it had a bound run of 200 copies — the only book of lovecraft's fiction distributed during his lifetime. crawford had printed 400 copies but bound only 200; the others were destroyed later. of this edition robert weinberg has written: "only a few hundred copies of the book were printed, and even less than that were sold, even though it was available at the bargain price of $1 per copy. it featured good paper, black linen binding and four illustrations by frank utpatel. the book was the only bound hardcover to appear during lovecraft's lifetime and became one of the true rarities in the collecting field. its failure, and the poor sales of third non-fantasy book convinced william crawford of the futility of his efforts."