Hello all,

I'm wanting to update my tatty old Derleth edited Lovecraft omnibuses to some shinny new definitive Lovecraft texts, but I'm at a loss as to which way to go.

n the one hand there are the current Arkham Press hardbacks, which look rather splendid but are a bit pricy OR should I go for the Penguin Books, which are also edited by ST Joshi and also seem to claim to be definitive.

Does anyone know what the difference is between these two versions? Which is better? Or are they just the same thing under different publishers?

Thanks

You may just want to wait a few months - this Fall, Barnes and Noble will be publishing a one volume, very reasonably-priced collection of ALL the fiction edited by Joshi (including the prose poems, stories buried within letters, and the juvenilia: but excluding all the revisions except those with Houdini, Price, and Sterling).

Jim

This sounds like a huge book. Anybody know the title? Hardback/paper?

It will be a huge hardcover like the volumes they compiled for Dumas, Hugo, Bronte, Verne, Wilde, Wharton, etc.

Jim

I think the title is going something like H. P. Lovecraft FICTION.

And I might add that there are... ideas for the revisions and collaborations. More than that I don't think I'm at liberty to say. Please be patient and something might materialise eventually.

While waiting for my obscure prediction to be fulfilled, I can recommend the Del Rey tpb of The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions. It's got the corrected texts. However, it doesn't have ALL the collaborations; there are a couple buried in Eyes of the God, which is, however, fairly cheap and highly recommended since it contains all the weird fiction of R. H. Barlow.

And the complete text of "The Challenge from Beyond" might still be available from Necronomicon Press (not very good, but if you're a completist you may want it anyway).

The English Assassin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> n the one hand there are the current Arkham Press
> hardbacks, which look rather splendid but are a
> bit pricy OR should I go for the Penguin Books,
> which are also edited by ST Joshi and also seem to
> claim to be definitive.
>
> Does anyone know what the difference is between
> these two versions? Which is better? Or are they
> just the same thing under different publishers?

To answer the original questions:

The Arkham House volumes -- the three "basic volumes", that is -- have some more stories, such as "The Transition of Juan Romero" and "The Alchemist" and "In the Walls of Eryx" with Kenneth Sterling.

The Penguin volumes have slightly fewer stories, but on the other hand, they correct some errors that crept into the AH volumes. For example, in "The Quest of Iranon" "and thou wouldst" has been corrected to "an thou wouldst", and in "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" "Almonsin" has been corrected to "Almousin".
AND the Penguin has something that the AHs lack: the corrected texts of "The Shadow Out of Time" and "Hypnos". In fact, the corrected text of "Hypnos" (although admittedly the differences are VERY small) has been published nowhere else so far.

The problem is that the Penguin people insisted on re-transcribing the texts, so some NEW errors have been introduced: missing words (usually small ones like "a" and "the"), added words, errors of punctuation, etc. In "The Statement of Randolph Carter", one of Harley Warren's "Beat it!" has gone AWOL.
I have sent S. T. Joshi lists of all instances where the Penguins differ from the AHs, so hopefully these errors won't appear in the B&N volume.

Yrs
Martin

P. S. I should add a qualifier to my previous answer: you will of course miss "Poetry and the Gods" if you settle for the forthcoming B&N volume, The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions, and Eyes of the God.

Here is the table of contents given us on the All Hallows group by the series editor, Stefan Dziemianowicz:

H.P. Lovecraft THE FICTION - Jacketed HC - $12.95

The Beast in the Cave (21 April 1905)
The Alchemist (1908)
The Tomb (June 1917)
Dagon (July 1917)
A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson (1917)
Polaris (May? 1918)
Beyond the Wall of Sleep (1919)
Memory (1919)
Old Bugs (1919)
The Transition of Juan Romero (16 September 1919)
The White Ship (November 1919)
The Street (late 1919)
The Doom That Came to Sarnath (3 December 1919)
The Statement of Randolph Carter (December 1919)
The Terrible Old Man (28 January 1920)
The Tree (1920)
The Cats of Ulthar (15 June 1920)
The Temple (1920)
Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family (1920)
Celephaïs (early November 1920)
From Beyond (16 November 1920)
Nyarlathotep (early December 1920)
The Picture in the House (12 December 1920)
Ex Oblivione (1920/21)
Sweet Ermengarde (1921?)
The Nameless City (January 1921)
The Quest of Iranon (28 February 1921)
The Moon-Bog (March 1921)
The Outsider (1921)
The Other Gods (14 August 1921)
The Music of Erich Zann (December 1921)
Herbert West—Reanimator (September 1921–mid 1922)
Hypnos (March 1922)
What the Moon Brings (5 June 1922)
Azathoth (June 1922)
The Hound (September 1922)
The Lurking Fear (November 1922)
The Rats in the Walls (August–September 1923)
The Unnamable (September 1923)
The Festival (1923)
Under the Pyramids (ghostwritten for Harry Houdini; February–March 1924)
The Shunned House (16–19 October 1924)
The Horror at Red Hook (1–2 August 1925)
He (11 August 1925)
In the Vault (18 September 1925)
Cool Air (March 1926)
The Call of Cthulhu (Summer 1926)
Pickman’s Model (1926)
The Silver Key (1926)
The Strange High House in the Mist (9 November 1926)
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (Autumn? 1926–22 January 1927)
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (January–1 March 1927)
The Colour out of Space (March 1927)
The Descendant (1927?)
History of the Necronomicon (September? 1927)
The Very Old Folk (2 November 1927)
Ibid (1928?)
The Dunwich Horror (Summer 1928)
The Whisperer in Darkness (24 February–26 September 1936)
At the Mountains of Madness (February–22 March 1931)
The Shadow over Innsmouth (November?–3 December 1931)
The Dreams in the Witch House (January–28 February 1932)
Through the Gates of the Silver Key (with E. Hoffmann Price; October 1932–April 1933)
The Thing on the Doorstep (21–24 August 1933)
The Evil Clergyman (fall 1933)
The Book (late 1933?)
The Shadow out of Time (November 1934–22 February 1935)
The Haunter of the Dark (November 1935)


APPENDIX

I. Juvenilia

The Little Glass Bottle (1897)
The Secret Cave or John Lees Adventure (1898)
The Mystery of the Grave-Yard (1898)
The Mysterious Ship (1902) Short version & Long version

II. Discarded draft: “The Shadow over Innsmouth”

III Supernatural Horror in Literature

First Post - ever.

Well, I own the Penguin editions, primarily due to their availability in Britian; the lovely Arkham House editions are somewhat scarce here (like all Lovecraft - related books, unfortunately), and so these are the ones I would recommend. However, I think some emphasis should be placed on the scholarly material which accompanies the Penguin editions; despite the inferiority of their paperbound presentation, each edition (there are 3 in total) contain illuminating introductions, annotated further reading lists (but these aren't complete bibliographies), and, best of all, a healthy wad of brilliant notes at the back, which really do enhance the stories trmedously. I don't think the AH editions contain detailed text notes.

So if you're interested in reading into the background surrounding Lovecraft's seminal works, the Penguin editions are your best bet (all the notes, intos. , and reading lists are authored by S.T. Joshi).

That's so effing sweeet, Jim! Even his childhood stuff is included -- and it's got the OTHER version of "The Mysterious Ship" which I have never seen before (I don't think it has been published before, in fact)!

Thanks a million!

You are welcome. The longer version of "The Mysterious Ship" is appearing in print for the first time, I believe, and only readers who have made some attempt to keep up on the miscellanies should have everything else in the book. I was very tempted by the Penguins when they appeared (the annotations and introductions to these novels tend to be excellent), but having invested in the corrected AH volumes as well as the restored, annotated texts to "Innsmouth" and "Shadow out of Time" from Necronomicon and Hippocampus not all that long before these appeared, I could not justify to myself the extra expenditure. They do, however, continue to beckon . . .

Jim

Yeah, Jim, it depends wether you have any other critical studies on Lovecraft by Joshi; if you do, then the necessitude for the Penguin editions depletes futher; although the notes in them do go into the specifics of the story that a book like (for instance) A Subtler Magick may not provide in its discussion of any one tale. The notes are very good, comprehensive, and informative - a dedicated disciple of Lovecraft would lap them up with vigour, I'm sure. It depends on how far you're willing to pursue the author - I can see the dilemma you're in.

A word of warning - if anyone is new to Lovecraft's tales, then I would advise reading them through prior to reading them with notes, as they can interrupt the flow of the stories first time round.

That is one of the reasons I have not yet bought the Penguins - I have quite a bit of Joshi's HPL criticism on the shelves already.

Jim

Quote:

Martinus:

"I have sent S. T. Joshi lists of all instances where the Penguins differ from the AHs".

Is there anywhere online to get these lists, or can one get them from you privately? I'd rather mark up my Penguins than buy yet another volume of Lovecraft (with all due respect to the old gent!).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 26 May 08 | 01:33PM by Kyberean.

Sure, I can e-mail them to any e-mail address of your choice. But mind you, it's just a list of differences; I don't know whether they are errors or not, although I suspect that many of them indeed are errors.

Yrs
Martin