[2][3][4][5] The title sequence of sonnets, "Dreams from R'lyeh", has also been reprinted in Robert M. Price's The Xothic Legend Cycle: The Complete Mythos Fiction of Lin Carter (Chaosium, 1997).

Most of the poems were written in the 1960s and were first published in the poetry anthology Fire and Sleet and Candlelight (1961) and the magazines The Arkham Collector and Amra.

Most of the non-cycle poems were reprinted from various sources, a few of them from Carter's earlier poetry collections Sandalwood and Jade (1951) and Galleon of Dream (1953).

The sonnet cycle Dreams from R'lyeh, which comprises the first two-thirds of the book, consists of poems inspired by H. P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Fritz Leiber, reviewing the collection in Fantastic, cites "[o]ne poem, "Shard," [as] very nice," and comments on the "delightfully Cthulhu-cultish cover by Tim Kirk, best current Arkham artist," while otherwise singling out isolated lines from various of its poems for approval or disapproval.