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Originally Posted by ravenus  I think the Penguin ones are more authoritative and carry annotations by ST Joshi, the well-known HPL scholar, who sadly doesn't see it fit to simply release the entire Loveraft fiction canon in chronological order, but in selections as per his whim. |
Believe me, there's nothing S. T. would rather do than publish Lovecraft's stories in the correct chronological order. However, as j.d. points out, he has to satisfy the publishers too; publishing everything chronologically would mean putting all the good stuff at the end. I've played around with the idea of Lovecraft's complete fiction in four or five volumes, and the first one, covering the years 1897-1924, would be the weakest content-wise, in spite of some real gems like "The Rats in the Walls" and "The Shunned House".
[One of my latest reading projects is reading all of HPL's fiction, essays, and poems in chronological order. It's a huge undertaking, so I've barely scratched the surface; there are close to 1000 items on my list...]