Re: 1850 - 1900 horror story
Posted by:
Platypus (IP Logged)
Date: 11 May, 2020 02:53PM
Your "etc. ..." makes your request rather vague.
I'd mention "Thrawn Janet" (1881) which is little known thank to being written in Scots (but is awesome IMHO). But perhaps you think that Robert Louis Stevenson counts as too famous; and that a demon-animated corpse counts as a "ghost", or is otherwise too conventional.
I'd mention "The Hunting of the Snark" (1876). But Lewis Carroll is famous and it is a comic nonsense poem. It still counts as a story, though, that builds steadily to a haunting climax, involving something that is alien and unknown.
I'd mention "The Princess and Curdie" (1883), which must be close to the weirdest thing (though maybe not the best thing) that George MacDonald ever wrote. But George MacDonald is famous to some, and this was marketed, and to some extent written, as a children's novel, in accordance with the conventions of 19th century fantasy.
I'd mention THE KING IN YELLOW (1895), by Robert W. Chambers (particularly "The Repairer or Reputations", "The Yellow Sign", and "In the Court of the Dragon"). But of course I'm sure you've already heard of him.
I'd mention the many volumes of folk-lore and "fairy tales" that were collected in second half of the 19th century, and marketed largely to children by publishers, instilling in them (I suppose) a life-long taste for the weird. For instance, in Joseph Jacobs' MORE ENGLISH FAIRY TALES (1893) he brought us "The Pied Piper", "The Hobyahs", "The King of the Cats", "The Hedley Kow", and "The Lambton Worm".
"The Damned Thing" (1893) by Ambrose Bierce. I guess the rest of Bierce's weird fiction would count as ghost stories, but I guess the least conventional of these would be "The Death of Halpin Frayser" (1891) and "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" (1886).
H. Rider Haggard: KING SOLOMON'S MINES (1885)and SHE (1886). Or were you looking only for short stories?
That's all I got for now.