Les Edwards' Lovecraftian Sketches Online

Earlier this year, Gollancz released a mammoth new edition of H.P. Lovecraft's collected stories. This book, edited by longtime Lovecraftian Stephen Jones, is entitled Necronomicon: The Best Weird Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. And a handsome volume it is! The leathery skin and grotesque sketches between HPL's stories truly make it worthy of the name Necronomicon, and worthy of many readers' shelves.

When compared to other collections of Lovecraft, it's ultimately the horrific drawings from artist Les Edwards that helps this work rise above the ghoulish pack. Luckily, Edwards' faithful depictions of Lovecraft's many weird creatures and damning locales are also available on his website in the horror gallery here. A jaunty stroll through this Lovecraftian museum will show very few realms pioneered by the Providence writer untouched. Edwards has done an excellent and completest job of bringing HPL's horrors to life, in his own Goya-like images.

Idols rise wildly from the pages of "The Call of Cthulhu." The flabby, fishy Innsmouth look is portrayed with all the loathsome features expected of the decrepit town's populace. And seekers after strange places stand before ominous tombs and graveyards. Les Edwards' dedication to orthodox depictions out of Lovecraft, alongside his skillful execution of them, helps make Gollancz's tome quite possibly the best illustrated edition yet. Even better, the Edwards horror gallery noted above includes some images that didn't make it into the book--providing a collected expanse of Edwards' own dark talents in putting the nightmares of H.P. Lovecraft to paper.

-Grim Blogger