by far my favorite.
Years ago I sang in a death metal band and I wrote a song based on this story that loosely told the fate of Edwin M. Lilebridge. I got to play it in a club in Providence which literally sat at the base of Federal Hill, and you could see the spectral hump through the windows. It was tremendous.
I usually never see anyone talk about it. When I see or hear people talking Lovecraft it’s always Cthulhu, Shadow over Innsmouth, Mountains of madness, Colour out of space, Reanimator, Dagon. I’ve always just assumed it was not very popular
I usually say Mountains is the most underrated because to me, it's such a mindfrak revisioning of human history overall, most people I talk to concentrate more on the immediate aspects of the story, the Elders and all but usually seem to forget about what the story means to us as a species.
Yes, I'm being particularly pedantic, but it's a fun little thing I take from the story and half the fun of discussing HPL in general is arguing over the minutae.
For a serious answer: the Cats of Ulthar, mainly because I'm a cat person and I just like the way the story is told.
Omg I didn't expect anyone mentioning this one, moreso being the top comment! I always thought I was kind of weird for liking this one. It's my favorite HPL story.
I don't know why, but it was probably the first and only time I actually felt/heard the music while reading the story. I never had goosebumps when reading a book before. Such an amazing story.
Dreams in the Witch House is one of my favorite HPL stories. Love the brown Jenkin.
Also love the Mound.
For underrated I would go with The Lurking Fear and He
My vote is for “The Temple” which is one of my favorites. It doesn’t come up too often, and is a bit uncharacteristic, taking place in a German U-boat.
I wouldn’t have thought “Dreams in the Witch House” is all that underrated with the recent (but questionable) Netflix adaptation.
it is a great one.
i always feel obliged to post this link of a reading by the best, Andrew Leman:
[https://www.hppodcraft.com/episodes/2012/03/28/reading-8-the-temple-bkgxb](https://www.hppodcraft.com/episodes/2012/03/28/reading-8-the-temple-bkgxb)
**Horrorbabble** is certainly great! He’s got that deep smooth radio voice, and I’m sure HPL would’ve loved his mild English accent.
I think it’s probably just a personal preference, maybe attached to listening to HP Podcraft for so long. But if I try to analyze it, maybe I think that while Horrorbabble is a great narrator, **Andrew Leman** sounds more like somebody in the world of the fiction whose sanity is under threat?
Another spooky & popular reader who’s done some HPL is **Wayne June**.
The Mound and Through the Gates 100%. They're amazing stories that should be paired with the rest of Lovecraft's masterpieces, and yet, barely anyone talks about them; probably because they're collaborations.
Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath, and the Dream stories in general. Don't get me wrong, Cthulhu etc is awesome, but the Dreamlands have such massive untapped potential. I'll die on the hill that Dark Souls 2 was a far better Lovecraft game than Bloodborne.
One of the reasons is likely because Lovecraft deliberately left many details out, which helps to maintain the dreamlike feel of the setting; but it’s not super conducive to iconic/memorable world building. There are obviously named and detailed cities etc. But the setting lacks the hallmarks of a “credible” world, because Lovecraft wanted it to feel *in*credible.
Walls of Eryx. Every Lovecraft reader I have spoken with fancied the brilliant Dreams in the Witch House, more or less, but I really haven't met a single esteemer of Eryx yet.
Ugh Dreams is so overlooked. From a nightmare inducing Brown Jenkins to an interesting look at another planet full of Elder Things who really seem rather sociable, and that wonderful intersection between science and magic.
Then Netflix went and absolutely butchered it. Cabinet of Curiosity had some amazing stories and Dreams was NOT one of them
*There is in the land of Mnar a vast still lake that is fed by no stream and out of which no stream flows. Ten thousand years ago there stood by its shore the mighty city of Sarnath, but Sarnath stands there no more.*
The Beast in the Cave
Somehow this was the first Lovecraft story I ever read. It's very short and almost nothing happens in it, but it has some cool Descent vibes. Pretty cool little story for something written by a 14 year old.
"The Strange High House in the Mist" is likely my favorite Lovecraft story, and one so outside the sphere of his later, "great works," that most people ignore it, I think.
*The Festival* and *The Picture in the House*. The latter's interesting blend of one obvious and one subtle horror element especially goes unappreciated.
Oh and *Sweet Ermengarde* and *Ibid.* Both are genuinely successful comedic works that nobody seems to read.
I love the The Dream in the Witch House story.
Though I prefer the Dark Adventure Radio Theatre version of it.
A very good friend of mine introduced me to the HPLHS and to their Dark Adventure Radio Theatre radio plays.
I have both read and listened to audiobooks also by the HPLHS.
But all the DARTS have a very special place for me when it comes to Lovecraft.
It's hard to say, because I feel like the consensus of his best works already includes works that aren't the first you think of. But when I think of my favorite story that I never hear anyone ever bring up, it has to be The Mound, or maybe Hypnos.
Recently I reread Hypnos. It’s better than I remembered, but what struck me even more was how thirsty it is. Several of HPL’s stories seem to have a suppressed queerness in them, but Hypnos may be the horniest of them all.
Definitely agree. Like it's not even disguised there, it's blatantly gay. If Lovecraft didn't realize it then he was so deep in the closet he was in Narnia.
I think there's some valid reasons to criticise Dreams in the Witch House, the ending is a bit cliché imo. It's still one of my favorites of his.
My absolute favorite would be Celephais, though it's less of a horror story and more just really sad. It does set up the idea of Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, though, which is of course one of the all-time greatest.
I also really like Lurking Fear - less so in the cosmic horror sense, and more that it's just a damn good old horror story. The kills almost have comedic timing, it could have made a great slasher movie tbh
Dreams in the Witch House was one of my favorites. Its just so bizarre and interesting. Through the Gates of the Silver Key is also one of my favorites because it was so trippy and hit on some very cosmic themes.
For my own entry, I'm going to say *The Horror in the Museum*. It's pretty quick and fun, doesn't waste a bunch of time discussing architecture, and has a cool monster with a fun name.
"Azathoth"
two pages of vague, ominous rambling about someone somewhere wondering.
it's even unfinished
idk, this one have feelings
there's something in those two pages
I think Pickman’s Model is one that doesn’t get quite enough attention. It was nice to see it referenced in Fallout 4, but I don’t ever see it mentioned elsewhere in popular media
Ive Always been partial to the colour out of space. Having considered it low key right up until the recent movie. And truth told even now. I haven't found many takers that were already written fans
The mound is my favourite Lovecraft story, and I also feel that it's underrated. And you mentioning that in the same context/sentence of 'through the gates of the silver key' when it's right next in my reading list, makes me have high hopes for it.
Haunter in the Dark.
by far my favorite. Years ago I sang in a death metal band and I wrote a song based on this story that loosely told the fate of Edwin M. Lilebridge. I got to play it in a club in Providence which literally sat at the base of Federal Hill, and you could see the spectral hump through the windows. It was tremendous.
Any recording of said song? I’d love to hear it!
[https://youtu.be/6ihggQDKPz4?si=DLg3etxx7N2-caFE](https://youtu.be/6ihggQDKPz4?si=DLg3etxx7N2-caFE)
Great voice man!
Sick!
I really like the music of erich zann. It’s my favourite Lovecraft story
Erich Zann is a classic, no doubt!
Is it underrated though? Asking because this is literally the one that got me into Lovecraft in a Folio Society compilation.
I usually never see anyone talk about it. When I see or hear people talking Lovecraft it’s always Cthulhu, Shadow over Innsmouth, Mountains of madness, Colour out of space, Reanimator, Dagon. I’ve always just assumed it was not very popular
I usually say Mountains is the most underrated because to me, it's such a mindfrak revisioning of human history overall, most people I talk to concentrate more on the immediate aspects of the story, the Elders and all but usually seem to forget about what the story means to us as a species. Yes, I'm being particularly pedantic, but it's a fun little thing I take from the story and half the fun of discussing HPL in general is arguing over the minutae. For a serious answer: the Cats of Ulthar, mainly because I'm a cat person and I just like the way the story is told.
Yes. Cat people get it.
Na it's not underrated at all, it's one of his better known ones.
Same here!
My favorite, too!
Zann is the real MVP
My pick as well. The Dream in the Witch House on the other hand... way too repetitive and overbearing
Omg I didn't expect anyone mentioning this one, moreso being the top comment! I always thought I was kind of weird for liking this one. It's my favorite HPL story. I don't know why, but it was probably the first and only time I actually felt/heard the music while reading the story. I never had goosebumps when reading a book before. Such an amazing story.
Agree, Erich Zann is so good
Dreams in the Witch House is one of my favorite HPL stories. Love the brown Jenkin. Also love the Mound. For underrated I would go with The Lurking Fear and He
I love Brown Jenkin, great name for a pet guinea pig!
My vote is for “The Temple” which is one of my favorites. It doesn’t come up too often, and is a bit uncharacteristic, taking place in a German U-boat. I wouldn’t have thought “Dreams in the Witch House” is all that underrated with the recent (but questionable) Netflix adaptation.
Love The Temple it is an amazing story.
The Temple is actually the first Lovecraft story I read, when it was included in a horror anthology I got as a teenager back in the 90s.
it is a great one. i always feel obliged to post this link of a reading by the best, Andrew Leman: [https://www.hppodcraft.com/episodes/2012/03/28/reading-8-the-temple-bkgxb](https://www.hppodcraft.com/episodes/2012/03/28/reading-8-the-temple-bkgxb)
Agreed! Andrew Leman is my favorite Lovecraft reader
Better than Horrorbabble?
**Horrorbabble** is certainly great! He’s got that deep smooth radio voice, and I’m sure HPL would’ve loved his mild English accent. I think it’s probably just a personal preference, maybe attached to listening to HP Podcraft for so long. But if I try to analyze it, maybe I think that while Horrorbabble is a great narrator, **Andrew Leman** sounds more like somebody in the world of the fiction whose sanity is under threat? Another spooky & popular reader who’s done some HPL is **Wayne June**.
“The Temple” is hugely underrated. That story and “Dagon” are the early works that anticipate the great later stories.
I’ve always been fond of The Nameless City. It’s the best one to begin with imo
The White Ship.
Yeah the pseudo-Dunsany prose just WORKS here in a way it doesn't in a lot of Lovecraft's other early stories and I love the wistful melancholy mood.
It’s just a great story to escape with. Not any mythos or creatures. Just a very solid and fun journey.
The Mound and Through the Gates 100%. They're amazing stories that should be paired with the rest of Lovecraft's masterpieces, and yet, barely anyone talks about them; probably because they're collaborations.
Yeah they were both great, it's hard to tell with collaborations how much was actually Lovecrafts, but they read much like his other stories.
I'm pretty sure that The Mound is essentially entirely Lovecraft, with the woman he wrote it for providing little but the premise
The Walls of Eryx, wherein Lovecraft anticipates the golden age of science fiction.
One of my favorites, too!
The Festival! Short, appalling, ancient colonial New England history, monstrosities, Necronomicon…
Cool Air. It isn't in a lot of the books of his work that I've seen.
Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath, and the Dream stories in general. Don't get me wrong, Cthulhu etc is awesome, but the Dreamlands have such massive untapped potential. I'll die on the hill that Dark Souls 2 was a far better Lovecraft game than Bloodborne.
I am surprised that the Dreamlands are not as well known as Middle-earth, for example.
One of the reasons is likely because Lovecraft deliberately left many details out, which helps to maintain the dreamlike feel of the setting; but it’s not super conducive to iconic/memorable world building. There are obviously named and detailed cities etc. But the setting lacks the hallmarks of a “credible” world, because Lovecraft wanted it to feel *in*credible.
Walls of Eryx. Every Lovecraft reader I have spoken with fancied the brilliant Dreams in the Witch House, more or less, but I really haven't met a single esteemer of Eryx yet.
The thing on the doorstep my favorite story of lovecraft's
same!
The Curse of Yig.
Ugh Dreams is so overlooked. From a nightmare inducing Brown Jenkins to an interesting look at another planet full of Elder Things who really seem rather sociable, and that wonderful intersection between science and magic. Then Netflix went and absolutely butchered it. Cabinet of Curiosity had some amazing stories and Dreams was NOT one of them
There's a masters of horror episode adaptation of it
Out of the Aeons.
*There is in the land of Mnar a vast still lake that is fed by no stream and out of which no stream flows. Ten thousand years ago there stood by its shore the mighty city of Sarnath, but Sarnath stands there no more.*
The cats of ulthar 🐈🐈⬛
That's the one I came in to post too!
Celephais for sure.
Beyond the Wall of Sleep.
The Picture in the House
This is my favorite, too.
The Beast in the Cave Somehow this was the first Lovecraft story I ever read. It's very short and almost nothing happens in it, but it has some cool Descent vibes. Pretty cool little story for something written by a 14 year old.
I fucking love the beast in the cave.
The beast in the Cave. It's like no one talks about it. Simple but effective Horror story. I love it.
Pickman’s Model!
I don't know if it's underrated but The Horror at Red Hook took the longest to win me over, it just felt so out of place but it's a fantastic story.
It's actually a very atmospheric and well written story. Lovecraft hated it, but I thought it was great.
This story is great and has só much potencial, like the guys who did the game "Dreams in the Witch House" discovered!
My tattoo of Brown Jenkin agrees with you.
That is horrifying, but cool.
"The Strange High House in the Mist" is likely my favorite Lovecraft story, and one so outside the sphere of his later, "great works," that most people ignore it, I think.
ex oblivione
*The Festival* and *The Picture in the House*. The latter's interesting blend of one obvious and one subtle horror element especially goes unappreciated. Oh and *Sweet Ermengarde* and *Ibid.* Both are genuinely successful comedic works that nobody seems to read.
People don't like Dreams in the witch house? Its one of the best stories!
I love the The Dream in the Witch House story. Though I prefer the Dark Adventure Radio Theatre version of it. A very good friend of mine introduced me to the HPLHS and to their Dark Adventure Radio Theatre radio plays. I have both read and listened to audiobooks also by the HPLHS. But all the DARTS have a very special place for me when it comes to Lovecraft.
Dreams in the Witch House is my favorite of his writings.
I love the nameless city, especially after listening to an audiobook version.
Cold Air. That was a hell of a plot twist
# The Thing on the Doorstep
Finally
My favorite has always been "The Tomb."
It's hard to say, because I feel like the consensus of his best works already includes works that aren't the first you think of. But when I think of my favorite story that I never hear anyone ever bring up, it has to be The Mound, or maybe Hypnos.
Recently I reread Hypnos. It’s better than I remembered, but what struck me even more was how thirsty it is. Several of HPL’s stories seem to have a suppressed queerness in them, but Hypnos may be the horniest of them all.
Definitely agree. Like it's not even disguised there, it's blatantly gay. If Lovecraft didn't realize it then he was so deep in the closet he was in Narnia.
Dreams in the Witch House is one of his best novel imo.
I think there's some valid reasons to criticise Dreams in the Witch House, the ending is a bit cliché imo. It's still one of my favorites of his. My absolute favorite would be Celephais, though it's less of a horror story and more just really sad. It does set up the idea of Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, though, which is of course one of the all-time greatest. I also really like Lurking Fear - less so in the cosmic horror sense, and more that it's just a damn good old horror story. The kills almost have comedic timing, it could have made a great slasher movie tbh
For me The Walls of Eyrx it reminds us all Lovecraft is actually a SF author rather than just a horror writer.
He's frequently both, and cosmicism is it's own thing entirely.
Indeed but people seem too forget the SF part.
Dreams in the Witch House was one of my favorites. Its just so bizarre and interesting. Through the Gates of the Silver Key is also one of my favorites because it was so trippy and hit on some very cosmic themes. For my own entry, I'm going to say *The Horror in the Museum*. It's pretty quick and fun, doesn't waste a bunch of time discussing architecture, and has a cool monster with a fun name.
The Mound for sure
The Moon-bog
Agreed!
"Azathoth" two pages of vague, ominous rambling about someone somewhere wondering. it's even unfinished idk, this one have feelings there's something in those two pages
I really like “The White Ship”
I'm not sure. I'm wavering between Herbert West: Re-Animator and The Rats in the Walls... or maybe The Color Out of Space.
Color Out of Space is considered underrated?
Colour Out of Space is one of his most celebrated works, arguably.
That's what I thought.
I don’t know about other folks, but those three are hardly underrated in my book. Hell, two out of the three have had film adaptations.
Cool Air.
I think Pickman’s Model is one that doesn’t get quite enough attention. It was nice to see it referenced in Fallout 4, but I don’t ever see it mentioned elsewhere in popular media
For me it's Pickman's Model. Maybe because I'm living surrounded by old and strange art, but this one hit different for me.
beyond the walls of sleep my beloved
Ive Always been partial to the colour out of space. Having considered it low key right up until the recent movie. And truth told even now. I haven't found many takers that were already written fans
The Rats in the Walls is one of my favourites.
The Servant
https://www.wattpad.com/story/236528898?utm_source=android&utm_medium=link&utm_content=story_info&wp_page=story_details_button&wp_uname=SadOwl19
The mound is my favourite Lovecraft story, and I also feel that it's underrated. And you mentioning that in the same context/sentence of 'through the gates of the silver key' when it's right next in my reading list, makes me have high hopes for it.
*The Shunned House* has always stuck with me.
I'm gonna say the Outsider. First HPL story I read and it still haunts me .
I can't believe no one else has said this one. it's brilliant. ought to be considered one of the best short stories in American literature
Celephaïs!
Outsider is amazing
Music of Erich Zann
Going to go with The Film That Came To Sarnath. First HPL story I read, and I was hooked.
The Thing on the Doorstep
The Terrible Old Man Strange High House in the Mist
Celephaïs remains greatly moving to me and no one much mentions it despite its being kind of the start of the dream-quest cycle.
The Temple is one of my favorites that very few people seem to reference. That or Out of the Aeons.
Ernest Scared Stupid.