Never read lovecraft, where should I start?

[Dsm]

I might just go with that one

Story wise I would start with Dagon. Perfect length and a typical Lovecraft ambiguous ending.

[Wyvernkeeper]

The Mountains of Madness

I second that... Call of Cthulu is pretty hard to beat too... The one ghost written for Harry Houdini is quite entertaining but I've forgotton what its called, 'below the pyramids' or something.

[Elric]

Pretty sure you could just buy a whole collection of his stories.

[TheVeryFirstDinosaur]

Surprised no one has mentioned "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath."

Or...even "The Dunwich Horror."

Wtf is wrong with you people? Not even a slight gesture at "The Hound."

[Art Vandarley]

The short stories. I think his best work is The Music of Erich Zann. Absolutely awesome.

[Wyvernkeeper]

Surprised no one has mentioned "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath."

Or...even "The Dunwich Horror."

Wtf is wrong with you people? Not even a slight gesture at "The Hound."

Good point, Dunwich Horror is incredibly creepy!!

[supervike]

Good point, Dunwich Horror is incredibly creepy!!

Mentioned in Post #8...

[Set the Fallen]

I 'd go for necronomicon.

[Agent D. Scully]

I 'd go for necronomicon.

Lovecraft never actually wrote the necronomicon... the only bits of it that exist are in other short stories he wrote.

[Set the Fallen]

Lovecraft never actually wrote the necronomicon... the only bits of it that exist are in other short stories he wrote.

I know, but it is a good collection of his work. It's a good place to start as I see it.

[UFO_Monster]

I thoroughly enjoyed The Hound.

[Korey]

Does anyone have any online links to any of his work they could provide? My apologies if someone already posted it and I missed it. I didn't bother going through the entire thread.

[Lycanthropyst]

i started with the call of cthulhu i dont read them in any order just choose them randomly i have the ebooks since where i live there is no way i can get any of his works, same goes for clive barker, stephen king and many other good authors

[Set the Fallen]

i started with the call of cthulhu i dont read them in any order just choose them randomly i have the ebooks since where i live there is no way i can get any of his works, same goes for clive barker, stephen king and many other good authors

You can't order them online? O.o

You know, you can ask a store to order one for you, they usually always do that. Beside, if I can find a copy in a run down store in the middle of nowhere without ordering it, anyone can. It's much nicer to read from a book after all. And using a pc all the time is bad.

[Bowzilla]

Thanks guys, I guess I'll start with some short stories to get acquainted with his vocabulary. And I'll get that "Necronomicon" thing. I really wish I had a kindle...

I started with Herbert West - Re-animator and then onto The Dunwich Horror and then The Rats In the walls. You'll find once you have read a few of his shorter stories you'll end up wanting to read some of the longer ones.

[HawkLord]

I am a great fan of the Mythos and have several of HP's anthologies. I also have some books written by his contemporaries such as August Derleth, Robert Bloch and Brian Lumley. I also suggest you try and read some of William Hope Hodgson's work such as "The House on the Borderland" and maybe "The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig'", also if you can find it "Carnacki the Ghost-Finder".

Happy HORROR New Year

[Grimm24]

Wow.

HAHAHHAHA

[Grimm24]

I am a great fan of the Mythos and have several of HP's anthologies. I also have some books written by his contemporaries such as August Derleth, Robert Bloch and Brian Lumley. I also suggest you try and read some of William Hope Hodgson's work such as "The House on the Borderland" and maybe "The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig'", also if you can find it "Carnacki the Ghost-Finder".

Happy HORROR New Year

I love Brian Lumleys Necrescope series!

[hooko22]

I love how you read lovecraft for the first time and you discover that he is not a romance novelist and thus get introduced to the brilliant world of horror!

[Bella-Angelique]

If you enjoy them you may like the games inspired from them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkham_Horror

[buckskin scout]

I always prefer the creepy ambience of Arthur Machen to H.P. Lovecraft.

[Ninhursag]

I Started Off With Lovecraft By Reading The Necronomicon .. He's Awesome

[Insanity]

A majority of Lovecraft's works are short stories, some are almost small novels, however they do not belong together in any sense as an ordered series.

There are commonalities between them, such as characters, places, and sometimes events, but you do not really need to read a particular one before another.

Some of his work is poetry, but poetry his style.

Some of his best work or most popular have already been mentioned, and they all are good.

A few of my personal favorites are;

• The Dunwich Horror
  
• The Call of Cthulhu
  
• At The Mountains of Madness
  
• The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
  
• The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
  
• The Whisperer in Darkness
  

I have a rather large collection of his works as audiobooks, read by various narrators. The Atlanta Radio Theater Company has done a few radio dramatizations of a few, and I believe they might be available for free downloads still. The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has done a series title 'Dark Adventure Radio Theatre' of several in the style of old radio broadcasts.

My first reading was of a collection of short stories, I believe it was 'Dreams of Terror and Death'.

Barnes & Noble has his complete fiction published in a single leather bound volume, and for a reasonable price of $20 or so, ISBN-13: 9781435122963.

Lovecraft did help other authors rewrite some of their work, or co-wrote with them, and even did some ghost writing under other names. These will not be in that collection, but there is a book title 'The Horror in the Museum' published by Delrey, which is a collection of most of these other stories. From this collection, a few good ones are 'The Mound', 'The Curse of Yig', and 'The Horror at the Museum'.

[MiskatonicGrad]

I would start with 'the statement of Randolf Carter'. I just like the way it gets it's point across in so few words and is a good intro to the way HP writes.

[Moon Dog]

Excellent reading. Below is a link to the Complete works.

Start anywhere.

http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/

Enjoy!