Introduction

      The stories in this collection are for the most part secondary to H. P. Lovecraft’s major fiction. They represent every vein that Lovecraft made his own, and many of them are certainly among the best short stories of the macabre written in the twentieth century. An equal number belong to a group which Lovecraft himself frequently deprecated in his letters to his correspondents, over and above the habitual modesty with which Lovecraft looked upon his work. At least two of them – Herbert West: Reanimator and the ghost-written piece for Houdini, Imprisoned with the Pharaohs – were written to order, which was a rare departure from Lovecraft’s customary writing habits.

      These stories are arranged here chronologically, based on the following complete chronology set down by Lovecraft with the fragmentary story, The Evil Clergyman, which was part of a letter not intended for publication, appended.

      Dagon, 1917

      The Tomb, 1917

      Polaris, 1918

      Beyond the Wall of Sleep, 1919

       The Doom That Came to Sarnath, 1919

      The Statement of Randolph Carter, 1919

      The White Ship, 1919

      Arthur Jermyn, (The White Ape), 1920

      The Cats of Ulthar, 1920

      Celephais, 1920

      From Beyond, 1920

      The Picture in the House, 1920

      The Temple, 1920

      The Terrible Old Man, 1920

      The Tree, 1920

      The Moon-Bog, 1921

      The Music of Erich Zann, 1921

      The Nameless City, 1921

      The Other Gods, 1921

      The Outsider, 1921

      The Quest of Iranon, 1921

      Herbert West: Reanimator, 1921-1922

      The Hound, 1922

      Hypnos, 1922

      The Lurking Fear, 1922

      The Festival, 1923

      The Rats in the Walls, 1923

      The