Which Lovecraft stories have the least connection to the Mythos

I'm working on a public domain crossover series thing. I don't want the Cthulhu Mythos any major presence, because its a bit over-exposed and I'm already planning most stories relating to Cosmic Horror are going to be based on the work of Arthur Machen instead anyhow, but I don't want to rule out H. P. Lovecraft completely. Trouble is, if one Mythos story is true in-setting, that tends to imply that the rest of the Mythos is true as well, which I don't want (also, if both were true, the cosmology would get really confusing really quickly).

So I'm wondering which of Lovecraft's stories (not counting the Dream Cycle) have the least connection to the rest of the Mythos (references to other stories, references to them in other stories, recurring entities or locations, etc.)?

"The Tomb", "The Music of Erich Zann" and "The Colour Out of Space" immediately come to mind; and "The Rats in the Walls" only makes the most tenuous of allusions. There's also "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family", but that one has some notoriously racist subtext even if the plot can theoretically be read in a fairly neutral way. Theoretically.

Actually, most of his early stuff is pretty low on the god-alien stuff, drawing more on Poe than anyone else with a dash of Machen for good measure, but while the two I mentioned at the top are classics, it can be a bit uneven. But then, so was his later work, just for different reasons.

God aliens are fine, so long as they're god aliens that can conceivably exist without the rest of Lovecraft's cosmology (never mentioned in other stories, never referred to as a "Great Old One", not connected to any other god aliens, the Necronomicon, Abdul the I Just Get These Headaches, Miskatonic U, etc. in any way, excluding connections drawn retroactively by other, less "official" Mythos authors, directly contradict other mythos stories, etc.).

I imagine there won't be a whole lot of those.

edited 12th Jul '16 7:43:09 PM by BrokenEye

Because those elements crop up, even in his early work. Lovecraft wasn't deliberately world building, he was more trying to anchor his stories in the real world, and stuff like Arkham, Dunwich and Miskatonic U are based on real places with the serial numbers filed off, at least initially.

Oh aye, I know about that part. Arkham is Salem. Dunwich is Wilbraham. Innsmouth is a twisted version of Newburyport. Kingsport is Marblehead. Miskatonic is Brown (they've even got an actual book bound in human skin). Arkham Sanitarium is Danvers State Lunatic Asylum.

Perhaps just stuff with no connection to Alhazred and the Necronomicon, then.

edited 13th Jul '16 6:32:40 PM by BrokenEye

Well that's a problem because Miskatonic U is repeatedly stated to have a copy of old Abdul's masterpiece.

But yeah, if that's the case, you'd probably want to go with some of his earlier work. The aforementioned Colour Out of Space is probably the highlight there. But really, what you want is to grab a decent collection of his works and decide for yourself what to use and what not to.