Weird and Horrific Stories

By H.P. Lovecraft

2022

First Published

4.33

Average Rating

332

Number of Pages

10H05M

Audio Length

Weird and Horrific Stories (2021) collects some of H. P. Lovecraft’s finest early work. Although his reputation as one of the world’s greatest writers of horror and weird fiction remains undisputed, much of his writing was published in such pulp literary magazines as Argosy, the United Amateur, and Weird Tales, making it difficult to find proper collections. Weird and Horrific Stories attempts to bridge this gap for modern readers, bringing them face to face with some of Lovecraft’s most terrifying creations. “The Alchemist,” originally written in 1908 and published in 1916, is the story of Count Antoine, whose ancestors were cursed after killing a fearsome dark wizard named Michel Mauvais. Every generation since has seen the death of its male members at the age of thirty-two, an age fast approaching for Antoine. Lonely and terrified, he sets out to put an end to the cycle of death and suffering. “Dagon,” which appeared in The Vagrant in 1919, is a story told by a morphine-addicted man who survived a terrible shipwreck during the First World War. In “The Cats of Ulthar,” published in 1920, an unnamed narrator recounts the legal history of the town of Ulthar, which once was the home to a sadistic couple known for their obsession with torturing and killing housecats. Weird and Horrific Stories collects over thirty stories written at the height of Lovecraft’s career. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of H. P. Lovecraft’s Weird and Horrific Stories is a classic work of American horror reimagined for modern readers.

Avg Rating

4.33

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

33%

4 STARS

67%

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1 STARS

goodreads

Author

H.P. Lovecraft

Author · 368 books

Howard 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. — Wikipedia