
There ensues a series of discoveries––with a devastating although somewhat anticipated reveal––which will seal the narrator’s fate forever. Written in the first-person narrative (as is often the case in his fiction), it tells of a man (or is it?) who, after having lived as a recluse for what seems like a very long time in his darkened and lifeless castle (or is it?), decides one day to go out into the world and explore. THE OUTSIDER is my favorite Lovecraft story bar none. I will then skip introducing the author––who doesn’t need any introduction, anyway––and go through a rundown of some of my most beloved horror stories of his, which you can find in this collection. My favourite stories in Necronomicon were.Īll right, with this one under my belt, I think I can safely say that I’ve read everything Lovecraft has ever written in his life. Took me years to get through it, bought it in 2014 (crazy I know) but obviously that wasn't continuous reading, I'd read a story from it and leave it for ages with the bookmark in he can be difficult to read sometimes due to his writing style - it's slow-paced and sometimes difficult for me to interpret because sometimes it seems to me like he starts rambling and I'm like.what's going on?īut I've been on a Lovecraft kick lately and I'm glad I finally finished most of his work, moving onto Eldritch Tales soon and that's me completed all of his fiction - as far as I know. “We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.”Įxcellent collection of Lovecraft's stories, you've got most of his best ones in this collection but it's such a big and somewhat cumbersome book. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality.Īlthough Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades.

His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Christianity. Lovecraft has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore.

Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. Lovecraft's major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: life is incomprehensible to human minds and the universe is fundamentally alien. Howard Phillips Lovecraft, of Providence, Rhode Island, was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction.
