Best quality editions?

[sacateca]

Hello. Lovecraft is my favourite author, and probably person, too, and i have all of his stories in the Arkham editions. And they're fine for reading, but not exactly beautiful editions.

What i'd be looking for would be editions that are beautifully put together from cover to cover, preferably, but not necessarily, illustrated (just ordered Del Rey's the Road to Madness, because i like what they've done with their illustrated editions of REHoward). i know there's the extremely expensive limited edition of At the Mountains of Madness, and i'll probably be getting that at some point...but any others?

There must be a beautiful illustrated edition of the Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, for example, somewhere...no?

Thanks..

[Ningauble]

Originally Posted by sacateca

Hello. Lovecraft is my favourite author, and probably person, too, and i have all of his stories in the Arkham editions. And they're fine for reading, but not exactly beautiful editions.

What i'd be looking for would be editions that are beautifully put together from cover to cover, preferably, but not necessarily, illustrated (just ordered Del Rey's the Road to Madness, because i like what they've done with their illustrated editions of REHoward). i know there's the extremely expensive limited edition of At the Mountains of Madness, and i'll probably be getting that at some point...but any others?

There must be a beautiful illustrated edition of the Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, for example, somewhere...no?

Thanks..

The Swedish edition of Kadath is beautifully illustrated, some of it in colour, but it is out of print, unfortunately. A very small sample of it can be found here: http://www.alephbokforlag.se/kadath_prov.pdf

I don't know of any English-language illustrated editions.

The recent Gollancz volume Necronomicon has some very nice illustrations, and it's beautifully bound in fake leather. On the downside, it's got the old error-riddled texts (but that's not a problem for you since you have the Arkham House books -- from the 80s, I hope?) and an afterword that brings up the spurious "Black Magic Quote", 19 years after David E. Schultz demonstrated how unlikely it is that it comes from Lovecraft.

[sacateca]

Hi. That swedish book looks beautiful...worth a hunt from auctions for me.

i have and like the Gollancz edition of REH's Conan tales, so thanks for the hint on that one, too. Still on pre-order on Amazon it seems.

Still, so very little out there. i guess now i don't need to save my money for the off-chance of finding something from the Old Gent and can go forward and buy Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination with Harry Clarke's illustrations, instead of waiting for what doesn't exist Maybe in time as Lovecraft's recognition increases..

Thanks for the reply.

[Nesacat]

Fingers crossed that there will be greater recognition and that they take the trouble to source out the texts minus all the errors.

I too would love to see illustrated editions of his work and given the growing interest at least on the part of readers, perhaps this will come to pass.

His tales do lend themselves to being fantastically illustrated. Of that there is no doubt and there are also many artists who would do justice to the tales.

[sacateca]

Originally Posted by Nesacat

there are also many artists who would do justice to the tales.

You have anyone in particular in mind?

[Ningauble]

I just rememberedt there is a nice collection of comics of some Lovecraft stories, called Graphic Classics: H. P. Lovecraft.

[sacateca]

Heh, i just checked vol. 4 in Amazon that let one look inside the book, and it seemed rather...well, comical Wish the strips themselves had been drawn in the same style and as well as the cover...

[Nesacat]

Originally Posted by sacateca

You have anyone in particular in mind?

Right off the top of my head there's Dave McKean. I liked what he did with Batman - Arkham Asylum.

There's also Enrique Breccia who did the art and cover for the Lovecraft graphic novel by Hans Rodionoff and Keith Giffen.

There's Michael Zulli who did the art for Neil Gaiman's Last Temptation & Creatures of the Night.

Am sure there are more but I need to go home and look at my graphic novels.