Digital List Price:	$39.95
Kindle Price:	$22.99 Save $16.96 (42%)
Sold by:	Amazon.com Services LLC

Read with our free app

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

Follow the authors

The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft (The Annotated Books) Kindle Edition

by H.P. Lovecraft (Author), Leslie S. Klinger (Editor), Alan Moore (Introduction) Format: Kindle Edition

4.8 857 ratings

Editors' pick Best Science Fiction & Fantasy

See all formats and editions

Finalist for the HWA’s Bram Stoker Award for Best Anthology

Named one of the Best Books of the Year by Slate and the San Francisco Chronicle

From across strange aeons comes the long-awaited annotated edition of “the twentieth century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale” (Stephen King).

"With an increasing distance from the twentieth century…the New England poet, author, essayist, and stunningly profuse epistolary Howard Phillips Lovecraft is beginning to emerge as one of that tumultuous period’s most critically fascinating and yet enigmatic figures," writes Alan Moore in his introduction to The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft. Despite this nearly unprecedented posthumous trajectory, at the time of his death at the age of forty-six, Lovecraft's work had appeared only in dime-store magazines, ignored by the public and maligned by critics. Now well over a century after his birth, Lovecraft is increasingly being recognized as the foundation for American horror and science fiction, the source of "incalculable influence on succeeding generations of writers of horror fiction" (Joyce Carol Oates).

In this volume, Leslie S. Klinger reanimates Lovecraft with clarity and historical insight, charting the rise of the erstwhile pulp writer, whose rediscovery and reclamation into the literary canon can be compared only to that of Poe or Melville. Weaving together a broad base of existing scholarship with his own original insights, Klinger appends Lovecraft's uncanny oeuvre and Kafkaesque life story in a way that provides context and unlocks many of the secrets of his often cryptic body of work.

Over the course of his career, Lovecraft—"the Copernicus of the horror story" (Fritz Leiber)—made a marked departure from the gothic style of his predecessors that focused mostly on ghosts, ghouls, and witches, instead crafting a vast mythos in which humanity is but a blissfully unaware speck in a cosmos shared by vast and ancient alien beings. One of the progenitors of "weird fiction," Lovecraft wrote stories suggesting that we share not just our reality but our planet, and even a common ancestry, with unspeakable, godlike creatures just one accidental revelation away from emerging from their epoch of hibernation and extinguishing both our individual sanity and entire civilization.

Following his best-selling The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Leslie S. Klinger collects here twenty-two of Lovecraft's best, most chilling "Arkham" tales, including "The Call of Cthulhu," At the Mountains of Madness, "The Whisperer in Darkness," "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," "The Colour Out of Space," and others. With nearly 300 illustrations, including full-color reproductions of the original artwork and covers from Weird Tales and Astounding Stories, and more than 1,000 annotations, this volume illuminates every dimension of H. P. Lovecraft and stirs the Great Old Ones in their millennia of sleep.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

H(oward) P(hillips) Lovecraft (1890–1937) posthumously earned a reputation for outstanding short story writing in the horror genre. The irony is that, during his lifetime, he appeared in print only in the so-called pulp magazines and appreciation for his work was modest. But as expressed in Alan Moore’s on-target introduction here, in the years following Lovecraft’s death, the “mesmerizing power of his language and imagination” gained him a wider and more enthusiastic readership than he would have ever imagined for himself. The foreword by Leslie S. Klinger is a highly informative history of the horror genre and a trenchant summary of Lovecraft’s life, all of which preface the primary section of this giant book, a presentation of 22 of Lovecraft’s most significant stories, each fully annotated with identifications of people and places, definitions of unfamiliar vocabulary, and background explanations of mentioned literary works. This impressive book can be used two ways, either for checkout in circulating horror collections or for in-house-only reference. --Brad Hooper

Review

"A book I have profoundly hoped to see for ages, which gave me many very happy hours―thank you, thank you, thank you, Mr. Klinger and Liveright!"
― Gahan Wilson, author of Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons

"Annotator Les Klinger is the man you want to have by your side, as you explore the Lovecraftian Darkness."
― Neil Gaiman

"Lovecraft is intriguing for not only the rich substrate of astonishing and sometimes prescient ideas that is the bedrock of his work, but for the sheer unlikelihood of his ascent into the ranks of the respected U.S. literary canon…He is today revered to a degree comparable with that of his formative idol Edgar Allan Poe, a posthumous trajectory from pulp to academia that is perhaps unique in modern letters."
― Alan Moore, from the introduction

"[W]here does a reader longing to know more about Lovecraft’s fiction and philosophy begin when faced with the dozens of critical and interpretative studies and biographies? Thanks to the devoted work of Leslie S. Klinger, an excellent starting point is his The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft…Klinger has again created a serious work of research and scholarship that is shamelessly intended for fans―and is a joy to read… [A]n absolute essential addition to all horror fiction collections."
― Alan Cranis, Bookgasm.com

"I am utterly gobsmacked. The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft is a work of such readability, easy access, precision, and joy that its publication by Liveright is an Olympian landmark of modern gothic literature."
― Harlan Ellison

"The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, with its astonishingly informed and detailed notes and photographs, edited by Leslie S. Klinger, is a treasure trove for Lovecraft readers, for whom it will be an essential purchase. A pleasure to peruse, encyclopediac in its information, and deeply sympathetic with its subject."
― Joyce Carol Oates

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00N33M25M
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Liveright; Annotated edition (October 13, 2014)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 13, 2014
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 52239 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 1341 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #926,475 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #783 in Horror Fiction Classics
- #1,650 in U.S. Horror Fiction
- #1,890 in Horror Short Stories

Customer Reviews:
4.8 857 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the authors

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Leslie S. Klinger
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
Leslie S. Klinger is considered to be one of the world's foremost authorities on those icons of the Victorian era, Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, and Frankenstein. He is the editor of the three-volume collection of the short stories and novels, THE NEW ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES, published by W. W. Norton in 2004 and 2005, winner of the Edgar Award for Best Critical/Biographical Work and nominated for every other major award in the mystery genre. THE NEW ANNOTATED DRACULA, published by W. W. Norton in 2008, offers a similar in-depth examination of Bram Stoker's haunting classic and its historical context. It received a starred review in Publishers' Weekly.
Since the 1960s, the study of the rich fantastic literature of the Victorian writers has been Klinger's consuming passion. He has written dozens of articles on Sherlockiana, published 20 books on Sherlock Holmes in addition to the Norton work, and regularly teaches UCLA Extension courses on "Sherlock Holmes and His World" and "Dracula and His World." Klinger's Sherlock Holmes Reference Library has been called by the Baker Street Journal "the standard text of reference for all serious Sherlockians." He contributed essays to Playboy Magazine and the Times of London on vampires and served as the technical adviser for Warner Bros. on the "Sherlock Holmes" films starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law.
Klinger has edited several anthologies of stories relating to Holmes, vampires, horror, and Victorian fiction, including "In the Shadow of Dracula" and "In the Shadow of Sherlock Holmes" for IDW Books and "In the Shadow of Edgar Allen Poe" for Pegasus Books. He has also co-edited with Laurie R. King four anthologies of new stories about Sherlock Holmes, "A Study in Sherlock," the Anthony-winning "In the Company of Sherlock Holmes," "Echoes of Sherlock Holmes," and "For the Sake of the Game." The four-volume "The Annotated Sandman" in collaboration with Neil Gaiman for DC Entertainment appeared in 2012-14, and his "Watchmen: Annotated Edition" was published by DC Entertainment in 2017. Also in 2017, his "New Annotated Frankenstein," published by W. W. Norton, was nominated for a World Fantasy Award. Klinger's "The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft," shortlisted for the Bram Stoker Award, appeared in 2014, and a second volume, "New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft: Beyond the Mythos" will be published by Norton in 2019.
Klinger and co-editor Laura Caldwell just completed "ANATOMY OF INNOCENCE: TESTIMONIES OF THE WRONGFULLY CONVICTED," published by Liveright Publishing/W. W. Norton in 2017. This harrowing anthology pairs exonerees with major mystery/thriller writers to tell their tales of despair, hope, and courage. A nonprofit project, proceeds from the book benefit innocence projects.
In 2018, Klinger published "Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s," a massive annotated collection of five novels, including the first Charlie Chan mystery, the first Ellery Queen mystery, the first Philo Vance mystery, Dashiell Hammett's first novel, and "Little Caesar," the first gangster novel. The book was awarded the Edgar for Best Critical/Biographical and is nominated for several other awards.
Later in 2019, Neil Gaiman's "Annotated American Gods," edited with notes by Klinger, will appear from William Morrow.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Klinger received an AB in English from the University of California, Berkeley, followed by a JD from Boalt Hall (School of Law, U.C. Berkeley). Since then, he has lived in Los Angeles, pursuing a legal career in tax, estate, and business planning. Klinger is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, the Horror Writers Association, and the Mystery Writers of America. He served for three years as the chapter president of the SoCal Chapter of MWA and on its National Board of Directors, and he is the Treasurer of the Horror Writers Association.
See more on the author's page
H.P. Lovecraft
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
H. P. Lovecraft was born in 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island, where he lived most of his life. He wrote many essays and poems early in his career, but gradually focused on the writing of horror stories, after the advent in 1923 of the pulp magazine Weird Tales, to which he contributed most of his fiction. His relatively small corpus of fiction--three short novels and about sixty short stories--has nevertheless exercised a wide influence on subsequent work in the field, and he is regarded as the leading twentieth-century American author of supernatural fiction. H. P. Lovecraft died in Providence in 1937.
See more on the author's page

Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5

857 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Reviews with images

See all photos

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Severian

Really Well Done, Best for HPL Fans, but Fine for Newcomers

Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2014

Verified Purchase

Lovecraft benefits from annotation more than most authors do, both because of the self-referential nature of a lot of his work and the historical context that informs his work. HPL intended his work to be set in a realistic modern world, and as his "modern world" grows more and more remote from ours as time passes, the essential modernness of his settings can only be conveyed by annotation, unless the reader is especially well informed about early 20th Cent history and culture.

Those who want an annotated Lovecraft can now choose between Joshi's three Penguin volumes and this one. The Klinger edition has only a selection of stories, and some of these are questionable in terms of quality, and were included at the expense of other better work. So then, if you want annotations to all Lovecraft or simply want an annotated favorite that is not in Klinger, Joshi may be a better choice. If you want a full ranging experience though, Klinger's volume has beautiful production values, and lots of illustrations, along with a great introduction and appendices. (A faculty list of Arkham U!) Although not every story has great illustrations, and though the quality of annotations varies a bit from one story to the next (sometimes Klinger just doesn't seem to have much to say...) this is a great book for Lovecraft fans and a reasonable introduction to the author for newbies. (Though as the newcomer slogs through the pulp schlock of "Herbert West" and the erudite scientific blather of "Mountains of Madness", s/he may have second thoughts about whether or not they want to read more of Lovecraft!)

Klinger does a better job here than he did with his disappointing "Dracula" (which seemed to incorporate a rather high percentage of its note occasions from the earlier Leatherdale annotated Dracula, which was largely superior.) Klinger's annotated HPL is more on the level of his excellent annotated Holmes books, with a mix of notes, some based on earlier efforts to annotate the works (Joshi's) and some based on Klinger's own sensibilities and research. Klinger does not state in his intro as to whether or not he is pretending Lovecraft's work is "real" as he did with Conan Doyle & Stoker, and after reading a few of the stories, I couldn't tell if Klinger is attempting that feat of imagination here or not. It's fine with me either way, but I know some readers of his annotated Holmes or Dracula were greatly annoyed at his efforts along those imaginary lines. I presume such readers will find that trait less annoying here as it is not much in evidence.

Klinger also is to be commended for including a fairly wide range of modern Lovecraft interpretations in his notes, and does not just quote Joshi exclusively. I feel Joshi has a pretty keen grasp of HPL's mindset and aesthetics, but IMO Joshi sometimes tries a bit too hard to put his thoughts into Lovecraft's work, so a bit of critical variety adds depth and interest to Klinger's volume.

Though I wish the story selection was a bit more focused on the creme de la creme of HPL's work, this is a fun book for fans and its impeccable production and quality of annotation easily give it five stars. Plus at this price point, it's a great value, as it runs close to 1,000 pages in length for a nicely designed and well made oversize book. If you are a Lovecraft fan, this is a no-brainer purchase, and if you are new to this interesting author, this is a fine place to begin. I hope we will see at least one more volume in this series, if not two!

43 people found this helpful

Helpful

Gregory Alan Wingo

The Color Out of Space....

Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2019

Verified Purchase

While reviewing and reading esoteric pieces on H. P. Lovecraft, I realized I never reviewed this tome of his great works. The more you read of and about Lovecraft, the more you realize that the Klinger's choice of dedicating this book through HPL's quote "I am Providence" is perfect. The essence of Lovecraft is his hometown of Providence, Rhode Island and New England in general. Warts and all, HPL was a New England antiquarian dedicated to preserving the history and creating a mythology of the region for the 20th century but rooted in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Klinger's notes and photographic choices bring this relationship fully to the reader. His Foreword places Lovecraft in his milieu as a flawed man and an obscure author.

Klinger does an excellent job of relating the classical studies of Lovecraft and the underlying threat of his parents' insanity to his work. As Klinger states HPL's earliest works such as "Dagon" already contain "...signature features: truly alien beings, experiences and sensations that cannot be processed by human brains, and a deep sense of doom." Lovecraft also steps off with something more than horror, his work is embedded like Verne and Wells with "...the juxtaposition of modern technology...and exploration." This anticipation of sci-fi in his works reaches its fruition in "The Colour Out of Space":

'...Lovecraft's favorite story, is the first major tale of his to combine classic science fiction (before the genre even existed) and horror...that terror could come from the stars....The banal descriptions of the fruitless scientific investigations contrast starkly with the inexplicable, gradual destruction....Preceding the famous Orson Welles broadcast of 'War of the Worlds' by more than ten years, the story brought the fear of alien invasion."

This concept of madness induced by alien intelligence and the fear of the universe wrapping around us still influences SF as the recent success of "Arrival" with its Lovecraftian hexapods illustrates. Fritz Leiber argues that Lovecraft reached his highest level of science fiction in "The Dreams of the Witch House" by - in Klinger's words - "...an effort to imagine the fourth dimension, or hyperspace....Lovecraft proffers a scientific explanation for seventeenth-century witchcraft as well, involving higher mathematics."

This book contains in total twenty-two short stories, novellas, and novels laid out in chronological order, thus, allowing the reader to follow the evolution of Lovecraft as a writer. It also has an introduction by Alan Moore and seven appendices on various aspects of the man and his legacy. It is a definitive collection of Lovecraft's best stories and their development. No fan should not own and read its updated texts.

24 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

Bianka Dianey Zamora

Lo compré como regalo

Reviewed in Mexico on February 10, 2024

Verified Purchase

A mi novio le encantó, es fan de Lovecraft, es de buen tamaño, la calidad de la impresión es muy buena. Yo esperaba que tuviera más ilustraciones, es un libro de texto en su gran mayoría. Me gustaría que si hubieran incluído imágenes, pero esto es cuestión meramente personal. Como para una persona que disfruta a este autor, sí recomiendo la compra, sobre todo porque se puede complementar otro regalo con el segundo tomo que sigue la misma estética que este.

Translate review to English

Mario Rodriguez

Excelente

Reviewed in Brazil on February 10, 2023

Verified Purchase

Maravilha

Translate review to English

Niall Norton

Excellent quality book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 19, 2024

Verified Purchase

I have several Lovecraft books and wondered about this purchase - but I am glad I did it as the content and presentation are excellent

Alex

Almost the best Lovecraft's antology out there

Reviewed in Spain on February 5, 2021

Verified Purchase

High quality illustrations, useful footnotes and annexes, nice paper quality... I'm really glad to get my hands over this edition. For just 30-35$ is definetly worth it. The only downside was a slightly rip on book's cover due to poor package protection.

Kristof G.

Came perfectly on time. Twice as thick as its sequel!

Reviewed in the Netherlands on January 28, 2021

Verified Purchase

The book is thorough and big, and really goes into a lot of detail. Absolutely massive for the price. Two slight issues that prevent me from giving it a full 5 stars:

- The packaging was substandard. The book was unprotected inside a cardboard box, and as a result the hardcover's corners were ever so slightly smooshed. This is not an issue with the book, but with the seller, obviously. Probably better to order it elsewhere if you're not home to receive the package and it might rain.
- This is really minor and fits better in a review of the sequel book, Beyond Arkham, which I purchased elsewhere, but: the pages are a slightly different colour than Beyond Arkham, and the cover is also a bit differently textured, and the spine is labeled a bit differently. Might be a problem if you're particular about this kind of thing.

Buy for others

Buying and sending eBooks to others

Follow the authors

Image Unavailable

The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft (The Annotated Books) Kindle Edition

Customers who bought this item also bought

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Review

About the Author

Product details

Videos

About the authors

Leslie S. Klinger

H.P. Lovecraft

Customer reviews

Reviews with images

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries