The dust jacket art was a montage of drawings by Virgil Finlay for Weird Tales magazine, of which only one or two had originally illustrated Lovecraft stories.

E. F. Bleiler describes the collection's publication as "the beginning of serious specialist publishing of fantastic fiction in America".

[5] The omnibus volume was scheduled as the first offering from Arkham House, with a price of $5.00, while advance orders were accepted at $3.50 each.

The book was over 550 pages long, with small print, and featured a jacket by noted fantasy artist Virgil Finlay.

[1] E. F. Bleiler called Outsider "a major book in the history of American supernatural fiction", saying Lovecraft's writing "reveals a vivid imagination, a remarkable ability at the creation of mythic thought, an excellent command of scholarly detail, and many of the indescribable characteristics of a powerful mind at work.