Contents:
Introductory Notes
This bibliography identifies the stories that are indexed in Cthulhu Universalis, in the editions that were used for indexing.
Like the Guide itself, this bibliography is limited to works by H. P. Lovecraft, his friends, correspondents, and a few earlier writers whose works supplied elements that were later adopted into the Mythos. This limitation is intended to keep the project to a manageable size. Of course, some very popular and influential stories have been written by later authors, both of stories and role-playing scenarios, and I don't mean to slight or minimize the value of such later work.
This bibliography is not intended to assert that any particular story is or is not a "Mythos" story. For our current purposes, a Mythos story is simply any work that shares some amount of fictional background lore with Lovecraft's primary writings. There are several submythos or story clusters that have a life of their own: Bloch's Egyptian Mythos and Howard's Hyborian Age stories, for example. Within Lovecraft's own writing, there are major clusters based around his fictional New England settings of Arkham etc; the elder beings such as Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, etc; and dreamland. These overlap in various places to varying degrees, and I would not exclude a story from this Guide simply because it is primarily a dreamland story, for example. HPL seemed to enjoy building links between different branches of his work, so there is no point in us erecting artificial barriers between them.
The following entry from the H. P. Lovecraft section shows the general layout of the bibliography entries:
Festival - The Festival, in Dagon and Other Macabre Tales.
Narrator: nameless. References: Aldebaran; Alhazred, Abdul; Arkham; Back Street; Central Hill; Christmas; Circle Court; Daemonolatreia; Glanville, Joseph; Green Lane; Kingsport; Lactantius; Market House; Marvells of Science; Morryster; Necronomicon; Orange Point; Remigius; Saducimus Triumphatus; St. Mary's Hospital; Schacabac, Ibn; Wormius, Olaus; Yuletide;
In this entry,
- Festival is the one-word abbreviation for the story. In the Guide,
this story is referred to as HPL Festival.
- Narrator: For most stories, the name of the narrator or the main
protagonist is identified. In the case of first-person stories, the
narrator's name is not always identified in the story.
- References: Terms that occur in the story and are indexed in the Guide.
Key terms are highlighted in bold. A "key
term" is one that occurs in more than one story, and is either
unique to the Mythos, or became inducted into the Mythos in an interesting
way. Looking at the key terms will give you an idea what eldritch threads
tend to connect the story into the larger web of Mythos works.
In some cases, it is not easy to establish whether an occult volume referred to in one of these stories is real, or a fictional embelllishment. A few real works of traditional occultism and demonology are referred to, and I have generally not highlighted these as key terms.
- Hyperlinks: The various terms are hyperlinked so you can click them to be taken to the article about that term.
Published Bibliographies
I have been greatly assisted in this project by two books that are both sadly out of print:
- Reader's Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos (Second Revised Edition), by R. E. Weinberg
and E. P. Berglund. The Silver Scarab Press, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1973. A major
bibliography of all even remotely Mythos-related works published through the early 1970's.
Note: E. P. Berglund needs your help compiling the new edition of this bibiography. See
his website for info.
- Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos, by Lin Carter. Ballantine Books, New York, 1972. The only full-length, systematic account of how the Mythos came to be written that I have encountered so far. Still great fun to read, though more recent scholarship has probably rendered many of the details obsolete. Includes an extremely selective bibliography at the end.
More recently, I have benefitted greatly from Chris Jarocha-Ernst's A Cthulhu Mythos Bibliography and Concordance. This is a truly massive work and a "must" for any serious Mythos collector.
Thanks also to James Ambuehl, for assisting me in locating many additional stories, just when I thought I already had everything from the first-generation Mythos writers. His knowledge of all things Mythos is both impressive and somewhat suspicious. Makes you wonder what kind of eldritch dimensions and spheres he's been hanging around in.
Preferred Editions
A surprising amount of first-generation Mythos fiction has recently come back into print. I have generally indexed stories from the editions that are currently in print, if one is available. Where a story appears in more than one edition that is currently in print, I have chosen from the following editions in priority order:
H. P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror and Others. Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham House Publishers, Inc. Corrected seventh printing.
H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels. Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham House Publishers, Inc. Corrected fifth printing.
H. P. Lovecraft, Dagon and Other Macabre Tales. Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham House Publishers, Inc. Corrected fifth printing.
H. P. Lovecraft, The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions. Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham House Publishers, Inc. Corrected third printing.
H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth, The Watchers Out of Time and Others. Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham House, 1974.
H. P. Lovecraft & Divers Hands, Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos. Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham House, 1990.
Robert M. Price (ed.), Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos. Minneapolis: Fedogan & Bremer, 1992.
Robert E. Howard, Cthulhu: The Mythos and Kindred Horrors, New York: Baen Books, 1987.
Robert E. Howard, Trails in Darkness, New York: Baen Books, 1996.
Robert Bloch, Mysteries of the Worm. Oakland, CA: Chaosium, Inc., 1993.
Henry Kuttner, The Book of Iod. Oakland, CA: Chaosium, Inc., 1995.
August Derleth, The Mask of Cthulhu. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1996.
August Derleth, The Trail of Cthulhu. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1996.
August Derleth, The Cthulhu Mythos. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997. This hardcover collection, with introduction by Ramsey Campbell, includes the complete contents of The Mask of Cthulhu and The Trail of Cthulhu, together with six other Mythos stories that previously have been spread out among a variety of miscellaneous collections.
Cthulhu Mythos Bibliography Introduction
Copyright 1996-2023, Joseph F. Morales