LOVECRAFT, H.P. The Outsider and Others. WI, Sauk City: Arkham House. 1939.
8vo. Original black cloth, gilt lettering to spine; illustrated dust jacket by Virgil Finlay; pp. xiv, 553, [5]; bookplate of a certain Richard A Frank to front pastedown; minimal creasing down spine and rubbing to some rubbing to extremities; some marks to endpapers with a few to cloth also; otherwise near fine.
First edition, first printing. The first Arkham House title and the very first omnibus edition of Lovecraft's fiction.
Described as a work of 'painstaking labour' over a period of two years by two friends of H.P. Lovecraft in the wake of his death in 1937, this is a canonical marker to anyone with a fascination in the supernatural or the macabre. Donald Wandrei and August Derleth compiled, not only the writings, but the poems, essays, stories and letters in preparation of editing three large volumes of Lovecraft's work. This collection forms the very first.
Significantly, The Outsider and Others was the catalyst for the conception of Arkham House Press and it was printed in a relatively small run of 1,268 copies containing the best of Lovecraft's work.
In addition, this copy has, tipped in at the front, an August 1937 review by Derleth himself regarding Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth (April 1936). Towards the end of the review Derleth endeavours to advertise the future publication as such; "A comprehensive collection of the writing of H.P. Lovecraft and a first volume, The Outsider, including a bulk of his short stories and his masterly study, Supernatural Horror in Literature, may appear before the year is out". His time estimation may have been optimistic but the final delivery is worthy of high praise.
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