The Premiere Audiobook of Lovecraft
The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society produced the first complete audio recording of all of Lovecraft's stories. These are NOT dramatizations like our Dark Adventure Radio Theatre - rather, these are audiobooks of the original stories, in all-new, never-before-heard recordings made by the HPLHS' own Andrew Leman and Sean Branney exclusively for this collection. Working from texts prepared by Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi, we offer all of HPL's works from his earliest surviving works of childhood to stories completed shortly before his death. We also offer all available collaboration stories which he wrote with other writers. All of the recordings include original music by HPLHS composer Troy Sterling Nies.
Due to the massive size of this collection, we are not offering it on CD (it would fill 65 CDs). This collection comes packaged in a custom designed faux library book which artfully holds a custom designed 16Gb USB flash drive containing all of the stories in a format that's permanent, portable and easily added to your audio collection.
Options. We offer a few different options for our physical audioboks:
- The HPL Omnibus Collection - all stories principally attributed to Lovecraft, plus his collaborations with other authors for more than 100 stories in all. Shipped on our custom USB drive in a great new faux book
- The Collected Fiction of HPL - all of Lovecraft's stories (except the collaborations) - 74 stories featuring more than 50 hours of content - available by download or on custom USB drive in faux book.
- Selected Tales of HPL - a hand picked collection of eleven classic Lovecraft tales featuring over 20 hours of content. NOTE: this option is ONLY available via download.
Downloadable. Some options are currently available via digital download - straight from our servers to your computer. No shipping, no taxes, just a Lovecraftian bonanza of audio fun. We offer collections where each story is its own file or where longer stories are broken into multiple chapter files. The download files are BIG, so we recommend you download to a computer rather than phone or tablet. Because the download files are so large, we're unable to offer our Omnibus collection as a single download. You can however, order the downloads of the HPL stories and the Collaborations separately until we can resolve this issue.
Selected Tales. For those on a budget, we've also edited our own "Selected Tales of HPL" collection, featuring recordings of some of our favorite stories available via download at an even more affordable price. Enjoy eighteen hours of Lovecraft's "greatest hits" for just $20.00. This collection includes:
- The Statement of Randolph Carter
- Pickman's Model
- The Picture in the House
- The Hound
- The Call of Cthulhu
- The Colour Out of Space
- The Dunwich Horror
- The Whisperer in Darkness
- At the Mountains of Madness
- The Shadow Over Innsmouth
- The Shadow Out of Time
It's taken us three years to record, edit, mix and master this collection. We hope it will provide Lovecraft fans with a high quality means to enjoy to these stories read aloud by professional actors who share their love for HPL's writing.
Free Samples. To give you a taste of the collection, here's some samples from our recordings:
- The Statement of Randolph Carter (the entire story!)
- The Silver Key
- The Picture in the House
- The Call of Cthulhu
- The Dunwich Horror
- From Beyond
- The Tomb
The Collaboration Tales. We've moved these to their own order page. Just click here for the audiobook of HPL's collaboration stories.
Q&A
Q: Does this collection feature offensive racist language?
A: Yes. Listeners are forewarned that this collection of stories contains language that listeners may find offensive. We recorded the stories as they were written, in an effort to present the literature accurately. The story "The Rats in the Walls" feature multiple instances of the "n-word", and that word is used once in "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" and "The Picture in the House". In the Collaboration Tales collection, "Medusa's Coil" is similarly objectionable.
The Complete fiction of Lovecraft is just under a half-million words. There are twenty instances of use of the n-word in "The Rats in the Walls" and it is used once in the other two stories.
Q: If I have your audiobook and want to upgrade just the faux book, can I do that?
A: No, the new and improved faux book is only sold with the USB drive.
Q: Wait, is the collection of collaborations truly "complete"? What about the C.M. Eddy stories?
A: Ah, we figured one of you would bring that up. All of Lovecraft's collaboration tales have fallen into the public domain with the exception of the tales he wrote with his friend, C.M. Eddy. The Eddy estate does not wish for any of C.M. Eddy's stories to appear in any collections of Lovecraft collaboration tales. Out of respect for their wishes, these stories are NOT included in this collection.
Q: Why can't I download the Omnibus edition?
A: The size of the file exceeds the maximum allowed by our store. We're hoping to resolve the issue and offer the Omnibus as a single download. For now though, if you download the HPL stories and the Collaborations you'll have the same content as the Omnibus.
Q: Does the Collaboration Stories include the so-called "posthumous collaborations" with August Derleth?
A: Good question. It does not. Our feeling is that those stories are purely written by Derleth using notes and ideas jotted down by Lovecraft. As HPL was dead when the stories were written, he had no input into the use made of his ideas.
