This collection with an introduction by August Derleth published in 1951 is expensive to buy, (a good second hand copy is about 80 euros), but you can read all the stories in the collection free on the internet (without Derleths introduction). The listing of these classic stories in the original collection is:

Pickman's Model - 1927
The Call of Cthulhu - 1928
The Colour out of Space - 1927
The Dunwich Horror - 1929
The Haunter of the Dark - 1936
The Music of Eric Zann - 1922
The Outsider - 1921
The Rats in the Walls - 1924
The Thing on the Doorstep - 1937
The Whisperer in the Darkness - 1931

I took the option of reading these stories on my kindle, but in the same order as the 1951 collection.

People may be familiar with the Dunwich Horror, which has been made into films a number of times and it contains all the classic elements of the Cthulhu mythos. The scenario is in backwood country in Massachusetts along the upper reaches of the Miskatonic river and near the town of Arken. Inbreeding is rife and Wilbur Whatley's birth is heralded by a chorus of barking dogs. He is deformed but develops at a prodigious rate. The family has vague connections with the witches of Salem and Wilbur seeks out a book of old spells called the Necronomicon: there is a copy in the library at Arken and a Doctor Armitage becomes interested in the Whatley family and visits their old farmhouse. He soon discovers that Wilbur was attempting to call the Great Old Ones by using the Necronomicon. The Whatley farmhouse erupts with monsters rising from the depths...........

The "Call of Cthulhu" published a year earlier is one of the first of the stories and fills in the history. Two events in different parts of the world set the scene for the stories that follow: an Icelandic tribe and a voodoo gathering in backwoods America are found to be committing atrocities and both chanting the same refrain:

"In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming"

Six of the stories in this collection are based around the Cthulhu mythos and we learn that the monsters are from outer space and are using the earth for mining precious metals in out of the way places. They are able to exert mental power that can control weak minded earthlings, but are content to remain hidden. When they do arise from the depths of the earth there is devastation. Each of the six stories develop the mythos a little more, but of course they have a sameness about them and so by the time I read the final story "The Whisperer in the Darkness" I was getting a little bored.

The strength in the telling of these tales is Lovecraft's ability to create a milieu that has all the portents of coming doom. Nobody behaves foolishly, but they are sucked into the strangeness that surrounds situations that Lovecraft creates. One of the stories: "The Colour Out of Space" which is not really part of the Cthulhu mythos, but tells of the effects of a small meteorite landing in a sparsely populated area and how it slowly poisons the land of the Nahun family and causes their eventual destruction is both atmospheric and sinister. Most of these stories have that same quality. The Collection contains Lovecraft's last tale "Haunter of the Dark" written in 1935 which is of short story length and seems to distill many of the elements of Lovecraft's writing into a superb horror story reading experience. Perhaps people curious about H P Lovecraft should start with this.

I really enjoyed two other stories which are not part of the mythos; 'The Music of Erich Zann' and "The Outsider": the ideas that fuel these two stories have since been written and rewritten by other authors since Lovecraft's versions, but his stories stand up well. Horror stories from the 1920's-30's are short on gore, leaving the reader to imagine the worst and that is just how I like them. Well written and inventive with that unmistakable sense of wonder, this is a 5 star collection. ( )