How to Collect the Cthulhu Mythos
Howard Phillips Lovecraft probably would find it quite amusing that not only are his stories being read and collected today, but that people are also still writing new ones within the shared background he created.Lovecraft never called it the Cthulhu Mythos in his time, but it has become known as that and has expanded dramatically since his first stories appeared in the 1920s. He encouraged this through correspondence with Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard and others. After his death, August Derleth named the background, expanded it and encourage others to join in.
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Instructions
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Start with Lovecraft’s writings. Most of his fiction is collected in three volumes from Arkham House Publishers: “Dagon and Other Macabre Tales,” “The Dunwich Horror and Others” and “At the Mountains of Madness and Other Macabre Tales.” Other stories, some of which fit within the mythos are collected in “The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions” and “Watcher Out of Time.” The former is filled with stories HPL actually wrote, but appeared under other bylines. The latter collects the posthumous collaborations with Derleth. Not all of HPL’s stories are part of the mythos.
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Collect the various incarnations of “Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos.” There are paperback and hard cover editions with varying stories from the likes of Smith, Howard, Robert Bloch, Frank Belknap Long and others. There also is “New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos” edited by Ramsey Campbell, himself a Lovecraftian writer. “Cthulhu 2000” is a later anthology edited by Arkham House editor Jim Turner.
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Look for the “cycle” books from Chaosium Inc. These books, a series of trade paperbacks, collects both new and old stories by theme. Usually there are one or two HPL stories along with stories by other writers, either contemporaries of Lovecraft or those who wrote later. By making these into theme books, Chaosium put together stories that otherwise were far-flung in a variety of books and magazines, many out of print.
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Be aware that for real collectors, there are the fantastic pulp magazines. Most of HPL’s works originally appeared in Weird Tales magazine in the 1920s and 1930s while he still was alive. More appeared in its pages following his death in 1937. Some appeared elsewhere, notably the mythos stories of “At the Mountains of Madness” and “Shadow Out of Time” in Astounding Stories. The former appears in the February, March and April issues while the latter is in the June 1936 issue.
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Collect other authors. Some of the best Cthulhu Mythos stories were not written by HPL. Howard and Smith in particular were better writers and their forays into the mythos make for better reading. There are Chaosium volumes devoted to them and their stories are collected elsewhere, too.
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To really get the full range of mythos works, try the fan fiction available on the Internet and in some book collections. Much of it is as good as “fan fiction” insinuates, but some of it is good.
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Resources
- Photo Credit Shawn M. Tomlinson
