The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft

By: H. P. Lovecraft

Narrated by: Andrew Leman, Sean Branney

Length: 51 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

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!

Has TOC

Just downloaded to the Audible app on my iPhone. It has a fully functional table of contents in the Chapters section. All stories labeled and subchapters within stories have names if Lovecraft named them. Jump around all you want. Outstanding value for one credit.

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.

FIXED!

I spoke a nice gentleman via email from the HPLHS and he told me that the unlabeled chapters issue was brought to Amazon’s attention several months ago. Amazon was slow to fix it, but it HAS been fixed. Ironically, the chapter names were added on exact same day I spoke to the HPLHS.
Anyway, stellar collection of stories and it is now very easy to navigate. Highly recommended!

Chapters not identified

I have no idea which story I’m listening to. Why were titles not given? Seems like a foolish oversight.

Exactly what I’ve been looking for.

I’ve gotten several other HPL collections to listen to and they have all been awful in some way or another. But these guys really deliver a fantastic performance and cover a much wider range of stories and shorts than any other collection I’ve tried. Highly recommend

On a scale 1 to 5, this is a 10!

I purchased this audio book and I was not the least bit disappointed. The tales are reminiscent of Edgar Allen Poe with its dark, Gothic prose and fantastic descriptions. The first person narratives pulled you into the story.

However, it's the hard, skillful work of Andrew Leman and Sean Branney that brought the audio book to vivid life. I wish these two readers could read for every audio book. They're not just reading; they are acting the part of the narrator and take great pains to make pronunciation of foreign words sound fluid and natural.

This audio book is by far the best I've listened to and has, unfortunately, spoiled me. I now look for audio books with readers beyond passable instead of books that I prefer.

This audio book was worth every single penny and I can't recommend it enough.

HPLHS knocks it out of the park

There are several other Lovecraft anthologies on Audible, and, to put it politely, they aren’t very good. But then along came The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, and all of that changed. The guys are excellent readers, and they really “get” Lovecraft in a way that only true fans do. If you’ve tried out the other anthologies, and been disappointed, then look no further. This is the one that you want. And because it’s got all of his fiction it’s also the only one that you’re ever going to need. As an added bonus listening is guaranteed to stave off shoggoths, mi-go and numerous other eldritch horrors.

My, my, my, what a collection!

Here we have a mammoth of a collection that runs the whole gamut from fragmentary character studies to psychological terror, to shock horror, to science horror, to good old supernatural horror, and, of course, the thing that made Lovecraft famous, the complete cycle of cosmic horror that became known as the Cthulhu Mythos (which I've been shocked to discover is meant to be pronounced somewhere along the lines of Klul-hoo).

As such, some stories appealed to me while others did not. But on the whole, this collection is absolutely phenomenal!

About the audiobook narrators.
Across the board, Andrew Leman and Sean Branney both give fantastic performances. There's not a lot of difference in their capabilities and styles, so the collection flowed seamlessly.

Both narrators have an impressive array of voices that are distinct and well crafted. Both are extremely skilled with vocal inflections, using tones that match the text perfectly. And these two might have the tightest control of reading tempo I've ever heard. Every sentence is read at a pace that makes it obvious exactly how much tension is in the scene.

On a side note, at the end of the audiobook is a track about 8 minutes long of the narrators' outtakes and general exclamations of frustration, sometimes with themselves, sometimes with the text itself. I felt like this was a fantastic way to end this audiobook. It offers a glimpse into the recording process as well as humanizing the narrators and giving me just a bit more appreciation for the tremendous task that is recording a book of this magnitude.

With a collection this big, I could write a full novel just summarizing the plots of each story. So instead, here are my general impressions.

It quickly becomes apparent that these stories were written a very long time ago. There is a great deal of summarizing and telling of details after the fact. Yet, as testament to Lovecraft's skill, he still manages to make the stories compelling and not a little terrifying.

Not in the visceral way that most modern audiences think of horror, but in the subtleties that lie between the lines. There is every bit as much left unsaid as there is said, and in a world where everyone seems to just want to see the monster and its carnage, these stories are a refreshing change of pace and scenery.

It's also immediately apparent that Lovecraft had an incredible vocabulary and a near-encyclopedic knowledge of an impressive number of subjects.

Equally apparent is Lovecraft's love of both the craft of writing and language itself. It's very clear that (within the framework of the grammar and conventions of the time) he put immense thought and care into crafting beautiful sentences with a cadence as pleasing to the ear as it is entertaining to the mind.

As has been pointed out (many times, I'm certain), much of Lovecraft's work tends to ignore the character on the personal level and focus on the overarching plot, especially in the Cthulhu Mythos stories.

While this is contrary to what modern readers will likely have experienced, in Lovecraft's style it actually works surprisingly well.

Although at times I felt like the POV jumped about a little too much or was focused on the wrong (ie: not the most compelling) character, in the end Lovecraft always brings the tale to a close that signifies exactly why those story choices were made and in many cases presents that it couldn't have worked in any other way.

There aren't a lot of stories here that directly interrelate, though there are a few.

The stories featuring Randolph Carter were excellent, and I loved the contiguous quality of them. I do however, wish the collection had been organized so they were placed back-to-back.

My favorites, though, were two of the longer (short novel length) pieces. At The Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Out of Time.

Although these two do not at first appear to be directly related, later in each it becomes clear that there's a direct correlation between them that completely reframes some of the details from ATMOM and I absolutely love it!

There's so much history here, both about the "Great Old Ones" (a bit of a misnomer, really) and the race that came before. The original inhabitants of Earth that were displaced by Cthulhu and his ilk.

There's honestly so much more complexity to the Mythos than I ever expected and I love it so much! I can't wait to take a deeper dive into what other writers have added to the Mythos over the years.

In short, if you're into literary horror, read this book.
If you're into supernatural horror, read this book.
If you live for the Cthulhu Mythos, definitely read this book.
And even if you prefer horror of the psychological variety, you should read this book.

Best readings of all Lovecrafts stories!

This has been the best audiobook purchase ever. Amazing performances and dedication to Lovecrafts stories.

Need chapters titles!!

Stories great - small and large.

Narrations excellent. Love that it’s read by two that obviously know and love h p lovecraft.

One big problem - 50 hours of audio, dozens of stories to pour through and no chapter titles. So going back to a short story you may of liked means jumping through chapters to find the right one.

Other than that great.

Superb collection

An amazing collection of Lovecraft's stories performed wonderfully by Andrew Leman & Sean Branney.

Also, they have updated the audiobook and now have changed the chapter numbers to the titles of each story.

I figure Lovecraft must’ve been paid by the word

Sorry, I meant to say... upon undertaking to indulge my inexplicable intellectual appetites with the queer and ponderous labyrinthine volumes of HP Lovecraft, obeisance I paid at last, toilworn and discomposed at the altar of inescapable judgement that this eldritch virtuoso of archaic language must - as far as was discernible from the accursed preponderance of the tome - have been recompensed handsomely by some nameless employer for each and every hideous word.

Perfection of the Hideous

A wonderful collection excellently narrated by Andrew Leman and Sean Branney. Admittedly, HPL can be a bit heavy going at times but he had an incredible imagination and ability to describe both the horrors and beauty of the earth and other worlds.

Contents:
The Alchemist
At the Mountains of Madness
Azathoth
The Beast in the Cave
Beyond the Wall of Sleep
The Book
The Call of Cthulhu
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The Cats of Ulthar
Celephaïs
The Colour out of Space
Cool Air
Dagon
The Descendant
The Shadow Over Innsmouth (discarded draft)
The Doom that Came to Sarnath
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
The Dreams in the Witch House
The Dunwich Horror
The Evil Clergyman
Ex Oblivione
Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family
The Festival
From Beyond
The Haunter of the Dark
He
Herbert West - Reanimator
History of the Necronomicon
The Horror at Red Hook
The Hound
Hypnos
Ibid
In The Vault
The Little Glass Bottle
The Lurking Fear
Memory
The Moon-Bog
The Music of Erich Zann
The Mysterious Ship (long version)
The Mysterious Ship (short version)
The Mystery of the Grave-Yard
The Nameless City
Nyarlathotep
Old Bugs
The Other Gods
The Outsider
Pickman's Model
The Picture in the House
Polaris
The Quest of Iranon
The Rats in the Walls
A Reminiscence of Dr Samuel Johnson
The Secret Cave
The Shadow out of Time
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
The Shunned House
The Silver Key
The Statement of Randolph Carter
The Strange High House in the Mist
The Street
Sweet Ermengarde
The Temple
The Terrible Old Man
The Thing on the Doorstep
Through the Gates of the Silver Key
The Tomb
The Transition of Juan Romero
The Tree
Under the Pyramids
The Unnamable
The Very Old Folk
What the Moon Brings
The Whisperer in Darkness
The White Ship
The Life and Times of H.P. Lovecraft

I don't feel engaged

There is no doubting the authors' love of HP Lovecraft, and there is a real feeling of trust in the authentic nature of their performance. But, as someone has mentioned elsewhere, there is a rhythm in many of the narrations that caused me to drift from the story, which I've never experienced with any of the other Lovecraft audio books I've bought. Originally I thought it was just my concentration, but having just heard Drago yesterday - a story I adore - I was concerned about the fact that it did not engage me. I listened to another performance of Drago, from another collection, and noticed that, while the other reading was a little less animated, I never 'left' the story. This has happened with me on many of the narrations in this collection. However, maybe it's a personal reaction to the theatrical performances of some of the stories. If it weren't for this, I'd give this 5 stars all round for the obvious love and authentic nature of the readings.

Disappointing.

I'm sad to say that I agree with previous reviews. the narrators rhythm tuned me out and I felt I couldn't even follow. I've always enjoyed many of Lovecraft's stories but I'm a bit gutted I wasted my last token.

Finding it hard to listen to

Not sure if it's the way it's being read but I"m finding it really difficult to understand what he's reading?

overperformed

wasn't very engaging. the narrator's were too theatrical which made the each story have this weird rhythm that makes you phase out.

The best

Follow Heinz57 for the chapter instructions and this is the best collection, and with Coyle’s Innsmouth has jumped to the top of my list Fantastic narration really brings these stories to life. Not overly dramatic, but reminiscent of early radio shows, entirely in keeping with the stories. Worth a credit for anybody with an interest. Looking forward to many hours listening to all of this. Highly recommended for any HPL devotees.

Fantastic

Fantastic stories very well performed by the 2. A must have for any horror or Lovecraft fan