THE OUTSIDER AND OTHERS

Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham House, 1939. One of 1,200 Copies. First Collected Edition. 238 x 160 mm. (9 5/8 x 6 1/4"). xiv, 153, [3] pp.Compiled and edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei.
Publisher's black buckram, smooth spine with gilt vertical titling, midnight blue (unclipped) dust jacket featuring a fantastical design by Virgil Finlay (signed near foot of front cover). ◆A little fraying to head edge of jacket, quarter-inch chips to it at head and tail of spine, spine and rear cover of jacket lightly toned, one corner at head of book spine lightly bumped, a couple pages with faint thumbing, very light brown stain to upper fore-edge corner of a score of leaves, but an excellent copy--clean and fresh inside and out with few signs of use--in a very good jacket.

This first collected edition of tales by American horror legend H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) is deemed "a landmark in weird fiction" by ANB. The compilation of stories originally published in "Weird Tales" pulp magazine was the first book issued by Arkham House press, founded by Lovecraft's friends and fellow writers August Derleth and Donald Wandrei when they were unable to find a publisher for a hardback edition of Lovecraft's tales. Named for the fictional town in which many Lovecraft stories are set, Arkham was established in Derleth's small hometown in 1939, and continued to publish science fiction, fantasy, and horror writing until 2010. According to ANB, "Lovecraft's place in literary history currently resides in his pivotal role in the development of modern weird fiction. His tales are an outgrowth of his philosophical thought. An atheistic materialist, Lovecraft came to feel that human beings occupied an insignificant place in the boundless realms of space and time; in his fiction this conception was expressed by his frequently used term cosmicism. . . . Some of his most powerful tales employ a pseudomythology (labeled the Cthulhu Mythos by Derleth) to convey his cosmicism." The well-preserved dust jacket here was illustrated--and signed--by another legend in the field of American pulp fantasy, science fiction and horror, Victor Finlay (1914-1971), who won the inaugural Hugo Award (given for works of science fiction) for Best Artist. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2012..