Product Description

For decades, H.P Lovecraft's horror stories---such as The Dunwich Horror and The Call of Cthulhu---have intrigued and horrified readers from all over the world. But Lovecraft's world is filled with a daunting array of bizarre and obscure characters, monsters, places and "things" which can be quite a task for anyone to sort out. Anthony Pearsall has done just that. From "Abbadon" (a demon in The Nameless City) to "Zuro" (a river in The Quest of Iranon), Pearsall has meticulously covered hundreds of the People, Places and Things-That-Go-Bump-In-The-Night in Lovecraft's writings. The Lexicon also includes quite a bit about Lovecraft himself, as well as many of the People, Places and Things which influenced his life and his writings. And if that weren't enough, a special Appendix details one of Lovecraft's recurrent themes: "Caves, Caverns, Wells & Abysses." A "must have" for all fans of Lovecraft's work.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #441545 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-01
• Released on: 2005-05-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Review
A clear, comprehensive guide to Lovecraft's worlds, Gods, creatures, people and places. This guide is a treasure for those newly approaching Lovecraft's works, and old hats who will want to use it as a reference for refreshing one's mind on a particular item, person, place, or story. A truly marvellous compendium. --N. Mara-McKay, Spiral Nature

About the Author
Anthony Pearsall was born and raised in California, where he still lives. He is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley. The Lovecraft Lexicon is his first book.

Customer Reviews

You like Lovecraft? Then get this book
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) was a very productive author, who sometimes used real people, places, and events in his stories, and sometimes completely fictive people, places, and events; but who always managed to describe it so skilfully that the reader (who he didn't have very many of during his lifetime, unfortunately) never quite knew what was real and what was fiction.

Lovecraft is best known for his creation the Necronomicon, a book supposedly written by the "mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred (a name which probably originated in all-has-read, a name Lovecraft came up with at an early age as a joke for his immense interest in reading), but hardcore fans of his macabre yet beautiful stories also know about people and places such as Charles Dexter Ward, Miscatonic University, The Old Ones, Dunwich, Cthulhu, and so on. Anthony Pearsall, a devoted fan since an early age, has now created what more or less should be known as the ultimate Lovecraft lexicon, where numerous locations, people, and large as well as small influences or happenings connected to Lovecraft are described with the utmost precision.

But beware; it's a lexicon, not a traditional book in the normal sense of the word. Reading it all in one go is not recommended, and you won't have much use for it unless you're a Lovecraft fan. But to every fan - myself included - who cannot resist his stories, the book is quite frankly a must. In the beginning Pearsall offers a short yet informative biography of his hero, and then the lexicon begins... Pearsall has been EXTREMELY precise with his work, and since Lovecraft from time to time can be a very difficult author to read the book will prove very useful, for instance since Lovecraft had a tendency to use the same people, places, and events in different stories. Not only that, he was also a devoted writer of letters and reader of books, and information about these interests of his are also found in the lexicon.

So I can only recommend that you go get this book. In case you want to learn more about Lovecraft the human being, than there are other and much better books available, but to anyone interested in his literary creations, The Lovecraft Lexicon is nothing but a total must.

A straightforward resource of names, locations, concepts, and hideous abominations from H.P. Lovecraft's classic horror fiction
The Lovecraft Lexicon: A Readers Guide To Persons, Places And Things In The Tales Of H.P. Lovecraft is a straightforward resource of names, locations, concepts, and hideous abominations from H.P. Lovecraft's classic horror fiction, such as "The Call of Cthulhu". The bulk of The Lovecraft Lexicon consists of entries in alphabetical order from Abbadon to Yuggoth; entries often contain not only straight definitions of the terms in the realm of Lovecraft's dark fantasy, but also notes regarding historical references of certain words or quotes from Lovecraft himself concerning how he came to imagine some of the more unusual names. An introduction and chronology of selected Lovecraftian works rounds out this superb companion reference to any fan of Lovecraftian horror, whether a casual reader of Lovecraft's books, a literary scholar, or even a role-playing gamer re-enacting horror-themed adventures.

Good, but not complete
I found this book to be very good but don't understand why they chose not to include ALL of his tales. They used only 80% of his stories, leaving out:

-Azathoth
-Ex Oblivione
-Memory
-Nyarlathotep
-Old Bugs
-Sweet Ermengarde
-The Book
-The Descendant
-The Very Old Folk
-What the Moon Brings

Granted three of those are only fragmentary, but I still believe they should have all been included for the sake of completeness. Even if they only used the other 7 it still would had made this book that little bit better.