Dread Central ~ View topic - How should I start my sister on Lovecraft?

Joined: 02 Jan 2007 Posts: 878

Hey everybody. My sister has this big collection of works by history's big writers and I was planing on getting her a Lovecraft collection but I don't know enough about all his stories so my question is what is the best overall collection to get her?

Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 745

The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre is a nice start.

I would have to agree with that I agree!

Joined: 05 Jul 2006 Posts: 862 Location: Xibalba

It sounds like his sister isn't a horror fan but more of literature in general. The intellectual type, so to speak. In that case there's three rather scholarly collections of Lovecraft's stories that will both give her the stories and undeniably place Lovecraft at his due spot in literary history:

The Library of America collection, coming in at a whopping 850 pages:

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There's also The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft and More Annotated H.P. Lovecraft, both of which have almost excessive amounts of scholarly footnotes.

All three books will succeed in convincing her that Lovecraft is one of the greats of literature and not just some hack horror writer.

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Joined: 23 Jun 2006 Posts: 620 Location: WI

That Library of America book looks great. I'd say go with that one (I've given the "Best of" Del Rey collection out as a gift myself for a similar reason, but that was before the newer book). Be warned though ... I've found Lovecraft very much a "love him" or "hate him" author. Some people just can't stomach HPL -- usually it comes down to writing style and/or subject matter. One of the classic "mythos" stories is usually a good litmus test -- if someone can't get into to something like "Call of Cthulhu", "Shadow over Innsmouth", "Whisperer in the Darkness", "Dunwich Horror" than HPL is likely not for them. Actually, I think you might be on safer ground with your sister being more a literature fan than horror fan. It means she's likely to be more opened-minded regarding old prose styles (and HPL wrote in a style than was even older than era, for the most part). And horror fans new to HPL might expect something like movies based on his work, and end up getting disappointed.

Joined: 02 Jan 2007 Posts: 878

cool cool. I think I know what to get her now. thanks everybody.

Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 365 Location: MA

Suggest reading SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH for the first story.
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