The first volume of Arkham House’s standard set of Lovecraft collections is The Dunwich Horror and Others, billed as sort of a best of collection. Most of Lovecraft’s most famous work is in here (not sure I would count “In the Vault” or “The Picture in the House” among his best, though). The first edition (1963) has a great cover by Lee Brown Coye depicting Pickman, from “Pickman’s Model.” The corrected edition (1985) boasts Raymond Bayless’ classic depiction of Cthulhu. I will never not chuckle when I notice the little person Cthulhu has just decided to drop. Tony Patrick’s cover from the most recent reprint (2001), shows Wilbur Whateley at his sorcerous work, from the title story. Or maybe it’s Wizard Whateley. Hm.

Funny thing. When S.T. Joshi completed work on the corrected editions, pretty much everyone agreed that August’s thematic arrangement should be discarded in favor of chronological order, which generally makes more sense and is more illuminating in terms of how Lovecraft’s ideas progressed. Part of the reason this change was not made was because the 60s editions were widely published in paperback and messing with the order would have fouled those reprint deals (there might also be additional copyright problems as well – Arkham House never had as firm a grip on Lovecraft’s copyrights as they claimed).