A collection of stories from H. P. Lovecraft, the unrivaled master of early-twentieth-century horror Frequently imitated and widely influential, Howard Phillips Lovecraft reinvented the horror genre in the twentieth century, discarding ghosts and witches and envisioning instead mankind as a tiny outpost of dwindling sanity in a chaotic and malevolent universe. Lovecraft's preeminent interpreter S.T. Joshi presents a selection of the master's fiction, from the early tales of nightmares and madness such as "The Outsider" and "Rats in the Walls," through the grotesquely comic "Herbert West--Reanimator" and "The Hound," to the overpowering cosmic terror of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and "The Call of Cthulhu." The first paperback edition to include the definitive corrected tests, The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories reveals the development of Lovecraft's mesmerizing narrative style and establishes him as a canonical--and visionary-- American writer. "I think it is beyond doubt that H.P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale." -- Stephen King