The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories: (Penguin Orange Collection) - Softcover

Lovecraft, H. P.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143129457 ISBN 13: 9780143129455

Publisher: Penguin USA, 2016

Synopsis

Part of the Penguin Orange Collection, a limited-run series of twelve influential and beloved American classics in a bold series design offering a modern take on the iconic Penguin paperback

Winner of the 2016 AIGA + Design Observer 50 Books - 50 Covers competition

For the seventieth anniversary of Penguin Classics, the Penguin Orange Collection celebrates the heritage of Penguin's iconic book design with twelve influential American literary classics representing the breadth and diversity of the Penguin Classics library. These collectible editions are dressed in the iconic orange and white tri-band cover design, first created in 1935, while french flaps, high-quality paper, and striking cover illustrations provide the cutting-edge design treatment that is the signature of Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions today.

The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories

Frequently imitated and widely influential, Howard Phillips Lovecraft reinvented the horror genre in the twentieth century, discarding ghosts and witches and instead envisioning mankind as a tiny outpost of dwindling sanity in a chaotic and malevolent universe. This definitive collection reveals the development of Lovecraft's mesmerizing narrative style and establishes him as a canonical--and visionary--American writer.

About this title

Review:

I think it is beyond doubt that H. P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale (Stephen King ) --Stephen King

Reading Lovecraft is challenge enough, but listening to his work can be fraught with peril unless William Roberts is at the mike. Readers and listeners either love or hate Lovecraft, most commonly because of his complex language and near overwhelming sentence structure. Roberts takes on this challenge and delivers these short stories beautifully. He seems to have wrangled the leviathan that is Lovecraft s style and bullied it into submission. His delivery is engaging and dramatic. It shows that he has spent time with the text and understands the author s sometimes dizzying style. Best of all, he is able to communicate that understanding to the listener. Roberts s narration provides a perfect introduction for newcomers who are interested in Lovecraft s work but who are intimidated by his reputation. --A.H.A., AudioFile

About the Author:

H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was born in Providence, Rhode Island, where he lived most of his life. He wrote many essays and poems early in his career, but gradually focused on the writing of horror stories, after the advent in 1923 of the pulp magazine Weird Tales, to which he contributed most of his fiction. His relatively small corpus of fiction--three short novels and about sixty short stories--has nevertheless exercised a wide influence on subsequent work in the field, and he is regarded as the leading twentieth-century American author of supernatural fiction.

S. T. Joshi is a freelance writer and editor. He has prepared comprehensive editions of Lovecraft's collected fiction, essays, and poetry. He is also the author of The Weird Tale (1990), The Modern Weird Tale (2001), and Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction (2012). His award-winning biography H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (1996) was later expanded as I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft (2010). He has also prepared Penguin Classics editions of the work of Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, M. R. James, and Clark Ashton Smith, as well as the anthology American Supernatural Tales (2007).

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin USA
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0143129457
• ISBN 13: 9780143129455
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368
• Editor: Joshi S. T.