Waking Up Screaming

Informationen zum Autor H. P. Lovecraft lived his life in the moody New England that was the setting for his tales. His writing appeared in some of the most famous “pulp” magazines, but no book of his work was published in his lifetime, and so Lovecraft died in relative poverty and obscurity. Since then he has been recognized as one of the most influential cult horror writers of this century. His influence on American horror has extended to Stephen King, Anne Rice, Clive Barker, and many others. Klappentext "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” -H. P. LOVECRAFT Welcome to the world of H. P. Lovecraft, the undisputed master of terror. His work has inspired countless nightmares, and this collection of some of his most chilling stories is likely to inspire even more. Cool Air-An icy apartment hides secrets no man dares unlock. The Case of Charles Dexter Ward-Ward delves into the black arts and resurrects the darkest evil from beyond the grave. The Terrible Old Man-The intruders seek a fortune but find only death. Herbert West-Reanimator-Mad experiments yield hideous results in this bloodcurdling tale, the inspiration for the cult film Re-Animator. The Shadow Over Innsmouth-A small fishing town's population is obscenely corrupted by a race of fiendish undersea creatures. The Lurking Fear-An upstate New York clan degenerates into thunder-crazed mole like creatures with a taste for human flesh. PLUS TEN OTHER SPINE-TINGLING TALES Leseprobe Cool Air You ask me to explain why I am afraid of a draught of cool air; why I shiver more than others upon entering a cold room, and seem nauseated and repelled when the chill of evening creeps through the heat of a mild autumn day. There are those who say I respond to cold as others do to a bad odour, and I am the last to deny the impression. What I will do is to relate the most horrible circumstance I ever encountered, and leave it to you to judge whether or not this forms a suitable explanation of my peculiarity. It is a mistake to fancy that horror is associated inextricably with darkness, silence, and solitude. I found it in the glare of midafternoon, in the clangour of a metropolis, and in the teaming midst of a shabby and commonplace rooming-house with a prosaic landlady and two stalwart men by my side. In the spring of 1923 I had secured some dreary and unprofitable magazine work in the city of New York; and being unable to pay any substantial rent, began drifting from one cheap boarding establishment to another in search of a room which might combine the qualities of decent cleanliness, endurable furnishings, and very reasonable price. It soon developed that I had only a choice between different evils, but after a time I came upon a house in West Fourteenth Street which disgusted me much less than the others I had sampled. The place was a four-story mansion of brownstone, dating apparently from the late forties, and fitted with woodwork and marble whose stained and sullied splendour argued a descent from high levels of tasteful opulence. In the rooms, large and lofty, and decorated with impossible paper and ridiculously ornate stucco cornices, there lingered a depressing mustiness and hint of obscure cookery; but the floors were clean, the linen tolerably regular, and the hot water not too often cold or turned off, so that I came to regard it as at least a bearable place to hibernate till one might really live again. The landlady, a slatternly, almost bearded Spanish woman named Herrero, did not annoy me with gossip or with criticisms of the late-burning electric light in my third-floor front hall room; and my fellow-lodgers were as quiet and uncommunicative as one might desire, being mostly Spaniards a little above the coarsest and crudest grade. Only the din of street cars in the thoroughfare below pro...

Product details

• Authors: H. P. Lovecraft
• Publisher: Del Rey
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.01.2003
• EAN: 9780345458292
• ISBN: 978-0-345-45829-2
• No. of pages: 384
• Dimensions: 107 mm x 175 mm x 27 mm
• Series: Random House Worlds
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature