The Call of Cthulhu – The Pulps Library Edition

These days I don’t keep a very large library. I just haven’t got the space for everything I read, and, when you get down to it, most books aren’t actually worth keeping. However, I am interested in having really nice editions of the works that are important to me. This is why, when I learned that PS Publishing had published The Call of Cthulhu as an illustrated hardback book in their The Pulps Library line, I just had to take a look.

The book is a slender hardback, 120 pages, 6” wide and 8.5” tall. It sports a dust jacket, with the dust jacked artwork printed onto the boards. It’s an attractive little package.

Apart from the narrative, which takes up 50 pages, the book also contains an introduction by the preeminent Lovecraft scholar, S. T. Joshi, some notes by the artist, Pete Von Sholly, and several short essays by other Lovecraftian notables on the likely influences on the story, other appearance by Cthulhu in Lovecraft’s writing, and on the making of the silent film adaptation of the story (worth seeking out if you haven’t seen it). Most of these essays have been published before, but it is nice to have them collected with the work to which they relate.

The book is liberally illustrated with full-colour plates by Pete Von Sholly who has done some comic work and a lot of film story-boarding. Now normally, I prefer ‘realistic’ artwork (even when covering fantasy subjects), so at first I was unsure about Von Scholly’s kind of cartoony style. However, as I read the book, the artwork grew on me, until now, I can honestly say I like it. It’s perhaps not what I would have chosen, but I am glad that it is in there.

For those who have never read ‘The Call of Cthulhu’, S. T. Joshi describes it thus in his introduction:

“The Call of Cthulhu” is the seminal story in H. P. Lovecraft’s literary output, and perhaps the seminal story in the entire history of twentieth-century weird fiction.

It’s a big statement, but one that I wouldn’t want to have to debate against. Picking it up and reading it again, this time in its own little book devoted just to it, I am struck, once again, by how good a writer Lovecraft actually was. There have been times, and places, where it has been popular to deride Lovecraft’s writing, and probably some of his writing deserves derision. But, at his best, Lovecraft was a very good writer, with an imagination that puts him in the highest tier of fantasy writers. 'The Call of Cthulhu' is certainly one of his best stories.

For many people, only the text of a story matters, and they can read it in a book, on a screen, or scrawled on napkin. I am not one of those people. For me, the medium influences the experience. Reading a book in an attractive hardback is a better experience than reading the same work on a Ipad.

I’m really happy that PS Publishing have produced this little work, and glad that I can add a copy to my library. In fact, I like it enough that I’m planning on checking out several other titles in the series.