I can highly recommend the book '10 best horror stories, as judged by H.P. Lovecraft' or something in that trend. Fantastic Lovecraftian horror-stories without the heavy racism, but not written by him (or perhaps one or two are, not sure).

I hate to tell you but I have it on good authority he is dead. o3o

Thats not what Mr. Pickmen said

He but sleeps....

i remember really loving dreams of unknown kadath wich i dont seem to think had much of the racsim
rember he also had cultist who were backwoods farmers and people livignin closed communities

Yeah, the racism is tiresome and ridiculous, but his rampant xenophobia really is the basis of what makes his work so great.

yes, this is a challenge with his writing. I try to keep a sense of humour about it, but occasionally I find myself wanting to shout at the book XD

I recently read Casino Royale and it has similar problems, chiefly Bond suspecting that Le Chiffre's right-hand man thug gets his steely psychopathy by smoking pot. That line gave me a good chuckle.

Yeah, I mean most of the time the racism is kinda a minor thing, like in Charles Dexter Ward, the Statement of Randolf Carter, and Herbert West: Reanimator. But in some stories it's really hard to ignore. I mean the entire 'horror' of the Great Race of Yim is 'these horrible alien monsters might be just like us after all.... AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

Worst case that comes to mind is in the Dreamlands stories, but those are his weaker in my opinion anyway. But yeah, constant reminder of bad times. Kinda like watching oldtimey cartoons.

On that same note, reminds me of an episode of QI in which Stephen Fry quotes a Sir George Scott:

Appropriately enough, er, this book, er, on . . . on Burma is called The Trouser People. To give you a foretaste, it quotes the diary of Sir George Scott, the man who introduced football to Burma in the 19th century. [as Sir Scott] "Stepped on something soft and wobbly. Struck a match. Found it was a dead Chinaman." Those . . . those very much were the days, weren't they? Erm . . . You wonder why the British are hated around the globe.

I never really paid much attention to that in his stories (even though I know he was pretty damn racist, hell his cat was named Niggerman), but I guess it just doesn't really impact me like it has to you and others.

Sure... except that Lovecraft was FAR more racist than the average person of his time. To the point that contemporaries of his found it notable. Hell, in his youth he even wrote that staggeringly horrifying "http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_th.....f_Niggers";. And I LOVE reading Lovecraft, but seriously, there's no excuse for his racism.

On the upside he was really bad at being racist, since he eventually married a Jewish woman.

In order to be a racist, you need some "races" you think are cool. Otherwise, you're just a common asshole.

No, he was pretty damned antisemitic as well. He considered them the broken remnants of Asiatics dragged through racial mixing, intellectually and morally incomparable to "Nordic races" and physically repugnant. He even stated that tolerance of Jews was hypocritical. On the other hand, he wasn't into the whole conspiracy theory thing, he just thought they were a lesser race, so not quite Nazi levels.

Also, he was more against 'culture' than 'race' and the primary reason he was cool with his wife was that he thought she had assimilated well. It's more like immigrants who refused to act American that he hated. Still not good but a little less bad.

Huh. I never really found it that noticeable in his works. I guess because I see his books as a sort of look into the past instead of a modern author to praise or pillory.

The racism didn't necessarily seem like the focus of his stories, to me at least. Then again, Shadow over Innsmouth...

dude. his books were written in the 1920's they're going to be severely dated and fucked up to our generation, haha.

Tolkein wrote in the 20's with not a touch of racism. There were enlightened people. Lovecraft was not among them.

References to racism we--

Ohhh you sneaky.
9/10 great work ALMOST had me going there whew

You know something? When I first picked up Lovecraft's books I had no idea of any of this racism stuff, maybe its because of that that I never noticed it, or because im not the most perceptive of readers, either way I thoroughly enjoyed his work and continue to read them avidly.

In fact, if I DO feel any resent towards anyone its towards the people who told me about the racism aspect. And its not like: "oh now i cant read the books because all i see is the racism" no, I still read them because i simply dont consider that part of the books to be either relevant or worth getting worked up about.

What irks me is that people seem to think that I have to acknowledge it. That there's no way i can/should read through these books without being horrified and infuriated about the racism, and if I have, ive read them "wrong"

And if he'd done exactly that, every great author who's come after him would have suffered.

If one can't take oneself out of 2013 and read a book of its own age, one can't reap the benefits of said book.

Long live Mark Twain.

I tried to re-read some Lovecraft recently and it is so, so...over-written. It's as though he was paid by the word. Get to the point, man!

I always loved his stories and at first I really didn't get all that racism tone in the book, but then I was paying more attention for the giant space things sleeping under the ocean and all that stuff, reading again a few of the stories, however made me notice it and now I can't read it without felling bad u.u

I could suggest you to give a read to Eldritch Skies, it's a good alternate setting.

That's how old it is.

What annoys me more is campaigns to remove the word "nigger" form a novel like Roll of Thunder since kids read it in school.

...kinda removes the point.

He hated Eskimos. *THAT'S* racism...

Lovecraft, as has already been mentioned, was unusually racist for even his time. Yet at the same time, he married a Jewish woman, and although their marriage broke down eventually, it was not because of that. Apparently, he also was very pleasant and courteous, if consciously old-fashioned, person and a good friend. People are complicated.

What I'm trying to say is that it's perfectly OK to not read his work because it is, in places, staggeringly racist. But perhaps knowing that he was not as bad in person as in his writings helps to make it palatable, and makes it easier for you to enjoy some of the best weird stories of the 20th century.

"I believe these to be negro eggs."

I totally agree this!