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P. Lovecraft’s classic horror tales, introduced by Roger Luckhurst. The introduction frames Lovecraft as a polarizing writer whose work drew harsh criticism for “bad taste and bad art” while also inspiring major modern authors and shaping “weird fiction.” It outlines Lovecraft’s impact on later genres and media, then turns to his life, highlighting his fragility, marginal existence, posthumous rise, and a lifelong tension between antiquarian imagination and the American century.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":10,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/story-novel/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/the-classic-horror-stories/514989/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/the-classic-horror-stories/514989.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Stanford","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-27","2026-10-06",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":34},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why does the introduction describe Lovecraft as polarizing?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It contrasts severe critical attacks on Lovecraft’s taste and artistry with the admiration he later received from major writers and thinkers, showing how opinions about his fiction diverge widely.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How did Lovecraft influence modern horror and related genres?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The text credits Lovecraft with shaping “weird fiction,” merging science fiction with the Gothic, and inventing a mythos that influenced later writers, films, and hybrid contemporary fiction.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What does the introduction say about Lovecraft’s life and posthumous reputation?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"It emphasizes his fragile health, limited circulation of stories during his lifetime, survival through pulp publication, and a marginal existence before his reputation grew significantly after his death in 1937.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},514989,1791411096,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":8,"category_name":10,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":34,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145},2336477552062,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_994ba38a5ba835b3df7d355c54d3ed8d","THE CLASSIC HORROR STORIES  \nThis page intentionally left blank  \nH . P. LOVECRAFT  \n  the    \nClassic H Rror STORIES  \nEdited by  \nROGER LUCKHURST  \n1  \n3  \nGreat Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp  \nUnited Kingdom  \nOxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Selection and editorial material © Roger Luckhurst 2013  \nThe stories in this volume are reprinted by arrangement with Lovecraft Holdings, LLC. The moral rights of the author have been asserted First published 2013  \nImpression: 1  \nAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored ina retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above  \nYou must not circulate this work in any other form  \nand you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available  \nISBN 978–0–19–963957–1  \nPrinted in Great Britain by  \nClays Ltd, St Ives plc  \nCONTENTS  \nIntroduction vii  \nNote on the Text xxix  \nSelect Bibliography xxx  \nA Chronology of H. P. Lovecraft xxxiv  \nTHE TALES  \nThe Horror at Red Hook 3  \nThe Call of Cthulhu 24  \nThe Colour out of Space 53  \nThe Dunwich Horror 80  \nThe Whisperer in Darkness 121  \nAt the Mountains of Madness 182  \nThe Dreams in the Witch-House 285  \nThe Shadow over Innsmouth 320  \nThe Shadow out of Time 382  \nAppendix: Introduction from ‘Supernatural  \nHorror in Literature’ 444  \nExplanatory Notes 448  \nThis page intentionally left blank  \nINTRODUCTION  \nHere be monsters—and spoilers. Readers may wish to cross the threshold unaided and treat this introduction as an afterword.  \nThe fiction of H. P. Lovecraft, it is safe to say, divides opinion. He has been called ‘sick . . . hysterical and neurotic’, the writing ‘ghastly’, and even a sympathetic biographer regards him as an ‘eccentric recluse’, writing ‘stilted, artificial and affected’ work. Lovecraft’s fiction was demolished by the eminent literary critic Edmund Wilson with the damning judgement that ‘the only real horror of most of these fictions is the horror of bad taste and bad art’.1 Yet at the sametime, Lovecraft was adored by the great experimental novelist Jorge Luis Borges, has been compared to Franz Kafka in significance, and was the subject of the first book by the leading contemporary French novelist Michel Houellebecq. He helped define the genre of ‘weird fiction’ and give a new direction to modern horror, fusing science fiction and the Gothic within a rigorous and bleakly materialist worldview. The novels of Stephen King are unthinkable without Lovecraft, as are the films of the Alien series or the fantasy cinema of Guillermo del Toro. Lovecraft invented a whole ‘mythos’ of terrifying gods and aliens to which thousands of stories have been added. Several occult religions have been established in ambiguous worship of Lovecraft’s menacing god Cthulhu. His influence stretches from Japanese manga to contemporary philosophy, from heavy metal music to ritual magic and the contemporary writers of hybrid fictions known asthe New Weird.  \nAll of this is not bad for a man of fragile health who only circulated his stories to close friends in handwritten form or published them in tiny networks of amateur journals. Later, he eked out a living by publishing in pulp magazines in the 1920s and 1930s. He was dismissive of his own efforts and was often disdainful of pulp horror and  \n1 Colin Wilson, The Strength to Dream: Literature and the ","cbCaioqUzdL6nbXu","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaioqUzdL6nbXu","pdf",292933,53,"English","# Contents\n## Introduction\n## Note on the Text\n## Select Bibliography\n## A Chronology of H. P. Lovecraft\n## The Tales\n## Appendix: Introduction from 'Supernatural Horror in Literature'\n## Explanatory Notes","[{\"question\":\"Why does the introduction describe Lovecraft as polarizing?\",\"answer\":\"It contrasts severe critical attacks on Lovecraft’s taste and artistry with the admiration he later received from major writers and thinkers, showing how opinions about his fiction diverge widely.\"},{\"question\":\"How did Lovecraft influence modern horror and related genres?\",\"answer\":\"The text credits Lovecraft with shaping “weird fiction,” merging science fiction with the Gothic, and inventing a mythos that influenced later writers, films, and hybrid contemporary fiction.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the introduction say about Lovecraft’s life and posthumous reputation?\",\"answer\":\"It emphasizes his fragile health, limited circulation of stories during his lifetime, survival through pulp publication, and a marginal existence before his reputation grew significantly after his death in 1937.\"}]","The Classic Horror Stories | PDF",1791304779,82]