I've never listened to Lovecraft books but I've been watching the TV series "Lovecraft Country" and like it. I couldn't find Lovecraft books on GraphicAudio.net so thought I should ask you guys for...
Reading order and Best version/Narration. Thanks!
PS. I have the Dark Adventure Radio Series 1-9
I haven't watched "Lovecraft Country" yet, but I have read the book. It is quite different in tone from the original HPL. There are now many people writing in HPL's universe, who have a quite different point of view than he did. He encouraged other writers to do that in his life, many later famous ones did. So there is a lot more creativity in the "Lovecraftian" genre than in say Sherlock Holmes pastiches. (Of course, there are several Holmes/Lovecraft crossovers....)
Have you listened to the DART series? If not, start there.
They are very close to the text of the stories, but ham it up in the performance in faux 1920 radio drama style.
https://audiobookbay.lu/audio-books/the-complete-fiction-of-hp-lovecraft-hp-lovecraft-3/I'm not sure how these files are tagged, hopefully the ID3tags have the titles.
This is a straight narration of all his fiction by the same people (HPLHS) who make the DART "radio plays".
So I'd say this is the gold standard, they used the best version of the text (some text editions are a bit dodgy), they are talented performers and care deeply about the works.
There is no continuity of plot between stories, sometimes a shared background or fictional place, like Arkham, you can read in any order.
If you're going to read all of them (51 hours) then perhaps just do chronological order.
The "Mythos" tales are the most famous, concerning the Old Ones and the "gods" Cthulhu, etc.
This is from the reader's guide on the HPLHS collection:
If you’re new to Lovecraft, we suggest you start with our Greatest Hits List below — once you’ve heard those stories, you can explore the rest of them on your own. If you’re academically inclined and want to hear the development of HPL as an author, the Chronological List can be informative. We’ve also broken the stories into a few groups based on common settings or themes. He has stories set in the Dreamlands. He has stories that directly feature the “Cthulhu Mythos”. He has stories that are very science oriented, and some that are classic tales of horror. And he has a number of miscellaneous, juvenile, or shorter tales that don’t really fit any of these categories.
GREATEST HITS LIST
The Statement of Randolph Carter
Pickman’s Model
The Picture in the House
The Hound
The Call of Cthulhu
The Colour Out of Space
The Dunwich Horror
The Whisperer in Darkness
At the Mountains of Madness
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
The Shadow Out of Time
MYTHOS TALES
Dagon
The Nameless City
The Music of Erich Zann
Azathoth
The Call of Cthulhu
History of the Necronomicon
The Dunwich Horror
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
The Dreams in the Witch House
CLASSIC HORROR TALES
The Picture in the House
The Outsider
The Hound
The Lurking Fear
The Rats in the Walls
The Unnamable
Under the Pyramids
Cool Air
Pickman’s Model
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The Dunwich Horror
The Thing on the Doorstep
The Haunter of the Dark
Facts Concerning etc.
The Shunned House
The Horror at Red Hook
TALES OF SCIENCE
Beyond the Wall of Sleep
From Beyond
Nyarlathotep
Herbert West–Reanimator
The Colour Out of Space
The Whisperer in Darkness
At the Mountains of Madness
The Shadow Out of Time
DREAMLANDS TALES
Polaris
The White Ship
The Doom that Came to Sarnath
The Cats of Ulthar
Celephaïs
Ex Oblivione
The Quest of Iranon
The Other Gods
The Festival
The Silver Key
The Strange High House in the Mist
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
Through the Gates of the Silver Key
MINOR & MISCELLANEOUS TALES
The Little Glass Bottle
The Secret Cave
The Mystery of the Grave-Yard
The Mysterious Ship
The Beast in the Cave
The Alchemist
The Tomb
The Transition of Juan Romero
The Terrible Old Man
The Tree
The Temple
The Street
The Moon-Bog
Hypnos
Memory
What the Moon Brings
He
In the Vault
The Descendant
The Evil Clergyman
The Book
A Reminiscence of Samuel Johnson
Sweet Ermengarde
Old Bugs
Ibid
