A Cthulhu Mythos Bibliography & Concordance

Rating:
Summary: A Very Good Investment for the "Mythos Maniac"
Review: If you're REALLY into H.P. Lovecraft's horror writings, then this is a "must-have" book! It contains a bibliography listing just about every piece of fiction written that is connected to the "Cthulu Mythos" of H.P. Lovecraft, a concordance of important "mythos terms" detailing the stories where they appeared, an index of works by title, a guide to the writers' names and pseudonyms, and a selected list of story collections. The book doesn't have anything near to a complete list of ALL published collections, however, and appears to favor hardbound over softbound books. The bibliography is also focused on the original publication location of each work, rather than subsequent or current publications that may contain it (this last is somewhat compensated by the selected collections listing, many of which are currently available). All in all, an excellent work for any Mythos fanatic to add to their collection.

Rating:
Summary: A Very Good Investment for the "Mythos Maniac"
Review: If you're REALLY into H.P. Lovecraft's horror writings, then this is a "must-have" book! It contains a bibliography listing just about every piece of fiction written that is connected to the "Cthulu Mythos" of H.P. Lovecraft, a concordance of important "mythos terms" detailing the stories where they appeared, an index of works by title, a guide to the writers' names and pseudonyms, and a selected list of story collections. The book doesn't have anything near to a complete list of ALL published collections, however, and appears to favor hardbound over softbound books. The bibliography is also focused on the original publication location of each work, rather than subsequent or current publications that may contain it (this last is somewhat compensated by the selected collections listing, many of which are currently available). All in all, an excellent work for any Mythos fanatic to add to their collection.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent bibliography/concordance with a few minor faults.
Review: This is a great book for a reader or writer of the Lovecraftian tradition. With thousands of entries listing virtually every book or story with even the most tangential or tenuous connection to the mythos, this is the most exhaustive bibliography of the mythos I have ever seen. A couple of minor quibbles: 1) the individual entries do not list where the story can be most accessibly found in 1999 (i.e. where the story most recently saw print), only where it originally appeared. There is, however, a listing of recent anthologies, so you the reader can see what is in print now or recently. I was also a bit disappointed by the lack of commentary on individual items in the concordance, but this admittedly falls outside of the scope of the book. However, it would be nice to have an encyclopedia of the mythos that focuses more on the literary than the game related-- Chaosium's Encyclopedia Cthulhiana focuses pretty heavily on its own product and that of its licensees. All in all, well worth picking up, and highly recommended despite my nigglings.