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Title: More Annotated H.P. Lovecraft by H. P. Lovecraft, S.T. Joshi, Peter Cannon ISBN: 0-440-50875-4 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 10 August, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.2 (10 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: What's with all the notes?
Comment: First off, lets list the stories. First is 'The Picture in the House' a very short, short story. This is followed by 'Herbert West - Reanimator' which was written for a humor magazine so is broken down into six parts. Then we have 'The Hound', 'The Shunned House'(giant elbows - NOOO!), 'The Horror at Red Hook', 'Cool Air', 'The Call of Cthulhu'(a major thread in the myths), 'Pickman's Model', 'The Thing on the Doorstep'(linked to a few stories by its very setting and characters) and 'The Haunter of the Dark'. These latter stories are very common to Lovecraft collections, so you should already know them. 'Herbert West - Reanimator' is not as easy to find and is the main reason I got this copy.
The book DOES have one interesting feature, which is all the information they add. Still, if I wanted to know so much about Lovecraft I would of bought a book about HIM. Also, the notes sometimes get in the way of the story. I suggest reading the stories and ignoring the notes the first time around. There are also nice photos of places that Lovecraft lived at or used within his stories.
Rating: 4
Summary: Quality of stories far exceeds quality of annotations
Comment: While there are some rare nuggets of interesting information in the annotations, I find aspects of this collection to be disorganized, haphazard, and perplexing. The stories, 10 in all, represent a hodgepodge of Lovecraft's greater and lesser writings, arranged chronologically from 1920's "The Picture in the House" to 1935's "The Haunter of the Dark." The editors apparently want to show the evolution of Lovecraft's writing over the years and choose not to build a collection based on any particular theme. This makes for some interesting story selections: "Herbert West--Reanimator" is included, which somewhat surprised me since Lovecraft largely disavowed this work (the idea and format being prescribed by someone other than himself). "The Horror At Red Hook," a strangely unsuccessful story to my way of thinking, as well as the rather formulaic "The Shunned House" can also be found here.
On the plus side, some real classics are given the annotated treatment. "The Picture in the House" is particularly welcome here, as it is perhaps Lovecraft's most horrifying short piece of fiction, and a copy of the referenced infamous picture is included for the reader to view. "The Hound" is an effective if rather traditional horror tale, the annotations for which provide some important information on the French Decadents and other outre movements referenced in the story. "Cool Air" is one of the author's most recognized stories, and the notes stress the fact that the story was written before air conditioning made its way into housing units. "Pickman's Model" is still a disturbing read, even though the ending lacks the punch today it probably had in Lovecraft's time. The three real jewels of this collection are the seminal works "The Call of Cthulhu," "The Thing on the Doorstep," and "The Haunter of the Dark" (one of Lovecraft's final stories and one often given less attention than I feel it deserves). The annotations are very useful in a complex work such as "The Call of Cthulhu," but in many cases they seem forced, contrived, and tiresome. Much of the time, the notes simply define terms such as cyclopean or eldritch, point out obvious concepts and alternate spellings, and endlessly reference other notes in this and the first collection of annoted Lovecraft stories. Worst of all, this book has no table of contents, and one can only see for sure what stories are included by leafing through the pages of the text.
The comments on antiquarian concepts and literary references makes this book worthwhile, but I found it to be less enlightening than I expected. Most of the annotations are unfortunately useless or repetitive. Even the pictures included in these pages, largely of old churches and cemeteries, do not correspond exactly with Lovecraft's settings The many quotes from Lovecraft's letters are interesting, but the letters can and should be read in their entirety in order to avoid mistaken impressions due to missing context. The book is also afflicted with a number of typos, which is something I am sure Lovecraft himself would have railed against. What matters are Lovecraft's stories, when it comes right down to it, and this collection does include some (but certainly not all) of his best fiction. The annotations are welcome additions to the texts, but their usefulness varies widely from page to page.
Rating: 3
Summary: Lovecraft Is Good, Notations are Disappointing
Comment: The stories are straight Lovecraft, with all of the pros and cons that drags with it. Good creepy fiction, some poor plots and some poor choices of wording.
The main problem that I had with this book though was the annotations. Almost every one of them was mediocre, some were truly bad, many were useless (especially the ones about names...only someone interested in genealogy would care, and they don't frequently use fiction as a source), and one that I saw foretold the ending in such a fashion as to destroy part of the ending. Hence, the annotations were rather poor. The illustrations were worse. There were two useful illustrations in the entire book. Other "luminary" illustrations are things like the pictures of three famous poets' graves. Why? The picture of Paul Revere's house. So? Etc. These occur throughout the book and are quite distracting as you expect them to matter, and are greatly disappointed.
My recommendation is to simply buy a normal version of these works. It is probably cheaper and definately more useful. The stories are decent (although I personally think that they are overrated), but the annotations are frequently annoying and almost always useless.
Harkius
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Title: The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature by H. P. Lovecraft, S. T. Joshi ISBN: 0967321506 Publisher: Hippocampus Press Pub. Date: September, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: A Dreamer & A Visionary: H. P. Lovecraft in His Time by S. T. Joshi ISBN: 0853239460 Publisher: Liverpool Univ Pr Pub. Date: June, 2001 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by S. T. Joshi, Howard Phillips Lovecraft ISBN: 0141182342 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: October, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories by H. P. Lovecraft, S. T. Joshi ISBN: 0142180033 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 02 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters by S. T. Joshi, David E. Schultz, Howard Phillips Lovecraft ISBN: 0821413333 Publisher: Ohio Univ Pr (Trd) Pub. Date: September, 2000 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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