Tales of Horror and Suspense

Written by Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard and W. F. Harvey

Narrated by Cathy Dobson

Fifty terrifying short stories from the great classic horror writers:
1. Pigeons from Hell by Robert E. Howard
2. Pickman’s Model by H. P. Lovecraft
3. The Horror Horn by E. F. Benson
4. The Fearsome Touch of Death by Robert E. Howard
5. The Terrible Old Man by H. P. Lovecraft
6. The Step by E. F. Benson
7. Dagon by H. P. Lovecraft
8. The Dream Snake by Robert E. Howard
9. Caterpillars by E. F. Benson
10. The Clock by W. F. Harvey
11. In the Forest of Villefore by Robert E. Howard
12. The Book by H. P. Lovecraft
13. Memory by H. P. Lovecraft
14. The Thing on the Roof by Robert E. Howard
15. The Face by E. F. Benson
16. The Cats of Ulthar by H. P. Lovecraft
17. The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe
18. Nyarlathotep by H. P. Lovecraft
19. The Beast in the Cave by H. P. Lovecraft
20. Rattle of Bones by Robert E. Howard
21. The Man who hated Aspidistras by W. F. Harvey
22. The Tell-tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
23. The Beast with Five Fingers by W. F. Harvey
24. Cool Air by H. P. Lovecraft
25. The Thing in the Hall by E. F. Benson
26. Sea Curse by Robert E. Howard
27. The Bath Chair by E. F. Benson
28. The Right Hand of Doom by Robert E. Howard
29. The Bus Conductor by E. F. Benson
30. From Beyond by H. P. Lovecraft
And twenty more terrifying tales….

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Door Consulting
• Release date: Jul 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781467699051

Howard Phillips Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was an American author of science fiction and horror stories. Born in Providence, Rhode Island to a wealthy family, he suffered the loss of his father at a young age. Raised with his mother’s family, he was doted upon throughout his youth and found a paternal figure in his grandfather Whipple, who encouraged his literary interests. He began writing stories and poems inspired by the classics and by Whipple’s spirited retellings of Gothic tales of terror. In 1902, he began publishing a periodical on astronomy, a source of intellectual fascination for the young Lovecraft. Over the next several years, he would suffer from a series of illnesses that made it nearly impossible to attend school. Exacerbated by the decline of his family’s financial stability, this decade would prove formative to Lovecraft’s worldview and writing style, both of which depict humanity as cosmologically insignificant. Supported by his mother Susie in his attempts to study organic chemistry, Lovecraft eventually devoted himself to writing poems and stories for such pulp and weird-fiction magazines as Argosy, where he gained a cult following of readers. Early stories of note include “The Alchemist” (1916), “The Tomb” (1917), and “Beyond the Wall of Sleep” (1919). “The Call of Cthulu,” originally published in pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928, is considered by many scholars and fellow writers to be his finest, most complex work of fiction. Inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, and Lord Dunsany, Lovecraft became one of the century’s leading horror writers whose influence remains essential to the genre.

Reviews for Tales of Horror and Suspense

[tjwilson_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I would like to start off this review with a few words that I will always associate with HP Lovecraft after reading this, a modest offering of his work: foetid, febrile and eldritch. There. That's better.I can't believe that Lovecraft made it only in the pulp magazines. Seems like his writing caliber was much more literary. I would think that pulp magazines would frown upon such prose. But this could come from my understanding of pulp magazines back in the day. Regardless, there is a lot of written beauty in this collection.Of course, the creativity of Lovecraft does not disappoint. It seems easy to fall into telling archetypal stories of horror, but Lovecraft took care to add a very original type horror to his own work. A more existential horror. And that's why Lovecraft is worth reading. This is horror in another realm. But it's not all about creativity. A lot of the structures of his stories are very similar: first-person narratives of intelligent men who know that you, the reader, will doubt their tales and the wild discoveries that they unearth throughout the process of their stories. In short, Lovecraft has a penchant for a certain formula of story telling. Regardless, none of his stories disappoint in the imagination factor. Lovecraft is worth it for sure.

[thereadingmermaid · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful compilation of his stories. This compilation includes such tales as The Call of Cthulhu, the Dunwich Horror and Shadow over Innsmouth. HP Lovecraft has a way of writing that in my personal opinion is damn near perfect. His sentence structure and word usage is on point in every paragraph. Absolutely fabulous writer and absolutely fabulous stories. I would recommend this to anyone!

[joe73-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Where Poe is dark and brooding, Lovecraft is Mad and brooding. This is the first of a three part anthology that digs into his work. From the Rats in the Walls to the Colour out of space we are constantly reminded of our feeble grasp on reality and our place in it. Our fear is brought to a cosmic level without a sign of redemption. Lovecraft will remind us that just because we give up and die here our pain will not end and we will suffer in a place far beyond what anyone knows.

[jhemlock-1711 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Where Poe is dark and brooding, Lovecraft is Mad and brooding. This is the first of a three part anthology that digs into his work. From the Rats in the Walls to the Colour out of space we are constantly reminded of our feeble grasp on reality and our place in it. Our fear is brought to a cosmic level without a sign of redemption. Lovecraft will remind us that just because we give up and die here our pain will not end and we will suffer in a place far beyond what anyone knows.

[sumisbooks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful compilation of his stories. This compilation includes such tales as The Call of Cthulhu, the Dunwich Horror and Shadow over Innsmouth. HP Lovecraft has a way of writing that in my personal opinion is damn near perfect. His sentence structure and word usage is on point in every paragraph. Absolutely fabulous writer and absolutely fabulous stories. I would recommend this to anyone!

[caanderson-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The master tells six tales of horror with a big side of creepy. Each tale creepier than the last.

[josh314 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a great collection of tales from the master. My only quibble is that it is hard to imagine that "the best of HP Lovecraft" does not include At the Mountains of Madness. But one can tell that they were going for a collection of short fiction here while Mountains is a more of a novella and maybe Lovecraft's longest story. Still, I would call this the definitive anthology if not for that omission.

[adamconnell_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

You can't understate Lovecraft's influence. This edition has an introduction by Robert Bloch. That introduction, titled "Heritage of Horror" had such an impact on me as a young writer that it cemented my goal to become a published author. The intro is more about horror than SF (my field) but it was stunning, life changing.

[slysionnach_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If how I love an author is based upon how fast I buy more books by them, Lovecraft may win. Before I was finished with this book, I went out and bought two more of his anthologies, and moved seamlessly from finishing this one and starting the next in the space of a train ride. I've been told to read Lovecraft by just about everyone I know who knows what I like to read. Finally convinced, I picked up the only book I had (because reading the "Best Of" seems like a good place to start) and dove in.I kicked and screamed when I had to rise for air. From story to story, the rough beginning of reading the older writing style became easier and soon the little voice in my head that does my reading even deciphered the phonetic spelling with an accent of its own. I adored every creature I read about from the Mi-Go to the Elder Ones, and I yearned to hear more about the forbidden shoggoth while fearing them at the same time. Though Lovecraft's characters never disclose just what the creatures look like, we certainly know that they're dreadful.What I also enjoyed is how big a role science plays into his stories. It's all physics and traveling through space on bat-like wings and visiting lands beyond the stars.While I abhor learning physics, I'll never hate reading about how we can twist it into helping us find the world of Yuggoth (which has recently been demoted, and I wonder how the Mi-Go feel about this...)I recommend this collection to anyone who wants to see how Lovecraft influenced the horror masters of today. Or anyone wants to read a weird tale.

[mikelancaster_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I am one of those people who finds Lovecraft's tale incredibly rewarding.I loved them when I was a kid, but I've ended up loving them more now I'm not. His narrative vision was -quite simply- astonishing. His often sublime creations prise him head and shoulders above many other practitioners of the weird tale, and the influences of Poe, Dunsany and Machen -although vast- are secondary to the wonderful instinct he had for how much to show and how little to reveal. As a result, the stories ask a reader to imagine along with Lovecraft; to piece together the jigsaw pieces of cosmic horror sometimes from scant hints and thin, but evocative, descriptions. I know there is a lot to wince at in the canon: the inbred country-folk degenerating into savages, or worse; the often jaw-dropping racism that -although tempered in his later works- still provides the reader with an uncomfortable aftertaste; the uneven pace of some of the tales; the stubborn overuse of words like 'gibbous' and 'eldritch'. But somehow Lovecraft's stories manage to transcend their myriad flaws and give us a science-horror that is breathtaking in its scope and depth. You might think that they would have to be truly brilliant to overcome those flaws. And they are.

[mikemillertime · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This definiteive collection of Lovecraft's finest easily display how this author is undeservedly underrated and forgotten with his impact on the genres of horror and thriller. His stories may end too quickly and without resolution, he may occasionally suffer from a strange New England snobbishness (against the poor or minorities), but his works are completely original, inhabiting and inventing a strange milieu of alternate dimensions and paranomal sciences, well before any other thinker did. His stories are suberbly written, if not hyperbolic, but all part of the fun in this fantastic calvacade of supernatural and horrific gems.

[storyjunkie · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this collection, despite some qualms about certain depictions. I knew going in that non-white ethnicities and women would not be represented well, when they would be represented at all. We are talking semi-canonized literature from the beginning of the 20th century - and such flaws are a staple of what was considered for canonization for a long time.The craftsmanship is good: the language and the handling of tension better than I thought it would be. There's a deftness of prose that sometimes borders on too spare, but I can't tell if the moments of shock that I'm not feeling are because I'm jaded or if Lovecraft actually missed the note (to use a musical analogy).

[jseger9000 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I admire Lovecraft for what he contributed to the horror genre more than I actually like to read his stuff. This book is missing my favorite of his stories: At the Mountains of Madness, but for a novice, it's a good intro and will show you both what's good and bad about his writing.

[comfypants · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

"The Rats in the Walls" - It seems like Lovecraft's trying to scare you, but the best he can do is tell you the characters are scared and leave out as many details as possible. The style is like he's trying to imitate Poe, but instead of having a clever twist or psychological motivation, he just sort of says, "Here's some weird stuff. The end." Maybe I'll give one of his later stories a chance some other time. 2.5/5. 12-26-08.

[cyberlemur · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Unique and vocabulary expanding, Lovecraft's verbal explanations of the unexplainable are always a joy.

[tairngire · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lovecraft is the guilty pleasure B-movies of literature. The stories are so intense, so ridiculously over the top, brimming with archaic words and American macabre.

[kplatypus_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lovecraft=a creepy good time. His stories are pretty much always entertaining, even when they become repetitive. Discover the origins of Cthullhu! And definitely check out my favorite story, "The Dreams in the Witch House."

[jcovington_12 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A collection of his best short fiction. I am forced to confess, I don't really care for Call of Cthulu. Mountains of Madness is a must read though.

[eviljohn_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An excellent collection of short horror stories.