Uncle Doug's Bunker of Vintage Horror Paperbacks

Aitch-Pee-El’s Greatest Hits (kinda)!!

The Dunwich Horror and Others

 LancerBooks. 2^nd Edition. March 1969. $0.75

Jove/HBJ Books. April 1978. $1.75

The Colour out of Space

Lancer Books. Third Edition. March 1969. $0.75

Jove/HBJ Books. May 1978. $1.75 

                                             My copies.

The two volumes are a break down of the original “Arkham House” hardback edition of “The Dunwich Horror and Others”. It’s basically “August Derleth’s” choices of HPLs best representative stories. I have no idea why two of the best stories from the hardback aren’t included here.

“The Dunwich Horror and Others” Contents:

HBJ and Lancer editions:

1. H. P. Lovecraft and His Work by August Derleth
2. In the Vault
3. Pickman's Model
4. The Rats in the Walls
5. The Music of Erich Zann
6. The Haunter of the Dark
7. The Picture in the House
8. The Dunwich Horror
9. The Thing on the Doorstep

„The Colour out of Space“contents:

HBJ and Lancer Edtions:

1. H. P. Lovecraft and His Work by August Derleth
2. The Colour out of Space
3. The Picture in the House
4. The Call of Cthulhu
5. Cool Air
6. The Whisperer in Darkness
7. The Terrible Old Man
8. The Shadow Out of Time

And here are the contents to the original „Arkham House“ hardback edition of “The Dunwich Horror and Others”

1. H. P. Lovecraft and His Work by August Derleth
2. In the V ault
3. Pickman's Model
4. The Rats in the Walls
5. The Outsider
6. The Colour out of Space
7. The Music of Erich Zann
8. The Haunter of the Dark
9. The Picture in the House
10. The Call of Cthulhu
11. The Dunwich Horror
12. Cool Air
13. The Whisperer in Darkness
14. The Terrible Old Man
15. The Thing on the Doorstep
16. The Shadow Over Innsmouth
17. The Shadow Out of Time

For whatever reasons, “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” and “The Outsider” haven’t been included. Go figure, since both of these are very important HPL stories.

Hey All!

For starters, I want to apologize again for the lazy posting again this week. I’m going back to work tomorrow after two weeks vacation and the past week has been cold and wet, so I’m not the happiest camper in this neck of the woods. That’s my problem though and not yours! So I decided to do another post that needs no real research or even reading on my part. This means that I’m digging out a few books with really neat-o covers that I’ve read so often that I know the stories by heart. And I’m betting that quite a few of you also knows these tales inside and out.

As far a covers go though, I have to admit that even though I have a soft spot in my heart for the Lancer editions, the HBJ “Rowena Morrill” covers definitely fire the Lancers. These are so dead on in their own way that they are almost too literal.  I do love that bat winged crab in the upper left of the HBJ “Colour out of Space” though. When I saw these newer covers back in 1978 I completely flipped out and bought them on the spot. These were days when teen aged  part time shoe salesmen were just rolling in dough and could afford such impulse purchases like that.

I want talk about Mr. Lovecraft first though. I’m guessing that if you are reading this post then you are already familiar with Mr. “Howard Phillips Lovecraft”. If not then go click on the link under his name to learn about the man, his works and his unique vision. I’m not going to really cover that here today. Many others have done a much better job than I ever could or will do.

I discovered Mr. Lovecraft through a collection of his stories that was published by “Scholastic books” back during the very early 1970s. This collection was called “The Shadow over Innsmouth andother Stories of Horror”.                      

It was a pretty cool book that was sadly a little to “far out” for my 10 year old brain. A few years later I discovered several collections that had been published by “Ballantine Books” as part of their “Adult Fantasy Series” edited by the great “Lin Carter”. These I enjoyed better since I was a few years older. Finally when I was 14 I stumbled across the 2 collections brought out by “Lancer Books”. I was finally at the right age to become totally submersed in Mr. Lovecrafts’s world. Even though I had previously read several of these stories as a ten year old I couldn’t appreciate them very much then. I’m of the opinion that if you don’t discover HPL at a very early age then you’ll never be a fan later on. It’s happened to me time and again that I would convince an adult friend to give Lovecraft a try only to have them return the book a few days later with a puzzled expression as if to ask “what kind of f***ed  up §hit do you read?”. As crazy as HPL’s universe is, it’s not as much the stories themselves that are so wonderful and addictive. It’s, in my opinion, the mood and experience that makes these stories so special. How he describes things and the mood he sets can only be experienced in the theatre of your mind and no where else. You can’t describe this quality. Go ahead and try to explain a “Mythos” story to one of the uninitiated. You’ll just get a puzzled look .Once they read one of these stories, they’ll get it or they won’t. Most likely they won’t. And since I still immerse myself in these stories even after almost 40 years of haven discovered them, I like to believe that I get it. I’m going to stop here before I drag you all down into some bizarre disjointed ramble. Needless to say, HPL is a very personal experience for those who enjoy his stories. And speaking of stories, let’s take a tiny look at the contents.

In the Vault:

Don’t cheat dead people. They don’t take it well!

Pickman's Model:

A „true“artist is never appreciated during his lifetime. He has to transform into an eater of corpses first.

The Rats in the Walls:

Maybe those aren’t just rats in the walls your hearing. It could be an army of subterranean inbred cannibal mutants from the rim. And anyone who give their cat such an awful name deserves whatever happens to them.

The Music of Erich Zann

Music of the Spheres can be an out of this world experience.

The Haunter of the Dark:

Don’t steal shit from old churches in the “foreign” part of town. Especially if you’re the hysterical type and the church once housed some crazy cult!

The Picture in the House:

You are what you eat. And it’s not smart to have a break down in the hills outside of Arkham Massachusets!

The Dunwich Horror:

Even if you are some crazy old back woods wizard, you shouldn’t pimp your albino daughter to extra-dimensional gods!

The Thing on the Doorstep:

 Try to avoid transgender sex with a much younger human-fish man hybrid regardless of how hot she is!

The Colour out of Space:

Don’t drink the water and don’t breath the air. And some people don’t realize that they should git when the gittens good!

The Call of Cthulhu:

Don’t answer if he does call. And mongrel foreigners don’t seem to have the best taste in religions!

Cool Air:

Is it me or is it getting warm in here? Or like my dad always said. “Keep your damn fingers off of the thermostat!  Put on a sweater if you’re cold!”

The Whisperer in Darkness:

Lobstermen from Pluto don’t make the best neighbours!

The Terrible Old Man:

Don’t rob weird old neighbours no matter how good of an idea it seemed at the time. He’s probably weird for a very good reason.

The Shadow Out of Time:

If you think that your flashbacks back in the 1960s were something, you should see what they were doing back in the 1920s!

Go to thise wiki link for genuine synopsis's of all of the stories: "The Dunwich Horror and Others". All of the stories are linked there.

Well, that’s it for this week!

Thanks for stopping by and take care every one!

Doug

P.S.

I also take requests.

So if I own it, I'll cover it!