H.P. Lovecraft and me

I've been a reader of fantasy and science fiction for most of my life, but not so much of a horror reader, for example I hadn't read any of Stephen King's fiction before 2008. There is one huge exception though - the creator of the Cthulhu Mythos and a significant artist of the horror form: Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

The first book I ever book was the one pictured above from Scholastic Press, it contained these stories:

1. The Colour out of Space - one of my favourite HPL stories.
   
2. The Outsider
   
3. Imprisoned with the Pharaohs - interesting as a collaboration and the lead character is not only named (no less than Harry Houdini), but is far more active than the usual Lovecraftian lead character.
   
4. The Transition of Juan Romero
   
5. In the walls of Eryx - one of the few really science fiction stories HPL penned.
   
6. The Festival
   
7. The Shadow over Innsmouth - a classic story with many of Lovecraft's key themes in it.
   

Since buying this at the tender age of 11 I've been an avid reader of Lovecraft and this was around the time that I started playing Dungeons and Dragons with the Original White Boxed set. Strangely enough I didn't start playing the Call of Cthulhu role playing game immediately after it was released despite being a fan of RuneQuestII and its BRP rules.

I'm going to do some separate posts for some HPL stories, but in the meantime I'd recommend the H.P. Lovecraft literary podcast and the Chtulhu podcast.