The Call of Cthulhu and Other Tales — The Pre-1931 Stories (eBook)

The verified pre-1931 tales — every story in this collection is documented as public domain.

Twenty-three tales, 128,422 words, in the order Lovecraft published them: from "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" and "Dagon" in the amateur journals of 1919 to "The Dunwich Horror" in Weird Tales, April 1929. Here are "The Call of Cthulhu," "The Colour Out of Space," "The Rats in the Walls," "Pickman's Model," "The Music of Erich Zann," "Herbert West—Reanimator," "The Festival," "Cool Air," and the dream-fables of Sarnath, Ulthar, and the White Ship — the whole first decade, and nothing past the line: no collaborations, no revisions of other men's work, and no tale that waited until after 1930 to be published. The famous later works published in the 1930s and 1940s are excluded on principle, and the appendix shows the working, tale by tale.

The texts follow transcriptions of the original magazine printings — Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, and the amateur press — each cut to its verified first and last lines. Inside: an introduction on the tales before the Mythos industry; a Who's Who glossary of the gods, books, people, and places of the included tales only; five explainers (pulp magazine economics; Providence and the haunted map of New England; the cosmic-horror method; Lovecraft's circle of correspondents; and what Arkham House, the "Mythos," and the games made of him after his death); a short life of Lovecraft; an honest note on the period, including his prejudices and the unaltered period language; an appendix table of all 23 tales with written and first-publication dates; and discussion questions for four groups of tales plus a whole-collection set — 28 questions in all.

US public domain by publication date (story-by-story documentation in the edition); Lovecraft died 1937 — his work is public domain in life+70 countries as well. All companion material is original to this edition. This is an independent edition, not affiliated with Chaosium or any game publisher. A printable Book Club Kit is available in this store.