"The Bland Batch" (Miskatonic Press, Vol. 6)

"I will tell you of The Street." - tells of street - "I have told you of The Street."

Miskatonic Press started because I couldn't remember which stories I'd already read in my H.P. Lovecraft anthology. When I finished a story, I would go to the table of contents and write a one-sentence summary of what happened (usually in a humorous way). I would typically phrase them like a newspaper headline or the tag line for a movie.

To be perfectly honest, not all of Lovecraft's stories are long enough or interesting enough to warrant their own article in Miskatonic Press. For that reason, I have lumped several of them together into an amorphous Eldrich curiosity for your perusal.

#1. Sweet Ermengarde

A comedy... satire... thing. Lovecraft should stick to his usual gloomy and unnatural anecdotes.

#2. The Quest of Iranon

He ran on. That's about it.

#3. Memory

I don't remember anything about this story.

#4. The Street

A New England street aquires sentience and rises against sinister foreigners. Buildings collapse, and the earth itself swallows up all the undesireables in patriotic rage.

#5. A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson

Old man needs a nap.

#6. The Alchemist

Man defies laws of time and space to pull murderous prank.

#7. The White Ship

Solitary lighthouse-keeper sleeps through a shipwreck. He has a lovely dream, though.

#8. The Outsider

Hideous undead creature is not welcome at fancy party.

#9. The Nameless City

Despite warnings from the locals, man tresspasses on anchient reptilian city and hears strange moaning underground.

This story is Lovecraft's first escapade into cosmic horror, a precursor to the better-known "Call of Cthulhu." It is also the source of a rhyming couplet that's foundational in Lovecraft's mythos:

"That is not dead which can eternal lie,

And with strange aeons even death may die."

Another ideal rhyme for the nursery, I think.

#10. Celephais

Great king has annoying recurring dream wherein he faces poverty, addiction, homelessness.

Nameless tramp washes up on shore: autopsy reveals he was 65% drugs. Sheesh!

Follow me down the rabbit hole:

"The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft" (Chartwell Classics). This is the edition of Lovecraft that I have at home, and I enjoy it immensely. It's a nice hefty tome with a beautiful illustration on the cover.