H.P. Lovecraft's Book of Horror

About this book

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unkown. So writes H.P. Lovecraft in his groundbreaking essay Supernatural Horror in Literature which introduces this volume. In nine sections Lovecraft the acknowledged master of the genre traces its evolution from ancient roots to the early Gothic and through to the work of his American British and European contemporaries. Throughout he cites the works he feels are of the first order and from these the editors have selected twenty-one stories each prefaced by Lovecrafts own opinions. Discover the eerie worlds of Clark Ashton Smith which in Lovecrafts words are "a universe of remote and paralyzing fright jungles of iridescent blossoms on the moons of Saturn evil and grotesque temples in Adantis Lemuria and forgotten elder worlds..." and the works of Arthur Machen "in which the elements of hidden horror and brooding fright attain an almost incomparable substance and realistic acuteness..." Other selections include stories by M.R.. James Ambrose Bierce and Edgar Allan Poe. Lovecraft also identifies the best horror tales from writers famed for different work such as Charles Dickens R. L. Stevenson Guy de Maupassant and E. F. Benson. This collection of Lovecrafts favorites is a feast of fear that no fan of the supernatural will be able to resist. Since in the words of the master: "Children will always be afraid of the dark and men with minds sensitive to hereditary impulse will always tremble at the thought of the hidden and fathomless worlds of strange life which may pulsate in the gulfs beyond the stars or press hideously upon our own globe in unholy dimensions which only the dead and the moonstruck can glimpse."