Cthulhu Mythos anthology
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Cthulhu_Mythos_anthology".

A Cthulhu Mythos anthology is a type of short story collection that contains stories written in or related to the Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror fiction launched by H. P. Lovecraft. Such anthologies have helped to define and popularize the genre.

content

Contents

Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos

Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos

Dust-jacket illustration by Lee Brown Coye for Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
Author H. P. Lovecraft and Others
Cover artist Lee Brown Coye
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Fantasy, Horror short stories
Publisher Arkham House
Publication date 1969
Media type Print (Hardback)
Pages vii, 407 pp
ISBN NA

Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, edited by August Derleth and published by Arkham House in 1969, is considered the first Cthulhu Mythos anthology. It contained two stories by Lovecraft, a number of reprints of pieces written by members of Lovecraft's circle of correspondents, and several new tales written for the collection by a new generation of Cthulhu Mythos writers. It was published in an edition of 4,024 copies.

Derleth prefaced the collection with "The Cthulhu Mythos", an outline of his (sometimes controversial) views on the development and content of the Mythos. In this introduction, Derleth prematurely declared the genre to be dead--"for certainly the Mythos as an inspiration for new fiction is hardly likely to afford readers with enough that is new and sufficiently different in execution to create a continuing and growing demand".[1]

Lin Carter later wrote that Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos "marked the beginning of a new era in the history of the Mythos for many reasons, and one of the most important was that it introduced a number of new writers in the Mythos."[2]

Contents

The contents are:

*First appeared in the collection

Reprints

  • New York: Ballantine, 1971 (2 vols.).
  • London: Grafton, 1988.

The Disciples of Cthulhu

The Disciples of Cthulhu

Cover illustration by Karel Thole for The Disciples of Cthulhu
Author edited by Edward P. Berglund
Cover artist Karel Thole
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Fantasy, Horror short stories
Publisher DAW Books
Publication date 1976
Media type Print (Paperback)
Pages 288 pp
ISBN NA

The Disciples of Cthulhu was edited by Edward P. Berglund and published by DAW Books in 1976. Berglund later described it as "the first professional, all-original, Cthulhu Mythos anthology".[3]

Perhaps responding to the introduction to Derleth's collection, Berglund wrote in his preface: "Whether or not there is a market for the Cthulhu Mythos stories, established and amateur writers will continue to write them for their own and their friends' amusement and enjoyment. It is inevitable that one or more readers of this volume will be influenced into trying his hand at writing within the Cthulhu Mythos genre."

Contents

The contents are:

When the collection was reprinted by Chaosium in 1996, the Carter and Brennan stories were replaced by "Dope War of the Black Tong", a new Robert M. Price pastiche of Carter and Robert E. Howard, and "Glimpses" by A. A. Attanasio, which was supposed to be published in the original Disciples but ended up in the Arkham House anthology Nameless Places instead.

New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos

New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos

Dust-jacket illustration by Jason Van Hollander for New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
Author edited by Ramsey Campbell
Cover artist Jason Van Hollander
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Fantasy, Horror short stories
Publisher Arkham House
Publication date 1980
Media type Print (Hardback)
Pages xi, 257 pp
ISBN ISBN 0-87054-085-8

New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos was edited by Ramsey Campbell and published by Arkham House in 1980 in an edition of 3,647 copies. In his introduction, Campbell noted that "[i]n recent years the Mythos at times has seemed in danger of becoming conventionalized," despite the fact that "Lovecraft's intention and achievement was precisely to avoid the predictability and resultant lack of terror which beset the conventional macabre fiction of his day." Therefore, Campbell wrote, "in this anthology I have tended to favor less familiar treatments or uses of the Mythos.... They contain few erudite occultists, decaying towns, or stylistic pastiches.... Indeed, one of our tales hints at the ultimate event of the Mythos without ever referring to the traditional names."[4]

One story in the book is an expansion, by Martin S. Warnes, of Lovecraft's fragment "The Book".

Contents

The contents are:

Reprints

Arkham House

  • second printing, 1982 (2,057 copies).
  • third printing, 1987 (no print numbers given).

Others

  • London: Grafton, 1988.

Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos: Golden Anniversary Anthology

Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos

Dust-jacket illustration by Jeffrey K. Potter for Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
Author H. P. Lovecraft & Divers Hands
Illustrator Jeffrey K. Potter
Cover artist Jeffrey K. Potter
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Fantasy, Horror short stories
Publisher Arkham House
Publication date 1990
Media type Print (Hardback)
Pages xiv, 529 pp
ISBN ISBN 0-87054-159-5

Arkham House released a new edition of Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos in 1990, edited by James Turner with a substantially different selection of stories, reflecting the editor's disdain for "Mythos pastiches in which eccentric New England recluses utter the right incantations in the wrong books and are promptly eaten by a giant frog named Cthulhu." It was released in an edition of 7,015 copies.

Turner eliminates some authors from the earlier edition and uses different contributions from others--while still suggesting that "a few of the earliest pieces in this volume...now seem like pop-cultural kitsch." The added stories, he writes, are from "the relative handful of successful works that have been influenced by the Cthulhu Mythos...exemplifying the darkly enduring power of H. P. Lovecraft over a disparate group of writers who have made their own inimitable contributions to the Mythos."[5]

Contents

The contents are:

Reprints

Arkham House

  • second printing, 2000 (no print numbers given).

Others

  • New York: Ballantine/Del Rey, 1998.

Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos

Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos

Dust-jacket illustration by Gahan Wilson for Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos
Author edited by Robert M. Price
Cover artist Gahan Wilson
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Fantasy, Horror short stories
Publisher Fedogan & Bremer
Publication date 1992
Media type Print (Hardback)
Pages 327 pp
ISBN ISBN 187825202X

Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos was edited by Robert M. Price and published by Fedogan & Bremer in 1992. In an introduction, Price provides a "sketch of the Lovecraft Mythos and its evolution into the Cthulhu Mythos"--raising a defense of August Derleth's interpretation of the Mythos along the way. Price writes that his in choosing selections was to assemble "an alternate version" of Derleth's Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, though limited in scope to the writers of the pulp era. He included several pieces long out of print or reprinted only in obscure fanzines, and tried to focus on "stories in which certain important Mythos names or items are either first mentioned or most fully explained by the author who created them".[6]

Contents

The contents are:

Reprints

  • New York: Ballantine/Del Rey, 2002.

Cthulhu's Heirs

Cthulhu's Heirs

Cover of Cthulhu's Heirs
Author edited by Thomas M. K. Stratman
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Fantasy, Horror short stories
Publisher Chaosium
Publication date 1994
Media type Print (Paperback)
ISBN ISBN 1568820135

Cthulhu's Heir's was edited by Thomas M. K. Stratman and published by Chaosium in 1994. With the exception of contributions by Ramsey Campbell and Hugh B. Cave, the stories included are original to the collection. Stratman describes the tales as "more than 20 writers' visions into the landscape of Lovecraft Country."[7]

Contents

The contents are:

  • "Watch the Whiskers Sprout" by D. F. Lewis
  • "The Death Watch" by Hugh B. Cave
  • "The Return of the White Ship: The Quest for Cathuria" by Arthur William & Lloyd Breach
  • "Kadath/the Vision and the Journey" by t. Winter-Damon
  • "The Franklyn Paragraphs" by Ramsey Campbell
  • "Behold, I Stand at the Door and Knock" by Robert M. Price
  • "1968 RPI" by Joe Murphy
  • "Those of the Air" by Darrell Schweitzer and Jason van Hollander
  • "Mr. Skin" by Victor Milán
  • "Just Say No" by Gregory Nicoll
  • "The Scourge" by Charles M. Saplak
  • "Pickman's Legacy" by Gordon Linzner
  • "Of Dark Things & Midnight Places" by David Niall Wilson
  • "The Likeness" by Dan Perez
  • "An Early Frost" by Scott David Aniolowski
  • "Scene: A Room" by Craig Anthony
  • "The Seven Cities of Gold" by Crispin Burnham
  • "Shadows of Her Dreams" by Cary G. Osborne
  • "The Herald" by Daniel M. Burrello
  • "Typo" by Michael D. Winkle
  • "Star Bright, Star Byte" by Marella Sands

The Starry Wisdom

The Starry Wisdom: A Tribute to H. P. Lovecraft

Cover of The Starry Wisdom
Author edited by D. M. Mitchell
Country England
Language English
Genre(s) Fantasy, Horror short stories
Publisher Creation Books
Publication date 1994
Media type Print (Paperback)
Pages 191
ISBN ISBN 1871592321

The Starry Wisdom: A Tribute to H. P. Lovecraft was edited by D. M. Mitchell and published by Creation Books in 1994. Declaring that "Lovecraft has suffered much at the hands of unmindful critics and even more from uninspired and talentless imitators," Mitchell declares that the collection's goal is "to dig deeper, to bypass the superficial and access the subterranean channels of archetype and inspiration with which Lovecraft was connected.... [Lovecraft] crafted morbid and disturbing allegories of social and biological upheaval--cryptically prophetic and spiritually exploratory--this latent content of his work now needs excavating."[8]

Some of the stories in the collection--notably those by Burroughs and Ballard--were not inspired by Lovecraft, but were seen by Mitchell as sharing his "visions of cosmic alienation". In those stories that make direct references to the Cthulhu Mythos, they are "used only in passing--in the same informal way in which Lovecraft himself intended."[9]

Contents

The contents are:

  • "Lovecraft in Heaven" by Grant Morrison
  • "Third Eye Butterfly" by James Havoc and Mike Philbin
  • "A Thousand Young" by Robert M. Price
  • "The Night Sea-Maid Went Down" by Brian Lumley
  • "From this Swamp" by Henry Wessels
  • "Prisoner of the Coral Deep" by J. G. Ballard
  • "Black Static" by David Conway
  • "Red Mass" by Dan Kellett
  • "Wind Die. You Die. We Die" by William S. Burroughs
  • "The Call of Cthulhu" by John Coulthart & H. P. Lovecraft
  • "Potential" by Ramsey Campbell
  • "Walpurgisnachtmusik" by Simon Whitechapel
  • "Meltdown" by D. F. Lewis
  • "Beyond Reflection" by John Beal
  • "This Exquisite Corpse" by C. G. Brandrick & D. M. Mitchell
  • "Extracted from the Mouth of the Consumer, Rotting Pig" by Michael Gira
  • "Hypothetical Materfamilias" by Adele O. Gladwell
  • "The Sound of a Door Opening" by Don Webb
  • "The Courtyard" by Alan Moore
  • "The Dreamers in Darkness" by Peter Smith
  • "Pills for Miss Betsy" by Rick Grimes
  • "23 Nails" by Stephen Sennitt
  • "Ward 23" by D. M. Mitchell

Cthulhu 2000

Cthulhu 2000

Dust-jacket illustration by Bob Eggleton for Cthulhu 2000
Author edited by Jim Turner
Illustrator Bob Eggleton
Cover artist Bob Eggleton
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Fantasy, Horror short stories
Publisher Arkham House
Publication date 1995
Media type Print (Hardback)
Pages xvi, 413 pp
ISBN ISBN 0-87054-169-2

Cthulhu 2000: A Lovecraftian Anthology was edited by Jim Turner and published by Arkham House in 1995 in an edition of 4,927 copies. As in his earlier collection, Turner criticizes the "latter-day Mythos pastiche" as simply "a banal modern horror story, preceded by the inevitable Necronomicon epigraph and indiscriminately interspersed with sesquipedalian deities, ichor-oozing tentacles, sundry eldritch abominations, and then the whole sorry mess rounded off with a cachinnating chorus of "Iä! Iä!"-chanting frogs." He declares that "the works collected in the present volume are not great Lovecraft stories; they rather are great stories in some way inspired by Lovecraft."[10]

Contents

The contents are:

Reprints

  • New York: Ballantine/Del Rey, 1999.

The New Lovecraft Circle

The New Lovecraft Circle

Dust-jacket illustration by Gahan Wilson for The New Lovecraft Circle
Author edited by Robert M. Price
Cover artist Gahan Wilson
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Fantasy, Horror short stories
Publisher Fedogan & Bremer
Publication date 1996
Media type Print (Hardback)
Pages 371 pp
ISBN ISBN 187825216X

The New Lovecraft Circle was edited by Robert M. Price and published by Fedogan & Bremer in 1996 in an edition of 2,000 copies. Presenting the book as a sequel to Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos, which focused on the circle of writers around Lovecraft that were collected in the first half of Derleth's Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, Price declares that "the present collection means to ape the second half, to commemorate that dawn of a new era of Mythos fiction." He describes the contents as "little known and seldom seen stories by most of the seven members of the New Lovecraft Circle numbered by Lin Carter and by other, more recent adepts as well, for the tradition grows. The cult will not be stamped out."[11]

Contents

The contents are:

  • "Preface", by Ramsey Campbell
  • "Introduction", by Robert M. Price
  • "The Plain of Sound" by Ramsey Campbell
  • "The Stone on the Island" by Ramsey Campbell
  • "The Statement of One John Gibson" by Brian Lumley
  • "Demoniacal" by David Sutton
  • "The Kiss of Bugg-Shash" by Brian Lumley
  • "The Slitherer from the Slime" by H. P. Lowcraft
  • "The Doom of Yakthoob" by Lin Carter
  • "The Fishers from Outside" by Lin Carter
  • "The Keeper of the Flame" by Gary Myers
  • "Dead Giveaway" by J. Vernon Shea
  • "Those Who Wait" by James Wade
  • "The Keeper of Dark Point" by John Glasby
  • "The Black Mirror" by John Glasby
  • "I've Come to Talk with You Again" by Karl Edward Wagner
  • "The Howler in the Dark" by Richard L. Tierney
  • "The Horror on the Beach" by Alan Dean Foster
  • "The Whisperers" by Richard Lupoff
  • "Lights! Camera! Shub-Niggurath!" by Richard Lupoff
  • "Saucers from Yaddith" by Robert M. Price
  • "Vastarien" by Thomas Ligotti
  • "The Madness out of Space" by Peter H. Cannon
  • "Aliah Warden" by Roger Johnson
  • "The Last Supper" by Donald R. Burleson
  • "The Church at Garlock's Bend" by David Kaufman
  • "The Spheres Beyond Sound (Threnody)" by Mark Rainey

Reprints

  • New York: Ballantine/Del Rey, 2004.

The Children of Cthulhu

The Children of Cthulhu

Cover of The Children of Cthulhu
Author edited by John Pelan and Benjamin Adams
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Fantasy, Horror short stories
Publisher Ballantine Books
Publication date 2002
Media type Print (Paperback)
ISBN ISBN 0345449266

The Children of Cthulhu, published by Ballantine Books in 2002, was edited by John Pelan and Benjamin Adams. In the introduction, the editors wrote:

For this collection, we asked authors to break past the '[if it ain't broke,] don't fix it' mentality and bring Lovecraft's original concepts kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century.... The stories in this collection range from the historical to the futuristic. What they share is each writer's reaction to the vision of H. P. Lovecraft and an affinity for his core concepts.:[12]

All the stories are original to the volume with the exception of Poppy Z. Brite's "Are You Loathsome Tonight?" which originally appeared in her 1998 collection of the same name.

Contents

The contents are:

  • "Details" by China Miéville
  • "Visitation" by James Robert Smith
  • "The Invisible Empire" by James Van Pelt
  • "A Victorian Pot Dresser" by L. H. Maynard & M. P. N. Sims
  • "The Cabin in the Woods" by Richard Laymon
  • "The Stuff of the Stars, Leaking" by Tim Lebbon
  • "Sour Places" by Mark Chadbourn
  • "Meet Me on the Other Side" by Yvonne Navarro
  • "That's the Story of My Life" by John Pelan & Benjamin Adams
  • "Long Meg and Her Daughters" by Paul Finch
  • "A Fatal Exception Has Occurred At..." by Alan Dean Foster
  • "Dark of the Moon" by James S. Dorr
  • "Red Clay" by J. Michael Reaves
  • "Principles and Parameters" by Meredith L. Patterson
  • "Are You Loathsome Tonight?" by Poppy Z. Brite
  • "The Serenade of Starlight" by W. H. Pugmire, Esq.
  • "Outside" by Steve Rasnic Tem
  • "Nor the Demons Down Under the Sea" by Caitlín R. Kiernan
  • "The Spectacle of a Man" by Weston Ochse
  • "The Firebrand Symphony" by Brian Hodge
  • "Teeth" by Matt Cardin

Cthulhu Unbound

Cthulhu Unbound
Author edited by John Sunseri and Thom Brannan
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Fantasy, Horror short stories
Publisher Permuted Press
Publication date 2008
Media type Print (Paperback)
ISBN TBD
Followed by Cthulhu Unbound2

Cthulhu Unbound is scheduled to be published by Permuted Press at the end of 2008. It was edited by John Sunseri and Thom Brannan. The volume is a “cross-genre” anthology, telling Lovecraft-inspired stories that are comedies, space operas, hardboiled noir, etc.

Contents

The contents are:

  • "Noir-lathotep" by Linda Donahue
  • "The Invasion Out of Time" by Trent Roman
  • "James and the Dark Grimoire" by Kevin Lauderdale
  • "Hellstone and Brimfire" by John Goodman
  • "Star Crossed" by Bennet Reilly
  • "The Covenant" by Kim Paffenroth
  • "The Hindenburg Manifesto" by Lee Clark Zumpe
  • "In Our Darkest Hour" by Steven Graham
  • "Blood Bags and Tentacles" by DL Snell
  • "Bubba Cthulhu's Last Stand" by Lisa Hilton
  • "Turf" by Richard D. Moore
  • "The Menagerie" by Ben Thomas
  • "The Patriot" by John Goodrich
  • "The Shadow over Las Vegas" by John Claude Smith
  • "Locked Room" by CJ Henderson

Cthulhu Unbound2

Cthulhu Unbound2
Author edited by John Sunseri and Thom Brannan
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Fantasy, Horror short stories
Publisher Permuted Press
Publication date 2009
Media type Print (Paperback)
ISBN TBD
Preceded by Cthulhu Unbound

Cthulhu Unbound2 is scheduled to be published by Permuted Press early in 2009. It was edited by John Sunseri and Thom Brannan. The volume us a “cross-genre” anthology, telling Lovecraft-inspired stories that are comedies, space operas, hardboiled noir, etc.

Contents

The contents are:

  • "Passing Down" by Inez Schaechterle
  • "The Tenants of Ladywell Manor" by Willie Meikle
  • "The Hunters Within the Corners" by Douglas P. Wojtowicz
  • "Surely You Joust" by Patrick Thomas
  • "References in Cthonic, Eldritch, Roiling Creations are Recondite" by Warren Tusk
  • "New Fish" by Kiwi Courters
  • "Tomb on a Dead Moon" by Tim Curran
  • "The Long, Deep Dream" by Peter Clines
  • "Santiago Contra el Culto de Cthulhu" by Mark Zirbel
  • "Stomach Acid" by David Conyers and Brian M. Sammons
  • "Sleeping Monster Futures" by Brandon Alspaugh
  • "Nemo at R'lyeh" by Joshua Reynolds
  • "What's a Few Tentacles Among Friends?" by Sheila Crosby
  • "An Incident Occurring in the Huachuca Mountains, West of Tombstone" by Gary Vehar
  • "Abomination With Rice" by Rhys Hughes

Notes

  1. ^ August Derleth, "The Cthulhu Mythos", Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos.
  2. ^ Lin Carter, Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos, p. 175.
  3. ^ Edward P. Berglund, "Preface to the Revised Edition", The Disciples of Cthulhu.
  4. ^ Ramsey Campbell, "Introduction", New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos.
  5. ^ James Turner, "Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn!" Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos: Golden Anniversary Anthology.
  6. ^ Robert M. Price, "Introduction", Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos.
  7. ^ Thomas M. K. Stratman, "The Nameless Manuscript", Cthulhu's Heirs, p. 8.
  8. ^ D. M. Mitchell, "Foreword", The Starry Wisdom, p. 9.
  9. ^ Mitchell, pp. 9-10.
  10. ^ Jim Turner, "Cthulhu 2000", Cthulhu 2000, p. xv.
  11. ^ Robert M. Price, "Introduction", The New Lovecraft Circle, p. xvii.
  12. ^ John Pelan and Benjamin Adams, "The Call of Lovecraft, The Children of Cthulhu, pp. ix-x.

References

  • Jaffery, Sheldon (1987). Future and Fantastic Worlds: A Bibliographic Retrospective of DAW Books (1972-1987). Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House, Inc., 74. ISBN 1-55742-002-5. 
  • Jaffery, Sheldon (1989). The Arkham House Companion. Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House, Inc., 91-92, 123-124. ISBN 1-55742-005-X. 
  • Chalker, Jack L.; Mark Owings (1998). The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Bibliographic History, 1923-1998. Westminster, MD and Baltimore: Mirage Press, Ltd., 45, 53, 57-58, 60, 252, 254-255. 
  • Joshi, S.T. (1999). Sixty Years of Arkham House: A History and Bibliography. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 104-105, 146, 161, 166. ISBN 0-87054-176-5. 
  • Nielsen, Leon (2004). Arkham House Books: A Collector's Guide. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., 103-104, 126, 136-137, 139. ISBN 0-7864-1785-4. 

External links
© jGames.co.uk 2007 (some content from Wikipedia under GDL ) !-- ValueClick Media 468x60 and 728x90 Banner CODE for jgames.co.uk -->
Your Ad Here