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Thursday, October 9, 2014

Ballantine's World of H.P. Lovecraft Boxed Set (1971): The Way Madness Lies

Another rare paperback four-volume box set of Lovecraft tales. The covers, by Spanish fantasy artist Gervasio Gallardo, are elaborate landscapes of surreal nightmare: perfect for illustrating HPL's "Dream Cycle" stories. Gallardo painted many of the covers for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy line which began in the late '60s and featured the genre's giants: Lord Dunsay, James Branch Cabell, George MacDonald, Clark Ashton Smith, William Hope Hodgson, and Arthur Machen.

 
 
 
A collector could find most of the titles in this line for sale on eBay and Amazon, but I myself never see these HPL Ballantine books on used bookstore shelves. I think that an obsessive would be able to, after some hard and dedicated work, amass every Ballantine Adult Fantasy volume, perhaps even in mint condition, but that way madness lies...


4 comments:

  1. Cool collection Will! I've seen all of these except for The Survivor-which I really need to search for -so amazing! I have that vers of The Dream Quest of Unknwn Kaddath, although I've never finished it. I'm not a big fantasy fan, more into horror. I just got it for the cool cover.

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    1. I read a lot of HPL's fantasy when I first started reading him, but I've never reread it. I'm a Cthulhu Mythos guy. But as a series these covers are über-collectible!

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  2. I need to get myself some Lovecrafts and stat. Been meaning to anyway.

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  3. I never knew this boxed collection existed. I don't suppose they ever re-issued it as a 6-book set with The Spawn of Cthulhu & Lovecraft: a Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos (all Gallardo covers)?

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