Cthulhu Mythos Anthologies

[sanddweller]

Can anyone here recommend some cthulhu mythos anthologies?

[I, Brian]

Hi sanddweller, and welcome to the chronicles network.

As for anthologies - not sure which country you're in, but probably the best in the UK is probably this one:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...314816-9203655

Hope that helps.

[Paul Darcy]

I think this one is the best introduction to Lovecraft's work.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...839959-3350261

And and introduction by Robert Bloch as well.

[Alucard]

Also try any of the Titus Crow books by Brian Lumley. They are based on the Cthulhu Mythos

[fungi from Yuggoth]

Some good recommendations above. Any of the Arkham House collections are worth reading and excellent value for money. I'd probably stay away from the Del Rey edition "Dreams of Terror and Death," as a lot of the work collected here is his earlier, weaker stuff, and the collection as a whole is an attempt at creating a specific 'theme' within Lovecraft's work which is not entirely consistent.

Also, as Alucard mentions, Lovecraft was not the only writer to write stories in the Cthulhu Mythos. His friend and peer, Robert E Howard, also wrote a number of horror tales which are rather loosely collected in the three-volume "The Weird Works of Robert E Howard" along with some of his S&S stuff, and also in the excellent "Nameless Cults" (if you can stomach the awful cover!).

Then, of course, there is the fabulous Clark Ashton Smith, whose works were not only set in the Cthulhu Mythos but actively helped to contribute to Lovecraft's work itself. CAS is a bit difficult to get hold of, though if you live in the UK then there's the excellent if somewhat haphazard collection "Emperor of Dreams." A great introduction to his work.

You might also like to have a look at some of the August Derleth stuff, though I didn't much care for these.

[j. d. worthington]

For those interested, Night Shade Books in America is going to be issuing a 5-volume complete fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith, with corrected texts. Subscriptions (giving a savings amounting to the price of one volume, as well as an extra volume only available by subscription) are, I believe, still available. You might check into this....

Mythos anthologies? Hmmmm. Lovecraft, of course, is the place to start, but there's such a plethora of other work (some good, some bad, some indifferent, some gawdawful), that it's hard to know what to suggest. Some of the best writers to touch on these themes would be T. E. D. Klein, in his novel "The Ceremonies" and the short story "Black Man with a Horn"; Thomas Ligotti, W. H. Pugmire, scattered pieces by Ramsey Campbell, Fritz Leiber's "The Terror from the Depths"....

Probably the best in-print mythos anthologies would be: "Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos" (rev. ed.), from Arkham House; "Eternal Lovecraft" and "Cthulhu 2000" edited by James Turner (uneven but containing some superb work; Golden Gryphon and Arkham House, respectively); and several from Fedogan and Bremer (can be ordered from Arkham House's site) as edited by Robert M. Price or Stephen Jones; and some of the Chaosium "Call of Cthulhu" game source books/fiction anthologies (they've brought three books of Machen's stories into print, the entire weird work of Robert W. Chambers, Robert E. Howard's Mythos fiction -- the "Nameless Cults" mentioned in one of the other posts; as well as several anthologies of more obscure mythos tales or original stories); or, if you prefer the earlier "Lovecraft Circle" writers -- those who were friends/colleagues of his during his lifetime -- try "The Hounds of Tindalos"/"The Early Long" by Frank Belknap Long, as well as his "Night Fears" (which contains his mythos novel "The Horror from the Hills"); Robert Bloch's "Mysteries of the Worm" (the Chaosium edition has some tales left out of the original); August Derleth's "The Cthulhu Mythos" or "In Lovecraft's Shadow" (though these are hard to find). As for Lumley and Derleth: they are figures of some controversy in the Lovecraft community. Personally, I rather enjoy their work, but they did divert Lovecraft's original intent quite seriously. Still, they can be very entertaining, I think. Anyway, if you're still interested in such, these are some suggestions. You might try looking up Mythos Books as a source for finding some of these; quite a few are out of print now, but some you can still find for reasonable prices; others are beginning to cost quite a bit. I tried (mostly) to suggest those that were still reasonably priced.

Happy hunting!

[hugo]

You will have to hunt this out but it is well worth the effort New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos ed by Ramsey Campbell which contains stories by S King
B lumley and T E D Klein.

[j. d. worthington]

According to S. T. Joshi's Sixty Years of Arkham House, New Tales did have a British reprint from Grafton in 1988. I don't believe it ever saw reprint in either format over here; I recently got a copy of the Arkham house on the 'net for a pretty darn low price, so you never know. (My original copy disappeared somewhere along the way.) It's an uneven anthology, but some very good stuff in there.

[sanityassassin]

there is a site with the works of H.P.L.

I've had a quick look at it and it is not too bad


http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary...aft/index.html