H.P. LOVECRAFT The Complete Fiction Omnibus The Early Years 1908–1925 — SECOND EDITION – REVISED AND UPDATED THROUGHOUT — By H.P. LOVECRAFT Edited and annotated by FINN J.D. JOHN Pulp-Lit PRODUCTIONS C O R V A L L I S , O R E G O N Copyright ©2016, 2018 by Pulp-Lit Productions. All rights reserved, with the exception of all text written by Howard Phillips (H.P.) Lovecraft and all text and art originally published in “pulp” magazines, on which copyright protections have expired worldwide. In the spirit of good stewardship of the public domain, no copyright claim is asserted over any of H.P. Lovecraft’s original text or any magazine art as presented in this book, including any and all corrections and style changes made to the originals. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Pulp-Lit Productions, Post Office Box 77, Corvallis, OR 97339, or e-mail [email protected]. Second edition: PDF Edition ISBNs: Hardcover Multimedia Edition: 978-1-63591-311-8 Softcover: 978-1-63591-312-5 E-book: 978-1-63591-313-2 Audiobook, retail: 978-1-63591-315-6 Audiobook, library edition: 978-1-63591-316-3 Interactive PDF: 978-1-63591-318-7 Dustjacket art: Dust jacket: Front cover adopted from Harold S. DeLay’s cover illustration for the October 1939 issue of Weird Tales magazine. Back cover adopted from Virgil Finlay’s illustration for The Shunned House, in the October 1937 issue of Weird Tales. Dust jacket design by Fiona Mac Daibheid and Natalie L. Conaway. Pulp-Lit Productions Corvallis, Oregon http://pulp-lit.com Other Pulp-Lit Productions titles Robert E. Howard’s CONAN the CIMMERIAN BARBARIAN. you might enjoy: •Hardcover (860 pages) •Pulp-sized 7x10 softcover H.P. 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This book is available [note: digits in brackets correspond to chapter numbers in the audiobook edition] in other formats: Audiobook, e-book, paperback, hardcover. Foreword [1 .] ........................................... xv You are reading the complimentary electronic copy of H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction Omibus Collection — The Early Years: 1908-1925 in the 1908: Refuge in Poetry [2] .................................3 Adobe PDF format — Pulp-Lit Productions’ version of Amazon’s “Look Inside” The Beast in the Cave (1905) [3] .......................5 feature, only including the entire book. The Alchemist [4] .................................11 Whether you’re here checking it out to see if you might want to own a copy, or doing a quick search, or even retrieving a clean digital copy of one of Lovecraft’s 1917: Return to the Field [5] ..............................21 stories for a project of your own — welcome! But, of course, PDF is hardly the most convenient format in which to read a book. The Tomb [6] .....................................23 Here are a few other options, with links embedded to make them easier to chase down: Dagon [7] ........................................33 • Hardcover multimedia bundle edition (includes audiobook and e-book); A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson [8] ..............39 • Deluxe 7x10 pulp-magazine-size softcover; Nemesis [9] ......................................45 • E-book in EPUB and Kindle formats; • Audiobook (22 hours). 1918: Starry Darkness [10] ................................51 To learn more about these other formats, please see this title’s Book Support Page Psychopompos: A Tale in Rhyme [11] ..................53 at http://pulp-lit.com/310.html. Polaris [12] .......................................65 Thank you for reading our books! 1919: The Gentleman Fictioneer [13] .......................69 Beyond the Wall of Sleep [14] ........................71 Memory [15] ......................................81 Old Bugs [16] .....................................83 The Transition of Juan Romero [17] ....................91 The White Ship [18] ...............................99 ix The Street [19] ...................................105 Herbert West, Reanimator [42] ......................247 The Doom that Came to Sarnath [20] .................111 I. From the Dark [43] .................248 The Statement of Randolph Carter [21] ...............119 II. The Plague-Dæmon [44] .............252 III. Six Shots by Midnight [45] ...........257 1920: Out of the Chrysalis [22] ...........................125 IV. The Scream of the Dead [46] ..........261 Ex Oblivione [23] .................................127 V. The Horror from the Shadows [47] .....265 The Terrible Old Man [24] ..........................131 VI. The Tomb-Legions [48] ..............269 The Tree [25] ....................................135 The Cats of Ulthar [26] ............................141 1922: New Thresholds [49] ...............................275 The Temple [27] ..................................145 Hypnos [50] .....................................277 Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn Azathoth [51] ....................................285 and his Family [28] ..............................159 What the Moon Brings [52] .........................287 I [29] .........160 II [30] ........163 The Hound [53] ..................................291 Celephaïs [31] ....................................169 The Lurking Fear [54] .............................299 From Beyond [32] .................................175 I. A Shadow on the Chimney [55]. .299 Nyarlarthotep [33] ................................183 II. A Passer in the Storm [56] ............304 The Picture in the House [34] .......................187 III. What the Red Glare Meant [57] .......307 IV. The Horror in the Eyes [58]. 311 1921: Will the Circle Be Unbroken [35] ....................195 The Nameless City [36] ............................197 1923: The Weird Tales Era [59] ............................317 The Quest of Iranon [37] ...........................209 The Rats in the Walls [60] ..........................319 The Moon Bog [38] ...............................217 The Unnamable [61] ...............................337 The Outsider [39] .................................225 The Festival [62] ..................................345 The Other Gods [40] ..............................233 The Music of Erich Zann [41] .......................239 x xi 1924: Family Man [63] ...................................355 Supernatural Horror in Literature [92] .................443 The Shunned House [64] ...........................359 I. Introduction [93] ...................444 I [65] .........360 IV [68] .......373 II. The Dawn of the Horror-Tale [94] .....447 II [66] ........363 V [69] ........379 III. The Early Gothic Novel [95] ..........451 III [67] ........368 IV. The Apex of Gothic Romance [96] ......455 1925: Exile [70] .........................................385 V. The Aftermath of Gothic Fiction [97] ....459 The Horror at Red Hook [71] .......................389 VI. Spectral Literature on the Continent [98] 465 I [72] .........389 V [76] ........400 VII. Edgar Allan Poe [99] ................470 II [73] ........392 VI [77] .......402 VIII. The Weird Tradition in America [100] ...475 III [74] ........394 VII [78] ......406 IX. The Weird Tradition IV [75] ........397 in the British Isles [101] ..............485 He [79] .........................................409 X. Modern Masters [102] ...............493 In the Vault [80] ..................................419 Appendix B: Timeline of H.P. Lovecraft’s Life and Work [103] . 507 Afterword [81] .........................................427 Appendix A: Other Writings [82] .........................429 Sweet Ermengarde; or, The Heart of a Country Girl [83] ..431 I. A Simple Rustic Maid [84] ...........432 II. And the Villain Still Pursued Her [85] ..434 III. A Dastardly Act [86] ................435 IV. Subtle Villainy [87] .................435 V. The City Chap [88] .................436 VI. Alone in the Great City [89] ..........436 VII. Happy Ever Afterward [90] ..........437 The History of the Necronomicon [91] ................439 xii xiii FOREWORD. [ RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS ] oward Phillips Lovecraft turned from the witty-but-opaque was born on August 10, nonfiction and turgid Georgian 1890 — a product of the poetry that he then favored, until his Hlate Victorian era. In many ways, he death from cancer in 1937; followed remained a late-Victorian man by a collection of all the weird-fic- until his death in 1937. Along the tion works which he ghostwrote for way, he produced a body of others or collaborated on with them. weird-fiction work that, sparse Readers who are new to H.P. though it is, has had a tremendous Lovecraft should start with the influence on 20th- and 21st-cen- middle book in this collec- tury literature. tion — subtitled The Prime Years.