If you are new to the works of Lovecraft, this may be a bit overwhelming, but may also be a sound choice for the same reason. It contains just about all of his works of fiction. The Complete fiction of Lovecraft is just under a half-million words. There are twenty instances of use of the n-word in "The Rats in the Walls" and it is used once in the other two stories.

days later... I have finished reading this collection of HP Lovecraft's complete fiction. The master of weird fiction and cosmic horror delivers a range of different short stories and novellas, from chilling tales to the downright terrifying. The Strange High House in the Mist: Intriguing, surprisingly more joyous than menacing, with beautiful poetic descriptions and phrases. i read this because robert anton wilson used the illoigor and Old Ones and such to great effect in The Illuminatus Trilogy, and the scene therein where robert putney drake meets h.p. lovecraft is one of the book's finest, and RAW clearly thought the man deeply talented. i mean, there was no real point in dragging ol' Ctulu and Kadath in the cold wastes and all that into the Illuminatus! Trilogy, but it was all wonderful. when Fission Chips was getting dragged through the deadlights of Tsathoggua... well, RAW does it best, after all:And yes, there’s a whole bunch of criticisms to be made of Lovecraft’s writing style, a number of which I’m sure hold some academic weight. He was after all published in pulp and mostly self-taught, aspiring to the level of social, scholarly and artistic respect owed to an M.R. James but having no means of achieving it in his lifetime. Whether any of his work counts as ‘literature’ is a debate which could go on indefinitely. At this essay's start, Lovecraft presents his view of cosmic horror as the ultimate distillation of primal humanity's fear, which I found similar to Terry Pratchett's description of the roots of fantasy in the introduction to The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy. It goes on to describe trends in the genre, highlighting popular and notable works in horror from the 18th century to Lovecraft's present day. HP Lovecraft’s stories consistently use a literary technique called the Frame Narrative, which was popular at the time but is now rather antiquated. Most of HP Lovecraft’s stories actually consist of an outer framing narrative, within which the (outer) narrator encounters someone who relates the inner, usually more interesting story. The result is that each story is actually being told AFTER THE FACT. This technique makes Lovecraft’s stories more philosophical/reflective, but at the cost of drastically lowering the tension. The Cats of Ulthar: A must-read for all cat people and fans of poetic justice. Ulthar and its cats is another element in Lumley's version of the Dreamlands; will it be mentioned again later by Lovecraft?

The White Ship: A terrific early contribution to the Dreamlands. The first of many Lord Dunsany-inspired tales.I've read Dagon several times, even though that doesn't mean much, considering its length. Some stories I enjoyed more the second time around, although Dagon wasn't really that amazing the third or fourth time around. I believe he covered a lot of the same ideas in different stories in an attempt to improve and write the perfect story. Some are better than others.

The Other Gods: Short and meh, but builds a “‘Craftverse” by referencing The Cats of Ulthar. We like continuity. Now, Easton Press is proud to present these landmark horror masterpieces in an exceptional deluxe volume: LOVECRAFT TALES, an exclusive leather-bound Collector's Edition. Que no todo el Lovecraft es malo para nada. El tipo era un excelente escritor. Y punto. Aunque por lo que haya dicho antes no lo parezca. Su grandeza radica más en lo que escribió que en como lo hizo. Impresiona la enorme capacidad y el ingenio de este autor para idear los mundos que creó y conectar cada trama y cada historia de forma coherente, de ahí que se acabe por entender la similitud entre las mismas y los personajes. No daba puntada sin hilo. Me quito el sombrero ante él y ante su inconmensurable talento como hacedor de historias y mundos y narrador. Y ante la capacidad que tuvo de hacer lo que le dió la gana y como le dió la gana, sin ningún tipo de concesión antes de nada y ante ningún estilo. Son obras increíblemente originales incluso hoy en día, sorprende por lo bien que han envejecido y como dentro de ella se aúnan otros géneros literarios como la novela de detectives. Leer las ha tenido algo de cercano para mí por la gran cantidad de obras, cuentos, películas y libros en los que ha influido, y si algo he disfrutado de esta lectura ha sido darme cuenta de que ese o ese otro detalle ya lo había visto en tal o cual obra. Beyond the Wall of Sleep: It turns out the term ‘white trash’ was in use as early as 1919. Who knew? Another dream-world tale, more cosmic than the last, in which a psychiatrist receives a six-month paid vacation for taking on too much stress from his patient, a degenerate from that famous hotbed of brutish hillbillies, the Catskills. Points for ‘ululation’, ‘effulgent’ (twice), and ‘architraves’.All but eight of the stories were written before "the Call of Cthulhu" in 1927, but a number of these earlier ones written in typical Lovecraft fashion contain marked foreshadowings of the Cthulhu Mythos in both themes and details. The tie-ins with stories like "Nyarlathotep" and "The Nameless City" are particularly obvious, as are references to the Necronomican, etc. ("History of the Necronomican" was written post-1927; it's simply a pseudo-nonfiction account of the imaginary author and origins of the sinister book, and its translation/printing "history," but adds enjoyable texture to the Mythos for committed fans.) As I've commented before, Lovecraft's own perception of his main fictional corpus was probably much more unified than that of later critics who carve it up into "Mythos" vs. "non-Mythos," and he never coined the term "Cthulhu Mythos" himself; there's a great degree of similarity of conception in many stories on both sides of the supposed divide. One can definitely say, though, that "The Very Old Folk" is certainly a Mythos tale (and as eerie and chilling as any I'd read before), as well as one which reflects HPL's fascination with ancient Rome.