Dreams of Terror and Death: The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft

by H. P. Lovecraft, Neil Gaiman (Introduction)

Overview

“[Lovecraft's] dream fantasy works are as terrifying and haunting as his tales of horror and the macabre. A master craftsman, Lovecraft brings compelling visions of nightmarish fear, invisible worlds and the demons of the unconscious. If one author truly represents the very best in American literary horror, it is H. P. Lovecraft.”—John Carpenter, Director of At the Mouth of Madness, Halloween, and Christine

With an introduction by Neil Gaiman

This volume collects, for the first time, the entire Dream Cycle created by H. P. Lovecraft, the master of twentieth-century horror, including some of his most fantastic tales:

The Doom That Came to Sarnath—Hate, genocide, and a deadly curse consume the land of Mnar.
The Statment of Randolph Carter—“You fool, Warren is DEAD!”
The Nameless City—Death lies beneath the shifting sands, in a story linking the Dream Cycle with the legendary Cthulhu Mythos.
The Cats of Ulthar—In Ulthar, no man may kill a cat...and woe unto any who tries.
The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath—The epic nightmare adventure with tendrils stretching throughout the entire Dream Cycle.

And twenty more tales of surreal terror!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780345384218
Publisher:	Random House Worlds
Publication date:	09/11/1995
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	668,104
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

Almost completely ignored by the mainstream press during his lifetime, H. P. Lovecraft has since come to be recognized as one of the greatest writers of classic horror, on a par with Edgar Allan Poe, Lovecraft's mentor. H. P. Lovecraft's work has been translated into more than a dozen languages, his tales adapted for film, television, and comic books, and he has been the subject of more scholarly study than any other writer of horror fiction save Poe.

Neil Gaiman used to be a journalist, but gave it all up to write comics, which he claims are a totally valid late-twentieth-century art form, and he’s even won awards for them, so that’s all right. He’s 5’11” tall, owns a number of black T-shirts, and although he’s not overly keen on banana daiquiris, is always very flattered when appreciative fans send him money (he’s read Terry Pratchett’s biography, and, although he doubts that this will have any effect, figures what the hell).

Read an Excerpt

Concerning Dreams and Nightmares
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft: Dreams of Terror and Death"
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Copyright © 1995 H.P. Lovecraft.
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Editorial Reviews

Horror master Lovecraft (1890-1937) frequently used dreams in his tales of the supernatural to evoke fantastic worlds inconceivable to the conscious mind. This repackaging of 25 stories and fragments calls attention to that aspect of Lovecraft's work, but it won't convince anyone that the selections form a coherent cycle. In the light fantasies ``Celephais,'' ``The Silver Key'' and ``The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath,'' dreams are vehicles for travel to lands of enchantment in which men rub shoulders with gods and imaginary creatures. In the terror tales ``The Dreams in the Witch-House,'' ``Hypnos'' and ``The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,'' dreams intrude upon reality and serve as portents for horrors too terrible to engage directly. Both ``The Statement of Randolph Carter'' and the prose-poem ``Nyarlathotep'' are based on actual dreams of Lovecraft's, but a number of the other stories, good though they are, have no dream association whatsoever. Comics virtuoso Neil Gaiman (Sandman) supplies a respectful introduction that gives no clue to the selection criteria and, in several places, is factually incorrect. (Lovecraft placed two tales, not one, in the magazine Astounding Stories before its name was changed to Astounding Science Fiction, and before the tenure of editor John W. Campbell.) Its failed agenda notwithstanding, this book is a welcome tribute to a writer whose dreams inspired some of this century's finest literary nightmares. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly