The Outsider and Others
Dust-jacket illustration by Virgil Finlay for The Outsider and Others
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| Author | H. P. Lovecraft |
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| Cover artist | Virgil Finlay |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fantasy, Horror, Science fiction |
| Published | 1939 (Arkham House) |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 533 pp |
The Outsider and Others is a collection of stories by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was released in 1939 and was the first book published by Arkham House. 1,268 copies were printed. It went out of print early in 1944 and has never been reprinted.
The volume takes its name from the Lovecraft short story "The Outsider"; The Outsider and Other Stories was Lovecraft's preferred title for a short story collection considered, but never issued, by Farnsworth Wright. The stories for this volume were selected by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei. The dust jacket art was a montage of drawings by Virgil Finlay for Weird Tales magazine, of which only one or two had originally illustrated Lovecraft stories.
E. F. Bleiler describes the collection's publication as "the beginning of serious specialist publishing of fantastic fiction in America".
In late 1937, the death of Howard Phillips Lovecraft prompted his two friends, August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, to gather a collection of Lovecraft's best weird fiction from the pulp magazines into a memorial volume. After several attempts to place the omnibus volume with major hardcover publishers without any success, the two men realised that no publisher would be willing to take a chance with the collection. Derleth and Wandrei decided to form their own company, Arkham House (its name based on a town featured in many of Lovecraft's stories) with the expressed purpose of publishing all of Lovecraft's writings in hardcover. The omnibus volume was scheduled as the first offering from Arkham House, with a price of $5.00, while advance orders were accepted at $3.50 each. Even at that bargain price, only 150 orders were received for The Outsider and Others before its appearance in 1939.
The Outsider was printed by the George Banta Co. of Wisconsin, in an edition of 1268 copies. The book was over 550 pages long, with small print, and featured a jacket by noted fantasy artist Virgil Finlay. The omnibus sold slowly but steadily.
The Outsider and Others contains the following tales:
While the stories in the collection have appeared in other Lovecraft books, The Outsider and Others has never been reprinted in its original form.
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