SYNOPSIS:

The influence of H. P. Lovecraft spans the centuries. Several of his correspondents who were writers learned by imitating him. The early tales of Robert Bloch and Henry Kuttner read very much like Lovecraft, while others of his friends—Donald Wandrei, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard and August Derleth among them—incorporated his ideas and myths into their fiction. Bloch and Frank Belknap Long even wrote tributes to him that used him, barely disguised, as a character.

After Lovecraft’s death August Derleth took control of his mythos, adding to and organising it more systematically than its creator ever had. Derleth was a jealous guardian of Lovecraft’s reputation, and insisted on vetting any stories by new writers that used the mythos. Few found his favour until 1961, when a Liverpudlian fifteen-year-old sent him the first drafts of several Lovecraftian tales. The outcome was a ten-year professional relationship and the appearance in 1964 of the first book of previously unpublished Lovecraftian fiction for five years. It was The Inhabitant of the Lake.

This sixtieth-anniversary edition reprints that book in full, including the original introduction. It also includes the first drafts of all the tales that were rewritten before publication and reproduces Derleth’s editorial responses to the stories. And to mark the anniversary some additional material.

" . . . as a bonus for collectors. There's technically my first mythos tale "The Hollow in the Woods", written when I was eleven (and it shows)—published only by Bob Price in 1987, out of print since. Then there's "The Pit", several chapters of an unfinished novel trying to emulate Arthur Machen, written when I was twelve. Bob published that in 1996 (both of those in his little magazines) but it too has been out of print since.

• A Word from the Author
• The Room in the Castle
• The Horror from the Bridge
• The Insects from Shaggai
• The Render of the Veils
• The Inhabitant of the Lake
• The Plain of Sound
• The Return of the Witch 
• The Mine on Yuggoth
• The Will of Stanley Brooke
• The Moon-Lens
• Appendices
• The Hollow in the Woods
• The Pit
• A Note on the First Drafts
• The Box in the Priory
• The Tomb-Herd
• The Face in the Desert
• The Horror from the Bridge
• The Tower from Yuggoth
• The Insects from Shaggai
• The Church in High Street
•  Afterword