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CRÍTICA: http://www.planocritico.com/critica-juvenilia-fragmentos-e-poemas-de-h-p-lovecra... ( )

My name is Howard Phillips. I live at 66 College Street, in Providence, Rhode Island. On November 24, 1927-for I know not what the year may be now-I fell asleep and dreamed, since when I have been unable to awaken.

Lovecraft becomes one of the Dreamers, and wow is it effective. ( )

If you think Lovecraft is all doom and madness, this compilation of stories is here to teach an important lesson: sometimes he's also writing about how cats can save someone from moon monsters. This collection of short stories is a well-selected look into the stories Lovecraft wrote set in and around the world of dreams. Only brushing the Cthulhu mythos, I found these other works to offer a more rounded view of the author and the universe he created. Included among the shorter stories are two novellas, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Dream Quest for Unknown Kadath. Both of these works were rather trying at times - Lovecraft's signature attention to somewhat dry and very minute detail can drag sometimes over a hundred pages - but I enjoyed both and they were a refreshing change of pace.

This is a must read for anyone looking for a side of Lovecraft which has been somewhat overlooked in popular culture, and for those who want to know what's up with his love of cats. ( )

I wanted to respond in brief to some few of your own comments. Lovecraft's Antisemitism was directed at the Jewish race as it manifested itself in Urban communities--Lovecraft often complains of the "packs" of non-whites he encountered. But he set this bigotry aside in the cases of individuals whom he met or with whom he corresponded. Sonia was a beautiful, vibrant woman and she swept Lovecraft off his feet. They were deeply in love, but the marriage was destroyed, as Sonia wrote in a letter to Samuel Loveman, by HPL's hatred of the Jewish race, which was manifested in Lovecraft's perpetual harping of to his long-suffering wife. Most of the notorious racists whom I know will have absolutely nothing to do with the racists they abhor--nothing; and so in this Lovecraft's racism was singular in nature. He was raised in a racist household, by a mother and aunts who applauded the poem he wrote when he was very young, "On the Creation of Niggers." He wrote that poem to entertain his family and get acceptance from them, and they rewarded him for it. Porius: there is absolutely no indication that HPL ever came to "accept the dreaded asiatic horde"--just the opposite.

NoirSeanF: I doubt that this collection is "most popular for the Randolph Carter pseudo-series," which form a very minor facet of Lovecraft's impressive oeuvre. I would judge "Pickman's Model," "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward," and "The Dreams in the Witch House" as the really well-known and most-referenced tales in the book. "The Statement of Randolph Carter" is indeed very well known, and has the distinction of being one of the most widely filmed of Lovecraft's tales--numerous versions of it have been shewn at the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival.

I love coming to Library Thing and reading all of your views on Lovecraft. Thanks for all of the activity, and keep reading Lovecraft! ( )

This was my introduction to Lovecraft. There are some very good stories in this book, but unfortunately, some of them were also tedious to me. I will probably read other Lovecraft in the future, but I cannot say that this is a favorite. ( )