The Temple of Dagon

Vote your favorite.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Thing_on_the_Doorstep
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_on_the_Doorstep
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Trans ... uan_Romero
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transi ... uan_Romero

I tried getting a friend of mine into Lovecraft once, as he's never read much in the way of horror fiction (despite loving stuff like DOOM and the John Carpenter films), and "The Thing On The Doorstep" was the one that did it for him.

I'm still deciding about these; haven't read them in a while.


edit: Now I've read them. I was surprised to read in An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia that Lovecraft didn't care for either of these stories and was reluctantly to publish them. Admittedly, they may not be his best, but I didn't think they were as bad as all that.

Incidentally, An HPL Encyclopedia, while useful, is mainly a rehash of what can be found in the Joshi Biography--in fact, all or nearly all of it seems to be lifted verbatim from Lovecraft: A Life. Just FYI.

I own neither, but Joshi knows his stuff.