H.P. LOVECRAFT
[Inspiration for Stephen King]
COMPLETE MAJOR WORKS

All the Major Masterpieces of H.P. Lovecraft
Classics of Horror Over 10,000 Pages Including "The Call of Cthulhu", At the Mountains of Madness and More! [Nook]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE
THE BEAST IN THE CAVE
THE ALCHEMIST
THE TOMB
DAGON
A REMINISCENCE OF DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON
POLARIS
BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP
THE TRANSITION OF JUAN ROMERO
THE WHITE SHIP
THE DOOM THAT CAME TO SARNATH
THE STATEMENT OF RANDOLPH CARTER
THE STREET
SWEET ERMENGARDE
THE TREE
THE TEMPLE
FACTS CONCERNING THE LATE ARTHUR JERMYN AND HIS FAMILY
CELEPHAÏS
FROM BEYOND
THE PICTURE IN THE HOUSE
THE NAMELESS CITY
THE QUEST OF IRANON
THE MOON-BOG
THE OUTSIDER
THE OTHER GODS
HERBERT WEST — REANIMATOR
THE MUSIC OF ERICH ZANN
HYPNOS
THE HOUND
THE LURKING FEAR
THE RATS IN THE WALLS
THE UNNAMABLE
THE FESTIVAL
IMPRISONED WITH THE PHARAOHS
THE SHUNNED HOUSE
THE HORROR AT RED HOOK
HE
IN THE VAULT
COOL AIR
THE CALL OF CTHULHU
PICKMAN'S MODEL
THE DREAM-QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH
THE SILVER KEY
THE STRANGE HIGH HOUSE IN THE MIST
THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD
THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE
THE VERY OLD FOLK
THE DUNWICH HORROR
THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS
AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS
THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH
THE DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE
THE EVIL CLERGYMAN
THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP
THROUGH THE GATES OF THE SILVER KEY
THE HAUNTER OF THE DARK
FRAGMENTS
THE DESCENDANT


EXCERPT

"Examined at headquarters after a trip of intense strain and weariness, the prisoners all proved to be men of a very low, mixed-blooded, and mentally aberrant type. Most were seamen, and a sprinkling of Negroes and mulattoes, largely West Indians or Brava Portuguese from the Cape Verde Islands, gave a colouring of voodooism to the heterogeneous cult. But before many questions were asked, it became manifest that something far deeper and older than Negro fetishism was involved. Degraded and ignorant as they were, the creatures held with surprising consistency to the central idea of their loathsome faith.

They worshipped, so they said, the Great Old Ones who lived ages before there were any men, and who came to the young world out of the sky. Those Old Ones were gone now, inside the earth and under the sea; but their dead bodies had told their secrets in dreams to the first men, who formed a cult which had never died. This was that cult, and the prisoners said it had always existed and always would exist, hidden in distant wastes and dark places all over the world until the time when the great priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in the mighty city of R'lyeh under the waters, should rise and bring the earth again beneath his sway. Some day he would call, when the stars were ready, and the secret cult would always be waiting to liberate him.

Meanwhile no more must be told. There was a secret which even torture could not extract. Mankind was not absolutely alone among the conscious things of earth, for shapes came out of the dark to visit the faithful few. But these were not the Great Old Ones. No man had ever seen the Old Ones. The carven idol was great Cthulhu, but none might say whether or not the others were precisely like him. No one could read the old writing now, but things were told by word of mouth. The chanted ritual was not the secret - that was never spoken aloud, only whispered. The chant meant only this: "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."

Only two of the prisoners were found sane enough to be hanged, and the rest were committed to various institutions. All denied a part in the ritual murders, and averred that the killing had been done by Black Winged Ones which had come to them from their immemorial meeting-place in the haunted wood. But of those mysterious allies no coherent account could ever be gained. What the police did extract, came mainly from the immensely aged mestizo named Castro, who claimed to have sailed to strange ports and talked with undying leaders of the cult in the mountains of China."