A nice collection of Lovecraft's stories, but I found the annotations a bit scattershot. Some were attempts to map Lovecraft's fictional places to real world places, some were about how the stories tie together, and some even seemed to be written as though the fictional events were real. All in all I liked the book, but found the annotations didn't add much to my experience. ( )

Everything you always wanted to know about H.P. Lovecraft but were afraid to ask. This word includes Lovecraft's major works, annotated with speculations about the locales, photographs of existing buildings, covers and illustrations from the original publications or film productions. Several appendices include faculty lists for Miskatonic U., chronologies, and bibliographies. ( )

3.o - An excellent collection. Lovecraft had a singular, iconic vision. However I felt that the writing never caught up with the ideas. A lot of telling, rather than showing. However, this was a quality read, and the volume is a well-constructed collection that does the author justice. ( )

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission. Title: The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft Series: ----- Author: H.P. Lovecraft, Leslie Klinger Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Horror Pages: 1008 Synopsis: A compendium of Lovecraft's stories with historical, geographical and misc data footnotes to make this a fuller experience. My Thoughts: First, I found the annotation to be completely useless. Being from New England myself, most of the geographic and historical data wasn't new to me and the bits that weren't, I didn't care about. There were also pictures of places where stories took place. I don't care to see the "Fuller House, repaired in 1997". A lot of the historical and literary annotations I knew about as well. I'm just well read and experienced enough that this stuff wasn't for me. I definitely wasn't the target audience for the annotations side of things. Second, the quality of the stories varied so greatly that I wasn't sure what I was getting into from page to page. Some were incredible, some were just complete and utter stinkers. Sometimes I believed the horrorness of the "unnameable horror" and at other times I was rolling my eyes so hard that my glasses practically jumped off my face. Thirdly, I really wish I had this back in my teen years. I found so many things that other books I've read referenced. It would have made for a much richer reading experience. However, better late than never and I look forward to finding future Lovecraftian influence in the horror books I read. Finally, I don't regret the time I spent on this monster book but I do wish more of the stories had been of higher caliber. " ( )

It's good to see someone other than S.T. Joshi produce an annotated work. Joshi's study of HPL is monumental, but frankly a little frightening in it's obsessiveness. Klinger has done a nice job of presenting authoritative editions of the works and his notes are in the main very enlightening. As large as the collection of tales is, though, I would have liked to have seen others included, ie The Outsider, The Rats in the Walls. But Klinger seems to want to focus on establishing the validity of the Cthulhu Mythos (hence the tentacles on the dust cover?) and those tales don't fit. We'll just have to enjoy the 850+ pages we have. ( )