October 22, 2017
This is the second volume in a set of 4, all of which are cheap as chips at £2.99 - which is an absolute bargain for the amount of content in each. Having decided I ought to improve my knowledge of Lovecraft's work, which a few months ago stood at approximately nil, I've set out to read all four of these collections. Now that I've started, I think it's fair to say I've become a little obsessed and, while forcing myself to take a break from Lovecraft to read some other things, I've already got my mind set on volume 3.
Lovecraft's prose is incredible when compared to that most modern horror writers. Often narrated in the first person - either as one primarily involved, or as a peripheral figure with a window of knowledge into the strange happenings - his descriptions are so detailed, dense and evocative that one gets drawn by the sheer earnestness of his accounts into an immersive suspension of disbelief. It is to be expected in a collection such as this that some tales are going to be better than others, and it certainly is the case that some are sublime while others are less so, although there is a consistency of a general sort that the stories contained within this book are really rather good.
Lovecraft's prose is incredible when compared to that most modern horror writers. Often narrated in the first person - either as one primarily involved, or as a peripheral figure with a window of knowledge into the strange happenings - his descriptions are so detailed, dense and evocative that one gets drawn by the sheer earnestness of his accounts into an immersive suspension of disbelief. It is to be expected in a collection such as this that some tales are going to be better than others, and it certainly is the case that some are sublime while others are less so, although there is a consistency of a general sort that the stories contained within this book are really rather good.
September 13, 2021
A shattered meteor reveals a diary of a delirious sailor, stranded on the shore of an alien world… An explorer dares to investigate a mysterious mound, ignoring the warnings of local folks and omens of local folklore… A doctor finds inspiration for his research in forbidden rituals of a grotesque ancient religion… An inquisitive student finds himself trapped inside his teacher’s antique mirror… A historian slowly realizes that an exhibit in his museum is about to unleash an ancient and horrible secret out of the aeons…
These and a dozen of other stories and characters that crawled right out of Howard P. Lovecraft’s peculiar mind will steal your evening and make you peek over your shoulder to check that there are no tentacles slithering in that dark corner of the room. But beware! Who knows which part of this book is fiction, and which of these haunting stories were whispered to the author by the ghosts of long forgotten shadows of the past? Some knowledge is better left lost, for bringing up the visages of terrible ancient gods in your head may be the first step to manifesting them into reality…
These and a dozen of other stories and characters that crawled right out of Howard P. Lovecraft’s peculiar mind will steal your evening and make you peek over your shoulder to check that there are no tentacles slithering in that dark corner of the room. But beware! Who knows which part of this book is fiction, and which of these haunting stories were whispered to the author by the ghosts of long forgotten shadows of the past? Some knowledge is better left lost, for bringing up the visages of terrible ancient gods in your head may be the first step to manifesting them into reality…
February 4, 2024
Más de 10 años me ha llevado finalizar esta obra maestra del muy estimado y polémico H.P. Lovecraft 💀
Cuando inicié esta aventura, mi nivel de inglés no era apto para el señor H.P; a base de tragarme series en V.O.S y leer otros libros con un inglés un poco más moderno, me envalentoné de nuevo y volví a coger este libro naranja que con tanta rabia guardaba en mi librería de no leídos. Ha valido la pena la espera; horribles lugares, criaturas inimaginables para la inteligencia humana (e igual de impronunciables). Me lo ha hecho pasar realmente bien, entre oscuras bambalinas y personajes mayormente masculinos al borde de la locura y aterrados por su propias sombras 🪦
Por si puede interesar, voy a ir subiendo mi biblioteca esotérica en mi página de Goodreads (podéis encontrar el enlace en mi biografía también) 📚 https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1...
🌿🌿🌿
#winter #esoteric #magia #witch #espritualidad #spirituality #modernwitch #brujamoderna #witchlife #witchcraft #brujeria #book #libro # #esoterismo #thehorrorinthemuseum #horrorenelmuseo #hplovecraft #libreria #bookshelf #supernatural #mystery #misterio #horror #miedo #goodreads
Cuando inicié esta aventura, mi nivel de inglés no era apto para el señor H.P; a base de tragarme series en V.O.S y leer otros libros con un inglés un poco más moderno, me envalentoné de nuevo y volví a coger este libro naranja que con tanta rabia guardaba en mi librería de no leídos. Ha valido la pena la espera; horribles lugares, criaturas inimaginables para la inteligencia humana (e igual de impronunciables). Me lo ha hecho pasar realmente bien, entre oscuras bambalinas y personajes mayormente masculinos al borde de la locura y aterrados por su propias sombras 🪦
Por si puede interesar, voy a ir subiendo mi biblioteca esotérica en mi página de Goodreads (podéis encontrar el enlace en mi biografía también) 📚 https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1...
🌿🌿🌿
#winter #esoteric #magia #witch #espritualidad #spirituality #modernwitch #brujamoderna #witchlife #witchcraft #brujeria #book #libro # #esoterismo #thehorrorinthemuseum #horrorenelmuseo #hplovecraft #libreria #bookshelf #supernatural #mystery #misterio #horror #miedo #goodreads
July 11, 2018
Hmmmm....to be honest this does feel like a 'B' selection of Minecraft material..some of it is really good but some of it meanders and plods a bit and though undoubtedly the master of flowery and esoteric language many of these tales I feel the narrative is stilted by the slow build of atmosphere.
Many of these tales where rewrites..co-writes or essentially tales ghost written for other names.
As such there is a tone of the author generally but sometimes tales that don't engage as much as others he has written...it took me quite some time to wade through this and if I'm honest times when I questioned my perseverance...however on reflection there's some enjoyable enough tales here.
However this kind of feels like when a seventies rock band came out with a triple album inasmuch as the usual format is maybe extended a little ..and yet there's too much filler..as a smaller anthology this may have worked better.
Many of these tales where rewrites..co-writes or essentially tales ghost written for other names.
As such there is a tone of the author generally but sometimes tales that don't engage as much as others he has written...it took me quite some time to wade through this and if I'm honest times when I questioned my perseverance...however on reflection there's some enjoyable enough tales here.
However this kind of feels like when a seventies rock band came out with a triple album inasmuch as the usual format is maybe extended a little ..and yet there's too much filler..as a smaller anthology this may have worked better.
August 31, 2019
The Horror In The Museum è una raccolta che, seppur in gran parte composta di collaborazioni e revisioni, non delude. Da Imprisoned with the Pharaohs a The Last Test, fino a The Trap; l’autore ci trascina alla scoperta di civiltà antiche quanto la terra stessa, divinità tentacolari provenienti da altre dimensioni, fratture dello spazio-tempo che nascondono orrori innominabili e metodi scientifici intrisi di magia nera. Quella raccontata da H.P. Lovecraft, è un’umanità piccola, impotente di fronte ai misteri del cosmo; un’umanità che nel suo crescere in arroganza ha dimenticato di coltivare la propria umiltà, e la consapevolezza di non essere altro che un puntino minuscolo in un universo sconfinato.
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June 7, 2017
Like coming face to face with the squamous lords of the young antediluvian Earth, this book requires faith to deal with. It starts off with some of the weakest writing I've had the displeasure of acquainting myself with, and ends on some that is marginally better. But the middle is filled with all the hyperlocuous, suggestive and intermingling tangle of always reoccurring myths that you expect from a Lovecraft work.
This being a collection of co-authored and ghostwritten stories comes with the assumption that your usual expectations of HPL will not be quite valid here.
If you value your time and/or sanity, I suggest skipping the first 3 and the last 1 stories. The rest should find you well entertained.
This being a collection of co-authored and ghostwritten stories comes with the assumption that your usual expectations of HPL will not be quite valid here.
If you value your time and/or sanity, I suggest skipping the first 3 and the last 1 stories. The rest should find you well entertained.
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