The Tomb and Other Tales

I am a champion of those tales which are consider'd E'ch-Pi-El's "minor" works because I find so many of them so peculiar and enchanting, playful and provocative. This paperback from Del Rey has an excellent sampling of Lovecraft's less familiar stories, and although I would not recommend this as a beginning place for those who are new to Lovecraft's Works, I can confess that I adore most of its Contents.

"The Festival" remains a keen favourite, and I love the atmosphere invested in the creation of Kingsport and its occult ways. The story is, unlike most of Lovecraft's tales, absolutely supernatural. "He" is another story of which I am fond, despite its slight expression of Lovecraft's wretched racism. Again, it is an excellent study in show more weird atmosphere, conjuring the weird mood of Outside otherness that Lovecraft felt to be a vital component in the weird tale. "The Strange High House in the Mist" is another tale set in mythic Kingsport.

The very early "The Alchemist" is, despite the youthfulness of its author, a rather good story. I never paid the story much attention until I listen'd to a reading of it online, during which I was completely captivated.

The fragments are my favourite portion of this slim collection. "Azathoth" is thought by some scholars to be an early experimental beginning for what eventually became "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath." "The Descendant" has long interested me, to the point where I sometimes fancy that I'd like to complete it--although I wou'd never tie my own byline to that of Lovecraft's. In his correspondence, Lovecraft mentions many such experiments with fiction that he has discarded and destroyed; and it makes me moan to think of the perhaps hundreds of such tidbits that we have lost because of HPL's habit of throwing away so much of his experiments in weird writing. "The Book" is very curious--a retelling in prose of the first three sonnets from FUNGI FROM YUGGOTH. The story was completed by another writer, and that version was included by Ramsey Campbell in his Arkham House anthology, NEW TALES OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS. "The Thing in the Moonlight" is not entirely by Lovecraft, being a letter that he wrote to Donald Wandrei describing a dream. The beginning and ending portions of the tale were added by another bloke when he published his extended version in his fanzine. Because the "story" is not entirely by Lovecraft and was never intended by him to be published, S. T. Joshi has removed it from all of his editions of Lovecraft's tales. show less

It is surprising how many of Lovecraft's signature themes are already fully evident in this, his first horror story. The nature of madness and reality, an inherited curse, seeking after forbidden knowledge, and a fated demise are all here. The narrator is very reminiscent of Hildred Castaigne from Robert Chambers' "The Repairer of Reputations" (in [b:The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories|129798|The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories|Robert W. Chambers|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1416873291s/129798.jpg|954927]), as well as many of Poe's madmen. However, Lovecraft adds an element; there is the strong suggestion that Jervas' madness springs from a true apprehension: that of his actual lineage and ultimate place, shall we show more say, in the scheme of things.

(Moved 2015 review to the individual work Sept. 2017 to make room to review the collection under its own entry.) show less

"Sedibus ut saltem placidis in morte quiescam" (“En un lugar placentero, cuando muera, me sea dado descansar”) - Virgilio

Siguiendo con la continuación de los relatos cortos de H. P. Lovecraft, leemos La Tumba (The Tomb), la historia de Jervas Dudley, quien vivió siempre en esferas alejadas del mundo real y se siente obsesionado por una antigua cripta... ¿en qué punto la obsesión puede tornarse en locura? o ¿ acaso fue algo más?...

Contains some of his earliest work, a few unfinished short fragments, and none of the major stories. Some are rather enjoyable though, my favourite being the Horror at Red Hook.
3 stars oc

This extraordinary collection features 13 spine-tingling tales of delicious terror by the unquestioned master of the horror genre, as well as portions of stories he never fully completed. Discover how the mind of H.P. Lovecraft worked, and how much his early and late stories tell about this intriguing writer.

Not bad, writing feels a bit archaic but translates the strange vibe well enough.

This is a good collection of Lovecraft's work with some early fragments and two stories written as a teenager that are good, better than most of his adult ones. There is also a chronology of his works at the back. "Must rleads" are "The Strange High House in the Mist" and his only sci-fi story "In the Walls of Eryx".