The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft

De: H. P. Lovecraft

Narrado por: Andrew Leman, Sean Branney

For the first time ever, the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has produced an audio recording of all of Lovecraft's stories. These are not dramatizations like our Dark Adventure Radio Theatre - rather, this is an audiobook of the original stories, in all-new, never-before-heard recordings made by the HPLHS' own Andrew Leman and Sean Branney exclusively for this collection. Working from texts prepared by Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi, this collection spans his entire career from his earliest surviving works of childhood to stories completed shortly before his death. All tales include original music by HPLHS composer Troy Sterling Nies. This audio bonanza features 74 stories adding up to more than fifty (50!) hours of Lovecraftian listening fun, professionally performed and recorded for your enjoyment.

Public Domain (P)2017 HPLHS, Inc.

Best Lovecraft Collection on Audible!

This is the best reading of H.P. Lovecraft I have ever heard. Leman and Branney's passion for the material make it captivating to listen to and I often forgot that I was listening to a non-dramatized version. The narration is well enunciated and well paced. In conclusion, if you are looking for a collection of Lovecraft's fiction that doesn't include forced contextual or bibliographical information I would recommend this audiobook everytime.

The stories are arranged alphabetically but I couldn't find a proper Table of Contents so I've included one below :

Chapter 1 - Introduction
Chapter 2 - The Alchemist
Chapter 3 - At the Mountains of Madness
Chapter 15 - Azathoth
Chapter 16 - The Beast in the Cave
Chapter 17 - Beyond the Wall of Sleep
Chapter 18 - The Book
Chapter 19 - The Call of Cthulhu
Chapter 22 - The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
Chapter 47 - The Cats of Ulthar
Chapter 48 - Celephais
Chapter 49 - The Colour Out of Space
Chapter 50 - Cool Air
Chapter 51 - Dagon
Chapter 52 - The Descendant
Chapter 54 - The Doom that Came to Sarnath
Chapter 55 - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
Chapter 64 - The Dreams in the Witch House
Chapter 65 - The Dunwich Horror
Chapter 77 - Ex Oblivione
Chapter 78 - Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family
Chapter 80 - The Festival
Chapter 81 - From Beyond
Chapter 82 - The Hunter of the Dark
Chapter 83 - He
Chapter 84 - Herbet West Reanimator
Chapter 91 - The Horror at Red Hook
Chapter 98 - The Hound
Chapter 99 - Hypnos
Chapter 100 - Ibid
Chapter 101 - In The Vault
Chapter 102 - The Little Glass Bottle
Chapter 103 - The Lurking Fear
Chapter 107 - Memory
Chapter 108 - The Moon-Bog
Chapter 109 - The Music of Erich Zann
Chapter 110 - The Mysterious Ship
Chapter 111 - The Mysterious Ship (duplicate)
Chapter 112 - The Mystery of the Grave-Yard
Chapter 113 - The Nameless City
Chapter 114 - Nyarlathotep
Chapter 115 - Old Bugs
Chapter 116 - The Other Gods
Chapter 117 - The Outsider
Chapter 118 - Pickman's Model
Chapter 119 - The Picture in the House
Chapter 120 - Polaris
Chapter 121 - The Quest of Iranon
Chapter 122 - The Rats in the Walls
Chapter 123 - A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson
Chapter 124 - The Secret Cave
Chapter 125 - The Shadow Out of Time
Chapter 133 - The Shadow Over Innsmouth
Chapter 143 - The Silver Key
Chapter 144 - The Statement of Randolph Carter
Chapter 145 - The Strange High House in the Mist
Chapter 146 - The Street
Chapter 147 - Sweet Ermengarde
Chapter 148 - The Temple
Chapter 149 - The Terrible Old Man
Chapter 150 - The Thing on the Doorstep
Chapter 157 - Through the Gates of the Silver Key
Chapter 165 - The Tomb
Chapter 166 - The Transition of Juan Ramero
Chapter 167 - The Tree
Chapter 168 - Under the Pyramids
Chapter 170 - The Unnamable
Chapter 171 - The Very Old Folk
Chapter 172 - What the Moon Brings
Chapter 173 - The Whisperer in Darkness
Chapter 181 - The White Ship

EDIT: Thank you Heinz57 for pointing out the error above, the table should be accurate now!

Lovecraft Defines his own Genre

First off, this collection is FAR better than the other Lovecraft anthologies available on audible. The HP Lovecraft Historical Society handles his works lovingly and their performances leave, to me, absolutely nothing to be desired. They hit the 'hysteria of mind numbing horror' feel far better than I imagined any would be able to going into the stories.

As for the stories themselves, well prepare yourself for a mixed bag. You have to remember this is ALL of Lovecraft's writings, not just the best or greatest. You can feel some of his early experimentation in some, and the hands of a master of his craft in others. The irony is that one of his earliest pieces in this anthology is my favorite, Under the Pyramids. WOW, what a thrilling piece of writing and one I find genuinely unnerving. Other stand out stories include The Mountains of Madness, the Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Shadow out of Time. Some I didn't necessarily care for were The Color from Space and, ironically, The Call of C'thulu. Even the ones I cared for less were ultimately enjoyable though. And be forewarned, Lovecraft had a deep vocabulary and wasn't afraid to use it, so a few times you may need to look up a word or two as I did. Oh, and yes he has some racist moments but he was a product of the 20's and it shows. Just take it with a grain of salt and you'll be fine.

Great Compilation, missing one important bit

THERE'S NO NECRONOMICON :(

Still very good, there's a small fanboy for Lovecraft intro about the guys that put this together, but it's not overly long. No dude tangents or dumbing it down. Careful thought was put into each performance. Further, I don't know why everybody says none of the chapters are labeled, they are all labeled on the Android app. Must be a client side error, but on the Android app, everything is clearly labeled

Good times at Miskatonic University

I truly enjoyed the performances in this audio book. The only issue I have is that I don’t need to hear after every single story what book they are a part of, who edited the read version, and the copyright. I purchased the collected works not individual editions of the stories. This added unneeded time to an already long audio book.

Thank You HPLHS

Honestly I went into this knowing very little about HP Lovecraft (literally all I knew was Cthulhu), but this has giving me such a greater appreciation for Lovecraft's stories. My favorite part had to be the outtakes in the final chapter.

Curious Curation

I will not write a long review explaining the merits and faults of Lovecraft. The performances of the readers were good and professional. The only complaint I have is that the order of the stories is complete non-sense. Who picked alphabetical order? You could have split it between short horror and the Dream Cycle. You could have ordered it by publication date. So why on earth choose the most jarring order possible? The mythos built over time, and the stories often refer to elements from other stories. Removing the proper frame of reference would simply turn off and confuse any ready to the works of Lovecraft.

I wish I can rate performance for each narrrator

No offense to Sean Branney, but god, Andrew Lemon is leagues ahead of him. Its a shame that a story like At the mountains of madness was read by Sean Branney.

Great bang for buck.

Props to the guys who recorded this. Because dear god the antiquarian verbage in these assorted works is cosmic in scope. And forget the cosmo babble. Seriously good job. But if you like Lovecraft than this is where it's at. If you are sensitive old timey racial diatribes then steer clear, but if you like enjoyable storytelling then this is where it's at. Is any of this truly terrifying, meh depends on your imagination. If you're an aesthete I see how Lovecraft can be such an inspiration. I really enjoyed piecing together the lore of his universe together. DO NOT attempt this in one continuous reading if possible because this is most of if not everything Lovecraft ever wrote. There are only so many words to describe what Lovecraft writes about and you will catch on to some of the word choice in this review.

P.S. this is in alphabetical order and Mountains of Madness comes pretty early. It contains a pretty good synopsis of his world building although definitely leaves something still to be discovered. but I would save it for later if you want to keep the world structure more vague and nebulous.

Yeah. So.

Yeah, so maybe a selection of his better works would have been a wiser choice for me - but it sure is nifty that this collection is available. No doubt about it. Your average person probably won’t get much mileage out of a good half of this, though, meaning you’ll have to put in some effort to find the worthwhile stuff.

Didn’t much care for the narrator. I mean, he’s fine, but I honestly (honestly!) think he’s a more natural fit for an economics-focused public radio newscast. Pretty sure it’s an artistic choice, but he often stumbles on words, making it seem like someone shoved a script in front of him and shouted “read! and make it believable!”

Poor guy.

A WARNING of these stories

Written by a man in the early 1900’s. Be ready to deal with hints, and outright racism, and racist stories. BE FURTHER WARNED OF . Rats in the walls.. the cats name is. N- word man.