The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories

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The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories
The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories.jpg
Author H. P. Lovecraft
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Series Penguin Classics
Genre Science fiction, fantasy, horror
Publisher Penguin Books
Publication date
October 1, 1999
Media typePrint (paperback)
Pages420 pp
ISBN 0-14-118234-2
OCLC 40723781
813/.52 21
LC Class PS3523.O833 A6 1999
Followed by The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories  

The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories is Penguin Classics' first omnibus edition of works by seminal 20th-century American author H. P. Lovecraft. It was released in October 1999 and is still in print. The volume is named for the Lovecraft short story, "The Call of Cthulhu".

Contents

This edition, the first new paperback publication of Lovecraft's works since the Del-Rey editions, contains a new introduction and explanatory notes on individual stories by noted Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi. The texts of the stories are, for the most part, the same corrected versions found in the earlier Arkham House editions of Lovecraft's works, also edited by Joshi, with a few further errors corrected for the present editions.

Its companion volumes from Penguin Classics are The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories (2001), and The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories (2004).

Contents

The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories contains the following tales:

  1. Dagon
  2. The Statement of Randolph Carter
  3. Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family
  4. Celephaïs
  5. Nyarlathotep
  6. The Picture in the House
  7. The Outsider
  8. Herbert West -- Reanimator
  9. The Hound
  10. The Rats in the Walls
  11. The Festival
  12. He
  13. Cool Air
  14. The Call of Cthulhu
  15. The Colour Out of Space
  16. The Whisperer in Darkness
  17. The Shadow Over Innsmouth
  18. The Haunter of the Dark

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<i>The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories</i>

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Lovecraft studies is the body of research that has emerged surrounding the works of H. P. Lovecraft. It began with the dissemination of Lovecraft's works by Arkham House during the decades after his death. The scholars in the field sought to establish Lovecraft as a major author of American speculative fiction during its foundational period in the 1970s. After the death of August Derleth, the founder of Arkham House, the field shifted in a direction away from the one that he promoted. L. Sprague de Camp's biography of Lovecraft emerged during this time. While criticized by portions of the fans and scholarship, it played a significant role in his literary rise. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the scholars were split between traditionalist who supported Derleth's positions on Lovecraft and those who did not. The 1980s and 1990s featured an expansion of the field, including the H. P. Lovecraft Centennial Conference. Memorials to Lovecraft began to appear in his home city of Providence, Rhode Island and his works began to be published by Penguin Classics. S. T. Joshi, a major figure in the field, wrote a biography of Lovecraft that superseded de Camp's work. In 2008, the Library of America, published a volume of Lovecraft's works that solidified the perception that H. P. Lovecraft was now part of the western canon. The NecronomiCon Providence, a biannual scholarly and fan conference managed by the Lovecraft Arts and Sciences organization, began to be held in 2013.

References

    All of the stories collected in this edition can also be found at Wikisource. Scholars should note that the texts transcribed on Wikisource may contain errors, or may represent "uncorrected" versions.