It's simple: I want you to design the ideal Lovecraft collection. I'm going to use Del Rey's
The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre as a reference point here and set the cutoff point at 16 stories.
For the most part, I like that list, but there are a few substitutions I would make, and I would change the order. For my money, here's the perfect HPL collection, the REAL best of H.P. Lovecraft:
1. From Beyond
2. The Doom That Came to Sarnath
3. The Cats of Ulthar
4. Nyarlathotep
5. The Music of Erich Zann
6. The Rats in the Walls
7. Under the Pyramids
8. The Call of Cthulhu
9. The Colour Out of Space
10. The Dunwich Horror
11. The Whisperer in Darkness
12. At the Mountains of Madness
13. The Shadow Over Innsmouth
14. The Dreams in the Witch House
15. The Shadow Out of Time
16. The Haunter of the Dark