You too can be a Lovecraftian scholar...

I recently finished reading a very fine edition of H.P. Lovecraft’s work, 2005’s Modern Library Classic’s edition of “At the Mountains of Madness: The Definitive Edition,” which includes an insightful introduction by acclaimed fantasy fiction writer, China Mieville.

As you might have guessed from its title, this book contains one of Lovecraft’s best known and most popular works, his 1931 novella, “At the Mountains of Madness.” First published in 1936 in Astounding Stories magazine, the novella details an early university expedition to the cold wastes of Antarctica. Not long after expedition members begin drilling holes into the frozen continent’s ancient layers of rock and ice, do they discover a number of puzzling artifacts that lead to the discovery that could likely shake the very foundations of human civilization.

I’ve read “At the Mountains of Madness” a number of times, and it never gets old. It’s old-timey sci-fi and Lovecraftian horror at its best.

Fans of this story had reason to get excited in July 2010 when Warner Bros. announced that a motion picture version of the story was in the works and would be based on a screenplay by Guillermo del Toro and Matthew Robbins. James Cameron was set to direct, and Tom Cruise was supposed to act in the movie. However, all of that fell apart in March when the studio killed the film because they wanted to release it as a PG-13 movie, instead of the R-rated film that del Toro had envisioned. But I digress…

Also included between the covers of “At the Mountains of Madness: The Definitive Edition” was Lovecraft’s lengthy 1927 essay called “Supernatural Horror in Literature.” In this essay, Lovecraft discusses the origins of weird fiction and discusses a number of well-known horror writers, including Ambrose Bierce, Algernon Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, Nathaniel Hawthorne, M.R. James, Arthur Machen and Edgar Allan Poe. I enjoyed this survey of “supernatural literature” and couldn’t help but be reminded of Stephen King’s 1981 non-fiction book, “Danse Macabre,” which surveyed horror fiction and discussed its impact on popular culture.

Lovecraft’s “Supernatural Horror in Literature” referred to scores of horror novels, plays, operas, short stories, short story collections and poems, and below you’ll find a complete list of all those mentioned in the essay. Where possible, I’ve also listed the year of publication. Without further ado, here’s the list:

Novels and Other Books:

“The Adventures of Ferdinand, Count Fathom” by Tobias Smollet (1753)
“The Adventures of the German Student” by Washington Irving (1824)
“Alraune” by Hanns Heinz Ewers (1911)
“The Amber Witch” by Johannes W. Meinhold (1839)
“Apparition of Mrs. Veal” by Daniel Defoe (1706)
“Arabian Nights” (1706)
“Arthur Mervyn; or, Memoirs of the Year 1793” by Charles Brockden Brown (1799)
“The Beetle: A Mystery” by Richard Marsh (1897)
“The Boats of the ‘Glen Carriq’” by William Hope Hodgson (1907)
“Book of Enoch” (Ancient Jewish religious book)
“The Book of Wonder” by Lord Dunsany (1912)
“Brood of the Witch Queen” by Arthur Sarsfield Ward (1918)
“Can Such Things Be?” by Ambrose Bierce (1893)
“The Captain of the Polestar and Other Tales” by Arthur Conan Doyle (1890)
“Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder” by William Hope Hodgson (1913)
“The Castle of Otranto” by Horace Walpole (1764)
“The Castle Spectre” by Matthew Lewis (1796)
“The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne” by Ann Radcliffe (1789)
“The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories” by E.M. Forster (1911)
“The Centaur” by Algernon Blackwood (1911)
“The Children of the Abbey” by Regina Maria Roche ((1796)
“Chronicle of Clemendy” by Arthur Machen
“Claviculae of Solomon” (Anonymous author, 17th Century)
“Cold Harbour” by Francis Brett Young (1924)
“The Dark Chamber” by Leonard Cline (1927)
“Doctor Faustus” by Christopher Marlowe (1604)
“Doctor Grimshawe’s Secret: A Romance” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1882)
“The Dolliver Romance and Other Pieces” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1876)
“The Door of the Unreal” by Gerald Bliss (1919)
“The Double Shadow and Other Fantasies” by Clark Ashton Smith (1933)
“A Dreamer’s Tales” by Lord Dunsany (1910)
“The Dybbuk” by Shloyme Zanvl Rappoport (1914)
“Edgar Huntley, Or, Memoirs of a Sleepwalker” by Charles Brockden Brown (1799)
“The Elixir of Life” by Arthur Ransome
“Elsie Venner” by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1861)
“The Epicurean” by Thomas Moore (1827)
“The Episodes of Vathek” by William Beckford (1782)
“Fantastics” by Laficadio Hearn
“The Fatal Revenge; or, the Family of Montorio” by Charles Maturin (1807)
“Faust and the Demon” by George W.M. Reynolds (1896)
“Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus” by Mary Shelley (1818)
“The Five Jars” by M.R. James (1920)
“Gaston de Blondeville” by Ann Radcliffe (1826)
“The Ghost Pirates” by William Hope Hodgson (1909)
“Ghost Stories of an Antiquary” by M.R. James (1904)
“The Gods of the Mountain” by Lord Dunsany
“The Golem” by Gustav Meyrink (1914)
“The Great Return” by Arthur Machen (1915)
“Hamlet” by William Shakespeare (1599)
“Hans of Iceland” by Victor Hugo (1823)
“The Hill of Dreams” by Arthur Machen (1907)
“History of the Caliph Vathek” by William Beckford (1786)
“The Horrid Mysteries” by Marquis de Grosse (1796)
“The House of the Seven Gables” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1851)
“The House on the Borderland” by William Hope Hodgson (1909)
“Incredible Adventures” by Algernon Blackwood (1914)
“In Search of the Unknown” by Robert W. Chambers (1904)
“In the Midst of Life” by Ambrose Bierce
“The Iron Chest” (play) by Stephen Sorace (1796)
“The Italian” by Ann Radcliffe (1797)
“The Jewel of Seven Stars” by Bram Stoker (1903)
“Jimbo: A Fantasy” by Algernon Blackwood (1909)
“John Silence – Physician Extraordinary” by Algernon Blackwood (1908)
“The King in Yellow” by Robert W. Chambers (1895)
“Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things” by Lafcadio Hearn (1903)
“The Lair of the White Worm” by Bram Stoker (1911)
“Last Man” by Mary Shelley (1826)
“The Laughter of the Gods” by Lord Dunsany
“Le Morte d’Arthur” by Sir Thomas Malory (1485)
“Legends of the Province House and Other Twice Told Tales” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft” by Walter Scott (1830)
“Life and Letters of William Beckford” by Lewis Melville (1909)
“Lilith” by George Macdonald
“Louis Lambert” by Honore de Balzac
“Lukundoo and Other Stories” by Edward Lucas White (1927)
“Macbeth” by William Shakespeare (1603)
“The Magus” by Francis Barrett (1801)
“The Maker of Moons” by Robert W. Chambers (1896)
“The Man-Wolf” by Erckmann-Chatrian (1876)
“The Marble Faun” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1860)
“Melmoth the Wanderer” by Charles Maturin (1820)
“The Money Diggers” by Washington Irving (1824)
“The Monk: A Romance” by Matthew Gregory Lewis (1796)
“More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary” by M.R. James (1911)
“The Mysteries of Udolpho” by Ann Radcliffe (1794)
“The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” by Edgar Allan Poe (1838)
“A Night at an Inn” by Lord Dunsany
“The Night Land” by William Hope Hodgson (1912)
“Northanger Abbey” by Jane Austen (1817)
“The Old English Baron” by Clara Reeve (1778)
“One of Cleopatra’s Nights” by Theophile Gautier
“On Wonderful Events” by Phlegon (2nd Century AD)
“Ormond; or, the Secret Witness” by Charles Brockden Brown (1799)
“Others Who Return” by H.R. Wakefield
“The Phantom ‘Rickshaw” by Rudyard Kipling (1888)
“The Phantom Ship” by Frederick Marryat (1839)
“The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde (1890)
“The Place Called Dagon” by Herbert S. Gorman (1927)
“The Purple Cloud” by Matthew Phipps Shiel (1901)
“The Queen’s Enemies” by Lord Dunsany
“The Recess” by Sophia Lee (1783)
“Redgauntlet” by Walter Scott (1824)
“The Return” by Walter de la Mare (1910)
“The Romance of the Forest” by Ann Radcliffe (1791)
“Seraphita” by Honore de Balzac
“She” by H. Rider Haggard (1886)
“A Sicilian Romance” by Ann Radcliffe (1790)
“Septimus Felton” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1872)
“The Shadowy Thing” by H.B. Drake
“Sinister House” by Leland Hall
“Sir Bertrand, a Fragment” by John Aikin (1773)
“The Smoking Leg and Other Stories” by John Metcalfe (1925)
“The Song of the Sirens” by Edward Lucas White (1919)
“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Hanns Heinz Ewers (1910)
“St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian, A Romance” by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1811)
“St. Leon” by William Godwin (1799)
“Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)
“A Strange Story” by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1862)
“Tales of a Traveller” by Washington Irving (1824)
“Tanglewood Tales for Boys and Girls” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1853)
“The Temptation of St. Anthony” by Gustave Flaubert (1849)
“The Terror” by Arthur Machen (1917)
“They Return at Evening” by H.R. Wakefield (1928)
“A Thin Ghost and Others” by M.R. James (1919)
“Things as They Are; or The Adventures of Caleb Williams” by William Godwin (1794)
“Thirty Strange Stories” by H.G. Wells (1897)
“The Three Imposters” by Arthur Machen (1895)
“Treatise on Elemental Sprites” by Paracelsus
“Trilby” by George du Maurier (1894)
“The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James (1898)
“Undine” by Friedrich de la Motte, Fouque (1811)
“The Upper Berth” by Francis Marion Crawford (1894)
“Uncanny Stories” by May Sinclair (1923)
“Varney, the Vampire” by James Malcolm Rymer (1847)
“Visible and Invisible” by E.F. Benson (1923)
“Wagner, the Wehr-wolf” by George W.M. Reynolds (1846-47)
“Wandering Ghosts” by Francis Marion Crawford (1911)
“A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories” by M.R. James (1925)
“The Were-Wolf” by Clemence Housman (1896)
“Wieland; or, The Transformation” by Charles Brockden Brown (1798)
“The Wild Ass’s Skin” by Honore de Balzac (1831)
“The Wind in the Rose Bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1903)
“Witch Wood” by John Buchan (1927)
“A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1852)
“Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte (1847)
“Zanoni” by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1842)
“Zastrozzi: A Romance” by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1810)
“Zofloya; or, The Moor” by Charlotte Dacre (1806)

Short Stories:

“The Adventure of the German Student” by Washington Irving (1824)
“All-Hallows” by Walter de la Mare
“The Ambitious Guest” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1835)
“Ancient Sorceries” by Algernon Blackwood (1908)
“And He Shall Sing…” by H.R. Wakefield
“Avatar” by Theophile Gautier
“The Bad Lands” by John Metcalfe
“Blind Man’s Buff” by H.R. Wakefield
“The Body Snatcher” by Robert Louis Stevenson (1884)
“The Bowmen” by Arthur Machen (1914)
“The Cairn” by H.R. Wakefield
“The Camp of the Dog” by Algernon Blackwood (1908)
“Clarimonde” by Theophile Gautier
“Count Magnus” by M.R. James
“The Damned Thing” by Ambrose Bierce (1893)
“The Dead Smile” by Francis Marion Crawford (1899)
“The Dead Valley” by Ralph Adams Cram (1895)
“The Death of Halpin Frayser” by Ambrose Bierce (1893)
“The Diamond Lens” by Fitz James O’Brien (1858)
“The Diary of a Madman” by Guy de Maupassant
“Edward Randolph’s Portrait” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
“An Episode of Cathedral History” by M.R. James
“Ethan Brand” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850)
“The Face” by E.F. Benson
“The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” by Edgar Allan Poe (1845)
“The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe (1839)
“The Finest Story in the World” by Rudyard Kipling
“Fishhead” by Irvin S. Cobb (1911)
“The Foot of the Monkey” by Theophile Gautier
“For the Blood is Life” by Francis Marion Crawford (1905)
“The Ghost of Fear” by H.G. Wells (1897)
“The Great God Pan” by Arthur Machen (1890)
“The Green Wildebeest” by John Buchan
“He?” by Guy de Maupassant
“He Cometh and He Passeth By!” by H.R. Wakefield
“The Horla” by Guy de Maupassant (1887)
“The Horror-Horn” by E.F. Benson (1923)
“The House and the Brain” by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1859)
“The House of Sounds” by Matthew Phipps Shiel
“The Invisible Eye” by Erckmann-Chatrian
“Ligeia” by Edgar Allan Poe (1838)
“The Listener” by Algernon Blackwood (1907)
“Look Up There!” by H.R. Wakefield
“Lot No. 249” by Arthur Conan Doyle (1892)
“The Man of the Crowd” by Edgar Allan Poe (1840)
“The Man Who Went Too Far” by E.F. Benson
“Markheim” by Robert Louis Stevenson (1884)
“The Mark of the Beast” by Rudyard Kipling
“The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe (1842)
“Metzengerstein” by Edgar Allan Poe (1832)
“The Middle Toe of the Right Foot” by Ambrose Bierce (1891)
“The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1837)
“Mr. Kempe” by Walter de la Mare
“Mrs. Lunt” by Hugh Walpole
“MS. Found in a Bottle” by Edgar Allan Poe (1833)
“The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs (1902)
“Negotium Perambulans” by E.F. Benson
“The Nemesis of Fire” by Algernon Blackwood (1908)
“The Novel of the Black Seal” by Arthur Machen (1895)
“The Novel of the White Powder” by Arthur Machen (1895)
“Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” by M.R. James
“On the River” by Guy de Maupassant
“Out of the Deep” by Walter de la Mare
“The Owl’s Ear” by Erckmann-Chatrian
“Philinnion and Machates” by Phlegon
“A Physical Invasion” by Algernon Blackwood (1908)
“A Recluse” by Walter de la Mare
“The Recrudescence of Imray” by Rudyard Kipling
“The Red Hand” by Arthur Machen (1895)
“The Red Lodge” by H.R. Wakefield
“Seaton’s Aunt” by Walter de la Mare
“Secret Worship” by Algernon Blackwood (1908)
“The Signalman” by Charles Dickens (1866)
“Silence – A Fable” by Edgar Allan Poe
“Shadow – A Parable” by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Shadows on the Wall” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
“The Shining Pyramid” by Arthur Machen (1895)
“Skule Sherry” by John Buchan
“Smith: An Episode in a Lodging House” by Algernon Blackwood (1906)
“The Snout” by Edward Lucas White
“The Spectre” by Guy de Maupassant
“The Spider” by Hanns Heinz Ewers
“The Spook House” by Ambrose Bierce
“The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral” by M.R. James
“The Suitable Surroundings” by Ambrose Bierce (1891)
“The Tapestried Chamber” by Walter Scott (1828)
“The Thirteenth Hole at Duncaster” by H.R. Wakefield
“Torture by Hope” by Villiers de l’Isle-Adam
“The Treasure of Abbot Thomas” by M.R. James
“The Tree” by Walter de la Mare
“The Upper Berth” by Francis Marion Crawford (1894)
“Wandering Willie’s Tale” by Walter Scott (1824)
“The Waters of Death” by Erckmann-Chatrian
“The Wendigo” by Algernon Blackwood (1910)
“The Werewolf” by Capt. Frederick Marryat
“What Was It? A Mystery” by Fitz James O’Brien (1859)
“The White People” by Arthur Machen (1904)
“The White Wolfe” by Guy de Maupassant
“Who Knows?” by Guy de Maupassant
“The Willows” by Algernon Blackwood (1907)
“The Wind in the Portico” by John Buchan
“The Vampyre” by John William Polidori (1819)
“The Venus of Ille” by Prosper Merimee (1837)
“A Visitor from Down Under” by L.P. Hartley
“Xelucha” by M.P. Shiel
“The Yellow Sign” by Robert Chambers (1895)
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gillman (1892)

Poems:

“Alciphron” by Thomas Moore (1839)
“Beo-wulf” (Anonymous, 8th Century)
“The Bride of Corinth” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1797)
“Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” by Robert Browning (1855)
“Christabel” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1797, 1800)
“The Hashish Eater, or The Apocalypse of Evil” by Clark Ashton Smith (1920)
“Horror” by Guy de Maupassant
“Kilmeny” by James Hogg
“Lamia” by John Keats (1819)
“The Listeners” by Walter de la Mare (1912)
“On Reading Arthur Machen” by Frank Belcknap Long Jr.
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1798)
“The Ring” by Thomas Moore
“Tales of Terror” by Matthew Lewis (1799)
“Tales of Wonder” by Matthew Lewis (1801)
“Tam o’Shanter” by Robert Burns (1790)
“The Wild Huntsman” by Gottfried August Burger (1796)

In the end, how many of these works have you had a chance to read? Which did you like or dislike? Which would you recommend? Let us know in the comments section below.