Recommendations based on "The Complete H.P. Lovecraft Collection"

From breathtaking stop-action animation to bittersweet modern fairy tales, filmmaker Tim Burton has become known for his unique visual brilliance -- witty and macabre at once. Now he gives birth to a cast of gruesomely sympathetic children -- misunderstood outcasts who struggle to find love and belonging in their cruel, cruel worlds. His lovingly lurid illustrations evoke both the sweetness and the tragedy of these dark yet simple beings -- hopeful, hapless heroes who appeal to the ugly outsider in all of us, and let us laugh at a world we have long left behind (mostly anyway).

The medieval world was teeming with monsters--on the edges of manuscript pages, on the fringes of maps, not to mention crowding in from all sides of the known world. Believed to dwell in exotic, remote areas, these inexplicable parts of God's creation aroused fear, curiosity, and wonder in equal measure. Powerfully captured in the illustrations that filled bestiaries, travel books, and even Bibles and devotional works, these misshapen brutes continue to delight audiences today with their vitality and humor.Filled with satyrs, sea creatures, griffins, dragons, and devils, Medieval Monsters is a cornucopia of illustrations from medieval manuscripts that are at once fascinating, grotesque, and amusing. This successor to the British Library's Medieval Cats and Medieval Dogs provides an accessible and informative guide to bewitching demons, blemmyae, Cyclops, and multi-headed beasts of all sorts. Over one hundred wondrous and terrifying images show how strange creatures sparked artists' imaginations to incredible heights, while offering fascinating insights into the medieval mind.

A set of 50 fascinating, disturbing, moving or funny short books published in an appealing new format to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Penguin Modern Classics

Del Rey / Ballantine, 1977. Paperback, 1st printing. Brown was a master of short-form science fiction. Introduction by Robert Bloch, and these stories: "Arena" (1944); "Imagine" (1955. poem); "It Didn't Happen" (1963); "Recessional" (1961); "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" (1965, with Carl Onspaugh); "Puppet Show" (1962); "Nightmare in Yellow" (1961); "Earthmen Bearing Gifts" (1960); "Jaycee" (1955); "Pi in the Sky" (1945); "Answer" (1954); "The Geezenstacks" (1943); "Hall of Mirrors" (1953); "Knock" (1948); "Rebound" (1960); "Star Mouse" (1951); "Abominable" (1960); "Letter to a Phoenix" (1949); "Not Yet the End" (1941); "Etaoin Shrdlu" (1942); "Armageddon" (1941); "Experiment" [Two Timer]" (1954); "The Short Happy Lives of Eustace Weaver I" (1961); "The Short Happy Lives of Eustace Weaver II" (1961); "The Short Happy Lives of Eustace Weaver III" (1961); "Reconciliation" (1954); "Nothing Sirius" (1944); "Pattern" (1954); "The Yehudi Principle" (1944); "Come and Go Mad" (1949); "The End" (1961).

Six horror stories include "The Book of Blood," "The Midnight Meat Train," "The Yattering and Jack," "Pig Blood Blues," "Sex, Death, and Starshine," and "In the Hills, the Cities." Reprint.

Mathematician, author, photographer, and artist, Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 1832–1898) is best known as the creator of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but he was also a prolific poet. Over the course of almost 50 years, he created 150 poems, including nonsense verse, parodies, burlesques, acrostics, inscriptions, and more, many of them hilarious lampoons of some of the more sentimental and moralistic poems of the Victorian era.This carefully chosen collection contains 38 of Carroll's most appealing verses, including such classics as "The Walrus and the Carpenter," "The Mock Turtle's Song," and "Father William," plus such lesser-known gems as "My Fancy," "A Sea Dirge," "Brother and Sister," "Hiawatha's Photographing," "The Mad Gardener's Song," "What Tottles Meant," "Poeta Fit, non Nascitur," "The Little Man That Had a Little Gun," and many others.Filled with Carroll's special brand of imaginative whimsy and clever wordplay, this original anthology will delight fans of the author as well as other readers who relish a little laughter with their lyrics.

Featuring a gold-foil-embossed cloth cover, a ribbon marker and sprayed gold edges, this gorgeous volume is filled with beautiful illustrations and precise notes detailing the secret lives of magical beasts.   Tales of magical creatures have been told across the world for generations... but are these stories merely flights of fancy, or is there any truth to the legends of unicorns and dragons, centaurs and griffins?   Presented as the notebook of a 1920s zoologist, this lavish volume sets out to answer this question, revealing the hidden world of the magical beasts that live among us. Within these pages you will meet bizarre and beautiful creatures from around the globe, discovering their habits, habitats and the legends surrounding them. Learn about the anatomy of a unicorn, the life cycle of a phoenix, incredible dragon courtship dances and much more in this ultimate guide to magical creatures.   This exquisitely illustrated album will entrance all true-believers and fantasy enthusiasts.   Following on from A Natural History of Fairies, A Natural History of Magick and A Natural History of Mermaids, this vintage notebook is part of the Folklore Field Guides series: a charming collection of beautifully illustrated compendiums on topics of lore and legend. Fascinating facts are accompanied by breathtaking illustrations, all presented in an engaging narrative form.  

All the Tales From Dimwood Forest -- Ragweed, Poppy, Poppy and Rye, and Ereth's Birthday -- in one stunning boxed set!

This collection displays in glorious abundance the offbeat characters and droll humor of Edward Gorey. Figbash is acrobatic, topiaries are tragic, hippopotami are admonitory, and galoshes are remorseful in this celebration of a unique talent that never fails to delight, amuse, and confound. Amphigorey Again contains previously uncollected work and two unpublished stories--"The Izzard Book," a quirky riff on the letter Z, and "La Malle Saignante," a bilingual homage to early French silent serial movies. Rough sketches and unfinished panels show an ironic and singular mind at work.

"Some stories keep returning, each time reimagined to fit the occasion. In some cases, we know them without having read the originals, and in a few brief sentences we can sketch the essential plot points and key characters. Robinson Crusoe, Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Sherlock Holmes, Batman: their stories, Philip Ball contends, are among our modern myths. Written since Crusoe was published in 1719, these modern myths truly serve the same function as the stories of Thor and Loki, Hercules and Jason, and other ancient universal myths of creation, flood, redemption, and heroism. What is that function? Why are we still making myths? Why do we need new myths? And which are they? By posing these questions and seeking answers, The Modern Myths makes bold claims about the nature of storytelling, the condition of modernity, and the categories of literature. The themes and meanings of modern myths are decided collectively and dynamically and shift with the times. They escape the intentions of their authors because they inadvertently touch on issues that trouble and obsess us and become vehicles for exploring them. The Modern Myths takes a wide-ranging journey--discovering unexpected truths behind familiar tales, excavating strange and colorful histories, and finding hidden connections between them. The result is an exploration of how stories are created and how they evolve. And from this, Ball crafts provocative conclusions about the purposes and values of literature today and about the roles that new media and technology will play in creating the myths of tomorrow"--