Top 5 (or 10) for introducing people to HLP

[davidsverse]

Horror at Red Hook...




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Ok, seriously, Pickman's Model. 

[Bassik]

Horror at Red Hook...

You bastard 

[Miel]

Since HPL's writing style is rather dense, I would start off with the short ones, then build up to longer ones. First "The Statement of Randolph Carter" and "The Outsider", and "The Music of Erich Zann", then if they like those, "Dagon", then "The Call of Cthulhu". And then "Sweet Ermengarde" to destroy any impression that HPL's previous works made on them.

[Dionysius8421]

I started with Dagon, so I would recommend that. The Outsider, The Statement of Randolph Carter, and good ol' Call of Cthulhu would probably be up there. The Weird Shadow Over Innsmouth is another good one.

But that's me.

[I AM Schenectady]

I would give someone starting out ye Penguin Classics collection, The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories, as it contains a near-perfect blend of the kinds of things HPL penned, some of the dream-like phantasies such as "The White Ship" and "The Quest of Iranon," the very strange and wonderful early classic "The Music of Erich Zann," the gruesome horrors of "Pickman's Model," "The Dunwich Horror" and "The Thing on the Doorstep," and then those two very different short novels, At the Mountains of Madness and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

I have all the Penguin Lovecrafts and I gotta agree. That one is the best cross-section.

I started my wife on The Dunwich Horror for the very reason it's controversial among Lovecraft scholars: there are some very un-Lovecraftian heroics in it. Next up, she's getting The Color Out of Space. Fun time's over.

[ragnarhedin]

I teach at a private middle school in Tennessee and started a weekly high level reading group with some eighth graders where we had round table discussions of older short stories and weird fiction.  To be completely honest the entire reason I started the group was because Chad and Chris' podcast had introduced me to Lovecraft over the Summer (knew about the mythos, had never actually read anything) and I wanted an excuse to share Lovecraft with the kids.

Over the course of eight weeks I mixed in:

1) The Cats of Ulthar
2) The Terrible Old Man
3) The Music of Erich Zann

The kids loved all of them, but we had the best discussion with Music and the nature of what was beyond the window.

We're due to start up the group again soon and I'm considering From Beyond, The Thing in the Moonlight, or The Horror at Martin's Beach.