Horror Short Story Collection: The Inhabitant of the Lake and Other Unwelcome Tenants

by The Undead Rat on January 26, 2012

To complete the H. P. Lovecraft theme I have going here, let’s look at the first horror short story collection by then new-comer Ramsey Campbell with was completely Lovecraft inspired.

This 50th anniversary edition has many qualities to recommend it including original comments from August Derleth’s comments of the first drafts of tales within.

If you’re interested in a book, click on the icons below the summary to order it from an online bookseller through an affiliate link.

Ramsey Campbell's The Inhabitant of the Lake and Other Unwelcome Tenants is a 50th anniversary edition celebration of his first collection of horror short stories based on H. P. Lovecraft's mythos

The Inhabitant of the Lake and Other Unwelcome Tenants

Author: Campbell, Ramsey
Artist: Randy Broecker
Format: Limited Edition Hardcover
Type: Horror Short Story Collection
Page Count: 311pp.
Pub. Date: October 31, 2011
Publisher: PS Publishing

The influence of H. P. Lovecraft spans the centuries. Several of his correspondents who were writers learned by imitating him.

The early tales of Robert Bloch and Henry Kuttner read very much like Lovecraft, while others of his friends — Donald Wandrei, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard and August Derleth among them — incorporated his ideas and myths into their fiction. Bloch and Frank Belknap Long even wrote tributes to him that used him, barely disguised, as a character.

After Lovecraft’s death August Derleth took control of his mythos, adding to and organising it more systematically than its creator ever had. Derleth was a jealous guardian of Lovecraft’s reputation, and insisted on vetting any stories by new writers that used the mythos.

Few found his favour until 1961, when a Liverpudlian fifteen-year-old sent him the first drafts of several Lovecraftian tales.

The outcome was a ten-year professional relationship and the appearance in 1964 of the first book of previously unpublished Lovecraftian fiction for five years. It was The Inhabitant of the Lake.

This fiftieth anniversary edition reprints that book in full, including the original introduction. It also includes the first drafts of all the tales that were rewritten before publication and reproduces Derleth’s editorial responses to the stories.

This edition is superbly illustrated by Randy Broecker in the great tradition of Weird Tales.

Table of Contents:

  • A Word From the Author
  • The Room in the Castle
  • The Horror from the Bridge
  • The Insects from Shaggai
  • The Render of the Veils
  • The Inhabitant of the Lake
  • The Plain of Sound
  • The Return of the Witch
  • The Mine on Yuggoth
  • The Will of Stanley Brooke
  • The Moon-Lens
October 2011 (Hardcover — PS Publishing)
Miskatonic Books' online bookstore October 2011 (Limited Signed Hardcover — PS Publishing)
PS Publishing's online bookstore October 2011 (Limited Signed Hardcover — PS Publishing)
PS Publishing's online bookstore October 2011 (Hardcover — PS Publishing)

The Inhabitant of the Lake and Other Unwelcome Tenants is a special 50th anniversary edition horror short story collection by Ramsey Campbell

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Horror Anthology: The Ghost of Fear and Others

by The Undead Rat on January 24, 2012

Last week we looked at a horror anthology duology collecting the stories H. P. Lovecraft revised or collaborated on.

This week we’ll look at the first in a projected two part series of anthologies collecting H. P. Lovecraft’s favorite horror short stories.

If you’re interested in a book, click on the icons below the summary to order it from an online bookseller.

S. T. Joshi's The Ghost of Fear and Others is the first of two books in the H. P. Lovecraft's Favorite Horror Stories series

The Ghost of Fear and Others (H. P. Lovecraft’s Favorite Horror Stories #1)

Editor: Joshi, S. T.
Artist: Zach McCain
Format: Limited Edition Hardcover
Type: Horror Anthology
Page Count: 300pp.
Pub. Date: January 30th 2012
Publisher: Arcane Wisdom

H. P. Lovecraft was a voracious reader of supernatural and fantastic fiction, and he was continually on the hunt for powerful and stimulating works in these genres. Many of the stories he read directly influenced his own writings.

This first volume of H. P. Lovecraft’s Favorite Horror Stories presents 16 stories that Lovecraft found to be of particular merit.

Among them are the beautiful poetic fantasy “Idle Days on the Yann” by Lord Dunsany; Fiona Macleod’s grimly evocative “The Sin-Eater,” which influenced “The Rats in the Walls”; Arthur Machen’s grisly novelette “Novel of the White Powder,” which Lovecraft adapted for “Cool Air”; and M. P. Shiel’s “The House of Sounds,” which Lovecraft ranked among the greatest weird tales ever written.

Also included are hard-to-find stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, E. F. Benson, Theophile Gautier, John Buchan, and others, as well as two stories from the legendary pulp magazine Weird Tales (Seabury Quinn’s “The Phantom Farmhouse” and Arthur J. Burks’s “Bells of Oceana”).

The volume contains an introduction by S. T. Joshi as well as notes on the individual stories, giving background on the authors as well as on Lovecraft’s appreciation of the tales and their possible influence on his work.

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction by S. T. Joshi
  • Idle Days on the Yann by Lord Dunsany
  • Fragments from the Journal of a Solitary Man by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • The Man Who Went Too Far by E. F. Benson
  • The Mark of the Beast by Rudyard Kipling
  • The Sin-Eater by Fiona Macleod
  • The House of Sounds by M. P. Shiel
  • The Phantom Farmhouse by Seabury Quinn
  • One of Cleopatra’s Nights by Theophile Gautier
  • The Stranger from Kurdistan by E. Hoffmann Price
  • The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar by Edgar Allan Poe
  • Novel of the White Powder by Arthur Machen
  • The Dead Smile by F. Marion Crawford
  • The Ghost of Fear by H. G. Wells
  • Lukundoo by Edward Lucas White
  • Bells of Oceana by Arthur J. Burks
  • The Wind in the Portico by John Buchan
Miskatonic Books' online bookstore January 2012 (Limited Hardcover — Arcane Wisdom)

The Ghost of Fear and Others is a special horror collection of H. P. Lovecraft's favorite horror short stories edited by S. T. Joshi

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Horror Anthology: Medusa’s Coil and Others

January 20, 2012

A quick look at an anthology of horror short stories called Medusa’s Coil and Others (The Annotated Revisions and Collaborations of H. P. Lovecraft #2) edited by S. T. Joshi.

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Going Forward in 2012

January 18, 2012

I went to see my endocrinologist on Monday and discovered that the medication I’d been taking for Grave’s Disease was a bit too much. Instead of making my thyroid produce a normal amount of thyroid hormone, now it was not producing much at all. I went from a natural hyperthyroid case to a drug induced [...]

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Horror Anthology: The Crawling Chaos and Others

January 17, 2012

A quick look at an anthology of horror short stories called The Crawling Chaos and Others (The Annotated Revisions and Collaborations of H. P. Lovecraft #1) edited by S. T. Joshi.

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Still Available But Hurry: The 2012 Delirium Book Club

January 12, 2012

The Undead Rat directs your attention to The 2012 Delirium Book Club

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