A Query:

[Ningauble]

I'm not Ningauble, but I can give you a fairly useful answer on this one. No, the number of mistakes is vastly reduced... quite minor, in fact, amounting to the nearly inevitable sort of things that creep in during the production of any book.

I concur with j. d.: the mistakes are for the greater part quite minor. I've compared The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories against the Arkham House editions, and here is a sample of differences I came up with (please note my use of the word differences here; I don't know whether these are real typos or not because S. T. hasn't looked on them yet. However, I suspect that the AH text -- on the right -- is correct in most cases.):

THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE
*172.25: first begin to get thick.] first begin to get very thick.
*178.8: the anatomy and habit of squirrels] the anatomy and habits of squirrels
*178.13: leaps of the rabbit] leaps of that rabbit
*178.32: store in Clark’s Corners.] store at Clark’s Corners.
*178.36: they had held] they held
*181.8: a timid woodmill salesman] a timid windmill salesman
*182.7: locked up in the attic.] locked in the attic.
*182.14: in the stalls] in their stalls
*184.7: It must only be] It must be only
*184.24-25: to cling around the Gardners] to cling round the Gardners
*185.28: Thad had gone,] Thad was gone,
**188.25: He whispered,] [would make more sense with a lower-case "h" here
*188.31: out of everthing] out of everything
*189.28: Thaddeus already being known,] Thaddeus being already known,
*191.33: in the aërolite] in that aërolite
*195.8: poor Hero] poor tethered Hero
*195.30-31: with the gnarled, fiendish] with their gnarled, fiendish
*196.19-20: crackling, not an] crackling, and not an

I should point out that 188.25 is based on my own gut feeling: NO appearance of the story has a lower-case "h" here, not even the manuscript from what I've heard (on the other hand, the manuscript was most likely typed by someone other than Lovecraft). However, the text makes more sense with a lower-case "he" here.

His revision tales -- also worth reading, in some cases just below his best original work itself -- is unfortunately only available currently in the Arkham House hardbound volume, if you want a good edition.)

Au contraire, my dear j. d. The recently released trade paperback from Del Rey is -- judging from the interior layout -- photographed from the Arkham House edition, which would make it the only Del Rey edition of Lovecraft that I can recommend with a clean conscience.

 

[j d worthington]

Au contraire, my dear j. d. The recently released trade paperback from Del Rey is -- judging from the interior layout -- photographed from the Arkham House edition, which would make it the only Del Rey edition of Lovecraft that I can recommend with a clean conscience.

Ah! I'd been a bit out of the loop lately, and wasn't even aware of this one. Thank you for the information! In such a case... by all means, check out these stories when you have a chance, Connavar (or anyone else interested in diving into serious HPL reading). Though some of the revision tales are clumsy, some are mediocre, and some (like "Ashes") are simply bad, there are a number well worth checking out, such as "The Mound", "Out of the Eons", "The Horror in the Burying-Ground" (for sheer grue, this one certainly fits the bill), and especially "The Night Ocean", as well as others. Here's the list from the revised edition (the Del Rey apparently, as Ningauble noted, follows the Arkham texts):

The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Ningauble]

Ah! I'd been a bit out of the loop lately, and wasn't even aware of this one. Thank you for the information! In such a case... by all means, check out these stories when you have a chance, Connavar (or anyone else interested in diving into serious HPL reading). Though some of the revision tales are clumsy, some are mediocre, and some (like "Ashes") are simply bad, there are a number well worth checking out, such as "The Mound", "Out of the Eons", "The Horror in the Burying-Ground" (for sheer grue, this one certainly fits the bill), and especially "The Night Ocean", as well as others. Here's the list from the revised edition (the Del Rey apparently, as Ningauble noted, follows the Arkham texts):

The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'll second your recommendations. "The Mound" is IMO one of the best tales in the book -- in fact, I'd say it's about as good as "The Thing on the Doorstep" or "At the Mountains of Madness" (but then again, HPL apparently wrote it all by himself with no help from the official author, apart from the bare bones of a plot idea), but with a little bit more action.
"The Night Ocean" is a great story, but recent research has shown that only about 10% of the text was written by Lovecraft (a microfilm of the original manuscript was located in c. 2000), so credit must go to R. H. Barlow for its qualities.

 

[clovis-man]

* The correct title of "Arthur Jermyn" is "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family".

I read this in a mass market paperback when I was in high school (1950s). I'm not sure the extended title was used even at that time. So how long have typos, omissions and misprints been going on in HPL publications? Wonderful creepy tale, BTW.

 

[Ningauble]

I read this in a mass market paperback when I was in high school (1950s). I'm not sure the extended title was used even at that time. So how long have typos, omissions and misprints been going on in HPL publications? Wonderful creepy tale, BTW.

Since the very beginning. The full title "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" was used only once before 1986, and that was in its first appearance in the amateur journal The Wolverine. When it was published in Weird Tales it was "The White Ape" (which kind of gives the whole thing away). And later, it was just "Arthur Jermyn".
Quite often, typos can be blamed on the people who transcribed HPL's hand-written manuscripts. HPl hated typing and was willing to go through fire and water to avoid it. Since his handwriting could be terribly difficult (there's an anecdote about the mother of one of his correspondents who at first glance mistook it for Arabic), and he frequently crossed out passages and wrote at right angles in the margins, with extra passages in bubbles and arrows crisscrossing the pages, it's no wonder that errors crept in.

Joshi has a very interesting article in the reprint of Schweitzer's Discovering H. P. Lovecraft. The article is a revised version, incorporating a passage on the original manuscript of "The Shadow Out of Time" that was discovered as late as 1994, IIRC. Original manuscripts still keep popping up; the latest were the hand-written manuscript for "The Shunned House" that was sold at Sotheby's in New York about a year ago (it's on sale here L. W. Currey, Inc. - "SHUNNED HOUSE, THE" [novelette]. AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT SIGNED (AMsS). 32 pages, handwritten on the rectos of 32 sheets of white and salmon-colored 8 1/2 x 11-inch paper with mimeographed, typed and handwritten business and person if you have $100.000 to spare) and the hand-written manuscript of "Under the Pyramids" (always published as "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" until the corrected Arkham House editions restored the title in the 1980s).

 

[j d worthington]

"The Night Ocean" is a great story, but recent research has shown that only about 10% of the text was written by Lovecraft (a microfilm of the original manuscript was located in c. 2000), so credit must go to R. H. Barlow for its qualities.

See? I said I'd been out of the loop.... I knew that scholarship kept pushing back the amount of HPL's contribution to "The Night Ocean", though I'd not heard about the MS. being found... that's very good news. Finally settles the question left open by the ambiguous phrasing in Lovecraft's letters.... And yes, it is a very good story. Barlow's talent seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds at that period.

Now if I only had $100,000 for that script of "The Shunned House"....

 

[Ningauble]

See? I said I'd been out of the loop....

On the other hand, it hasn't been widely announced. I know of only two places: An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia and Eyes of the God. But an old mailing of the EOD even had a facsimile of the typescript.

I knew that scholarship kept pushing back the amount of HPL's contribution to "The Night Ocean", though I'd not heard about the MS. being found... that's very good news. Finally settles the question left open by the ambiguous phrasing in Lovecraft's letters....

Yup. Now there are known Mss. for all of the Barlow/Lovecraft stories.

Now if I only had $100,000 for that script of "The Shunned House"....

Yes, if only... If I ever win a humongous amount of money, one of my first priorities will be donating a sizable chunk of it to the John Hay Library for this purpose.

 

[j d worthington]

On the other hand, it hasn't been widely announced. I know of only two places: An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia and Eyes of the God. But an old mailing of the EOD even had a facsimile of the typescript.

Not being a member of the EOD (I really need to check into these things shortly after the first of the year... things this year have just been so chaotic all 'round....), I wasn't aware of that... I'd love to see it, though...

Yup. Now there are known Mss. for all of the Barlow/Lovecraft stories.

Always glad to see such things show up. The more we learn about these relationships between Lovecraft and other writers, the more fascinating they become....

Yes, if only... If I ever win a humongous amount of money, one of my first priorities will be donating a sizable chunk of it to the John Hay Library for this purpose.

Ditto! They've provided many an invaluable service to study of the man....