In The Walls Of Eryx Fantasy And Horror Classics

In the Lovecraftian universe there exists many terrible and horrifying things, from extraterrestrial gods and ancient secrets to zealous cults, supernatural beasts and beyond. Lovecraft's 1939 short story "In the Walls of Eryx" centres around the life and demise of a Venetian prospector who becomes lost in an invisible maze while mining on the planet Venus. Lovecraft's first and only science fiction story, this book is not to be missed by short story lovers and fans of Lovecraft's exceptional fiction. Other notable works by this author include: “At the Mountains of Madness”, “The Rats in the Walls”, and “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”. Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890–1937) was an American writer of supernatural horror fiction. Though his works remained largely unknown and did not furnish him with a decent living, Lovecraft is today considered to be among the most significant writers of supernatural horror fiction of the twentieth century. Read & Co. is publishing this classic short story now as part of our “Fantasy and Horror Classics” imprint in a new edition with a dedication by George Henry Weiss.

Slithering from these pages are never-before-collected tales of suspense and wonder by the woman who invented modern-day dark fantasy: A man goes quietly to bed aboard the doomed Lusitania and awakens on a magical South Pacific Island just as the passenger liner is torpedoed. In a future where women rule the world, a sentient island becomes murderously jealous of a shipwrecked couple. Dire consequences await a human swept into the dark, magical world of elves. A deadly labyrinth coils around the dark heart of a picturesque landscape garden. Within an Egyptian sarcophagus lies the horrifying price of infidelity. Swirling unseen around us are loathsome creatures giving form to our basest desires and fears. A beautiful, veiled medium may hold the key to preventing unspeakable evil from slipping through the borderlands between life and death. On a lost island a woman pipe player and her monstrous dancing partner bring death and terror to five adventurers. ø The stories in this collection have played an integral role in the development of modern dark fantasy, greatly influencing such writers as H. P. Lovecraft and A. Merritt.

More than 10 000 years ago something terrible happened in the land of Mnar. Shepherd people built a new city called Sarnath. But the land they took to themselves was not uninhabited – there was a strange race living in the area, and they even had their own town called Ib. The people of Sarnath decided to destroy the other race. But they didn’t know that one day these creatures would return and have their revenge... H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) was an American horror writer. His best known works include ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ and ‘the Mountains of Madness’. Most of his work was originally published in pulp magazines, and Lovecraft rose into fame only after his death at the age of 46. He has had a great influence in both horror and science fiction genres.

For decades, Robert H. Waugh has been a scintillating critic of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. A leading analyst of H. P. Lovecraft, Waugh now brings his critical talents to the assessment of an array of fantasy and science fiction writers, past and present. In a trilogy of essays, Waugh studies David Lindsay's pioneering novel A Voyage to Arcturus (1920), probing its relations to the work of Goethe and its distinctive vocabulary. Two essays discuss the largely ignored work of Olaf Stapledon, while another pair of essays examine key novels by Arthur C. Clarke. Subsequent pieces reveal Waugh's acumen in analyzing the work of William Gibson (Neuromancer), the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories and other works by Fritz Leiber, and parallels between Leiber's work and that of James Tiptree, Jr. The book concludes with a rumination on Lovecraft's collaborative science fiction story "In the Walls of Eryx." Waugh illuminates the complexities of all these authors' works with effortless elegance and panache. Robert H. Waugh is a former professor of English at the State University of New York at New Paltz. He is the author of the essay collections The Monster in the Mirror: Looking for H. P. Lovecraft (2006) and A Monster of Voices: Speaking for H. P. Lovecraft (2011) as well as the short story collection The Bloody Tugboat and Other Witcheries (2015). He has also published several volumes of poetry.

'Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men. A time will come - but I must not and cannot think!' H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was a reclusive scribbler of horror stories for the American pulp magazines that specialized in Gothic and science fiction in the interwar years. He often published in Weird Tales and has since become the key figure in the slippery genre of 'weird fiction'. Lovecraft developed an extraordinary vision of feeble men driven to the edge of sanity by glimpses of malign beings that have survived from human prehistory or by malevolent extra-terrestrial visitations. The ornate language of his stories builds towards grotesque moments of revelation, quite unlike any other writer. This new selection brings together nine of his classic tales, focusing on the 'Cthulhu Mythos', a cycle of stories that develops the mythology of the Old Ones, the monstrous creatures who predate human life on earth. It includes the Introduction from Lovecraft's critical essay, 'Supernatural Horror in Literature', in which he gave his own important definition of 'weird fiction'. In a fascinating contextual introduction, Roger Luckhurst gives Lovecraft the attention he deserves as a writer who used pulp fiction to explore a remarkable philosophy that shockingly dethrones the mastery of man.

"My name is Axios Leontius of Sparta, and I was born to kill. At age seven, I was torn from my mothers arms and left home to train with a group of other boys. We were taught obedience, solidarity, military strategy, and how to withstand pain. My harsh upbringing stripped me of my weaknesses and forced me to become strong, ruthless. But I craved something greater-a life I could never have. Against all odds, and the toughest training a warrior could endure, I found an unexpected love in the arms of a fellow spartan. He was the very air I breathed and the water that sustained me. Fighting side by side with him we were invincible. However, there's no place for love in Sparta, especially between two men. In times of war all men are put to the test. But the greast challenge for us was not one of swords and spears, but of all the heart.

H.P. Lovecraft, aside from devising his own works in his Cthulhu Mythos cycle, also collaborated in his day with many younger writers of the uncanny and eerie. Available for the first time in paperback, this collection features stories to which the master of horror added his own ingenious touch.

One of the most influential practitioners of American horror, H.P. Lovecraft inspired the work of Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Clive Barker. As he perfected his mastery of the macabre, his works developed from seminal fragments into acknowledged masterpieces of terror. This volume traces his chilling career and includes: IMPRISONED WITH THE PHARAOHS--Houdini seeks to reveal the demons that inhabit the Egyptian night. AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS--An unsuspecting expedition uncovers a city of untold terror, buried beneath an Antarctic wasteland. Plus, for the first time in any Del Rey edition: HERBERT WEST: REANIMATOR--Mad experiments yield hideous results in this, the inspiration for the cult film Re-Animator. COOL AIR--An icy apartment hides secrets no man dares unlock. THE TERRIBLE OLD MAN--The intruders seek a fortune but find only death! AND TWENTY-FOUR MORE BLOOD-CHILLING TALES

S. T. Joshi has established himself as a leading critic and scholar of the weird tale. Having begun by studying the work of H. P. Lovecraft, Joshi has expanded his interests to include the entire range of horror fiction from such classics as Lord Dunsany and Algernon Blackwood to such contemporaries as Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, and Clive Barker. In this generous sampling of the reviews that Joshi has written in nearly thirty years as a critic, we find trenchant analyses of writers ranging from Arthur Machen, E. F. Benson, and Shirley Jackson to Peter Straub, Thomas Ligotti, Norman Partridge, and David J. Schow. Joshi also addresses such significant themes in horror fiction as the subgenre of dark suspense, the haunted house, Arkham House and its legacy, and the work of the small press. Of particular note is a lengthy section devoted to H. P. Lovecraft, including studies of an array of Cthulhu Mythos writings and detailed examinations of recent Lovecraft scholarship. Joshi's essays and reviews are enlivened with a pungent wit and literary flair that bring to mind the work of John Clute and Brian Aldiss. S. T. Joshi is the author of such works as The Weird Tale (1990), H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (1996), and The Modern Weird Tale (2001). He has edited or coedited such important reference works as Supernatural Literature of the World: An Encyclopedia (2005) and Icons of Horror and the Supernatural (2006). His numerous publications have received the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Horror Writers Association Award, and the International Horror Guild Award.