The Folio Society has just published a new anthology of stories from H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos in two absolutely beautiful editions: a limited (750 copy) edition and a ‘standard’ (though still sumptuous looking) hardcover. The Call of Cthulhu & Other Weird Stories is a collection that spans Lovecraft’s literary career, charting “the development of his ‘cosmicist’ philosophy; the belief that behind the veil of our blinkered everyday lives lies another reality, too terrible for the human mind to comprehend.”
The two new editions marry Lovecraft’s best-known fiction…
…with two modern masters of the macabre, the acclaimed artist Dan Hillier and author Alan Moore. In his beautifully crafted new preface, Moore finds Lovecraft at once at odds with and integral to the time in which he lived: ‘the improbable embodiment of an estranged world in transition’. Yet, despite his prejudices and parochialisms, he ‘possessed a voice and a perspective both unique in modern literature’.
Hillier’s six mesmerising, portal-like illustrations embrace the alien realities that lurk among the gambrel roofs of Lovecraft’s landscapes. By splicing Victorian portraits and lithographs with cosmic and Lovecraftian symbolism, each piece – like the stories themselves – pulls apart the familiar to reveal what lies beneath.
The edition itself shimmers with Lovecraft’s ‘unknown colours’, bound in purple and greens akin to both the ocean depths and mysteries from outer space. The cover is embossed with a mystical design by Hillier, while a monstrous eye stares blankly from the slipcase.
Here’s a promotional video that shows off the artistic work and production values behind this new release: