THIS ISSUE: Denys Barry is convinced that telepathy is possible and his clinical research at the Oakdale State Psychiatric Institute supports his hypothesis. But Barry's research is jeopardized after he suffers a violent seizure during an experiment which he sputters "cosmic" nonsense. Soon after Barry discovers that a criminal patient named Joe Slaader was admitted into Oakdale at the same time as Barry's outburst. Barry is convinced his mind has somehow tapped into Slaader's delusion. This chilling Lovecraft tale is adapted by award winning comic writer Steven Philip Jones. H.P. Lovecraft is considered one of America's most innovative and popular American horror writers. The master of the weird tale during the first decades of the 20th Century until his premature death in 1937, Lovecraft's distinctive style and canon of work has influenced many authors. Jones takes the classic tale and while remaining true to the source, brings it into the modern age which can sometimes make the horror even more terrifying. This tale is illustrated by Octavio Cariello who has worked on DC's Green Lantern, Deathstroke, and Black Lightning comic book series.

For some, dreams can become reality. "H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands" provides everything needed for "Call of Cthulhu" or "Cthulhu Dark Ages" investigators to travel down the seven hundred steps, through the Gates of Deeper Slumber, and into the realm of dreams. Includes a travelogue of the Dreamlands, a huge gazetteer, Dreamlands character creation rules, over thirty prominent NPC's, over 60 monsters dwelling within the Dreamlands, descriptions of the Dreamlands gods and their cults, six adventures to help jump start a Dreamlands campaign, and a fold-out map of the Dreamlands by Andy Hopp. Includes the adventures "Pickmans Student"; "The Lemon Sails";" To Sleep, Perchance to Dream"; "Season of the Witch"; "The Land of Lost Dreams"; "Captives of Two Worlds."

In this eerie short story from horror master H.P. Lovecraft, a 40-year-old man from a backwoods community in the Catskills is confined to a mental hospital after committing a gruesome murder. The patient suffers a series of violent, trance-like episodes during which he recounts an epic battle against a mysterious, otherworldly entity. Are the fits merely the byproduct of a mental illness -- or is something much stranger going on?

A collection of five Lovecraft tales adapted by award winning comic writer Steven Philip Jones. Lovecraft is considered one of America’s most innovative and popular American horror writers. The master of the weird tale during the first decades of the 20th Century until his premature death in 1937, Lovecraft’s distinctive style and canon of work has influenced many authors. Jones takes the classic tales and while remaining true to the source, brings them into the modern age which can sometimes make the horror even more terrifying. These tales are illustrated by comic artists Sergio Cariello (MARVEL’s Deadpool, Captain America), Christopher Jones (DC’s Young Justice, Teen Titans Go!), Aldin Baroza (Family Guy, One Fisted Tales), Rob Davis (Star Trek, Quantum Leap), and Wayne Reid (El Cid, Storyville). The five illustrated stories within this Volume are "Dagon”, the U.S.S. Augustus is a nuclear submarine, its crew is unaccustomed to picking up castaways, especially on uncharted islands in the middle of the Atlantic. But that is where the Augustus finds Emma Loveless, sole survivor of a private jet crash. "Arthur Jermyn", the Jermyns have lived in their Gothic estate in Cambridgeshire for centuries. Explorers and adventurers, they are a wild and violent bunch with a cursed, black history of sudden murder and blood. Until the birth of Arthur Jermyn. "Picture in the House", Lorraine Claude is fascinated with the morbid and weird, but Lorraine does not count on a sudden thunderstorm driving her into the farmhouse of a very friendly and very old cannibal. "The Statement of Randolph Carter", Harley Warren is an expert on violent criminals and assists the FBI in their profiling and pursuit of criminals. When Warren reads a book about a location that can reveal the darkest and oldest mysteries of the stygian unknown, Warren wastes no time packing up his reluctant chronicler and assistant, Randolph Carter, to explore the site. "Music of Erich Zann", each night when American astronomer Max Finn comes home, an old man plays haunting melodies on his violins. Melodies that plague Finn’s dreams at night and give him nightmares about a cosmic land ruled by Nyarlathotep, also known as The Crawling Chaos, the messenger of the elder gods.

With the onset of Prohibition, the Sheehan Billiard Room in Chicago became a sordid haunt for hard drinkers. A certain Old Bugs, a mature man corroded by vices but capable of showing, at long intervals, the typical sensitivity of educated people works as a kitchen cleaner. When the young Alfred Trever, initiated by his friend Pete Schultz on the way of drinking, arrives at the Sheehan's tavern, Old Bugs will try to convince him not to make the same mistake as he did.

One of the feature stories of the Cthulhu Mythos, "The Shadow Out of Time" is the tale of a professor of political economics that is thrown into a mind-shattering journey through time and space, while his body is held hostage by an alien mind. Horrified and panic-stricken by the implications of his experiences, he hopes against all reason and evidence that he has merely lost his mind.

"The Green Meadow" follows the mysterious discovery of a diary inside a strange meteorite. The journal recounts a dreamlike journey through a surreal landscape, filled with bizarre creatures and eerie, otherworldly experiences. As the narrator ventures deeper into the unknown, reality begins to blur, raising questions about the boundaries between dreams and reality, life and death, and the unknown forces that govern them.

"The Transition of Juan Romero" is a short story by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, written on September 16, 1919, and first published in the 1944 Arkham House volume Marginalia. The story involves a mine that uncovers a very deep chasm, too deep for any sounding lines to hit bottom. The night after the discovery of the abyss the narrator and one of the mine's workers, a Latino called Juan Romero, venture inside the mine, drawn against their will by a mysterious rhythmical throbbing in the ground. Romero reaches the abyss first and is swallowed by it. The narrator peers over the edge, sees something - "but God, I dare not tell you what I saw!" and loses consciousness. That morning he and Romero are both found in their bunks, Romero dead. Other miners swear that neither of them left their cabin that night. The chasm has vanished as well. Famous works of the author Howard Phillips Lovecraft: At the Mountains of Madness, The Dreams in the Witch House, The Horror at Red Hook, The Shadow Out of Time, The Shadows over Innsmouth, The Alchemist, Reanimator, Ex Oblivione, Azathoth, The Call of Cthulhu, The Cats of Ulthar, The Festival, The Silver Key, The Other Gods, The Outsider, The Temple, The Picture in the House, The Shunned House, The Terrible Old Man, The Tomb, Dagon, What the Moon Brings.

The story is told by Albert N. Wilmarth, an instructor of literature at Miskatonic University in Arkham. When local newspapers report strange things seen floating in rivers during a historic Vermont flood, Wilmarth becomes embroiled in a controversy about the reality and significance of the sightings, though he sides with the skeptics. Wilmarth uncovers old legends about monsters living in the uninhabited hills who abduct people who venture or settle too close to their territory.

In the Lovecraftian universe there exists many terrible and horrifying things, from extraterrestrial gods and ancient secrets to zealous cults, supernatural beasts and beyond. Lovecraft's 1939 short story "In the Walls of Eryx" centres around the life and demise of a Venetian prospector who becomes lost in an invisible maze while mining on the planet Venus. Lovecraft's first and only science fiction story, this book is not to be missed by short story lovers and fans of Lovecraft's exceptional fiction. Other notable works by this author include: “At the Mountains of Madness”, “The Rats in the Walls”, and “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”. Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890–1937) was an American writer of supernatural horror fiction. Though his works remained largely unknown and did not furnish him with a decent living, Lovecraft is today considered to be among the most significant writers of supernatural horror fiction of the twentieth century. Read & Co. is publishing this classic short story now as part of our “Fantasy and Horror Classics” imprint in a new edition with a dedication by George Henry Weiss.