Hi.

Can anybody recommend books on weird fiction, something in the vein of "Supernatural Horror In Literature?"

I haven't read Peter Penzoldt's critical study "The Supernatural in Fiction," but it is along the same lines.

jkh

I'm not sure it's exactly what you are looking for, but there is Tolkien's "On Fairy Stories"; and Chesterton's short essays or chapters, "The Ethics of Elfland" and "In Defense of Penny Dreadfuls". The focus is more on fantasy than on weird horror though. Both, however, were influential in defending and justifying the value of fantastic fiction.

Thanks for the tips. Maybe I expressed myself badly. What I am looking for are works like "Weird Fiction In Britain 1880 - 1939."

Stephen King wrote a series of essays on weird horror, published in the 80s under the title "Dance Macabre". I have no interest in reading it. But it is famous because King is famous.

I have never heard of the example you mention. Is it a made-up example?

The only essay I know of that is exactly like Lovecraft's essay, is Lovecraft's essay.

Montague Summers wrote a number of works on weird topics, but I think was more focused on folklore and legend than in surveys of literary fiction. But I believe he does touch on literature. For instance, his monograph on Vampires I believe has a final chapter on the vampire in literature.

Like I said in my last post, maybe I expressed myself badly. What I am looking for are books and studies on weird fiction genre in general (chiefly classic weird fiction before 1945). The reason why I am looking for books of this kind is one can find some marginal and obscure authors in them.

[www.goodreads.com]

I don't know that surveys would be an ideal source of obscure works. But I suspect there is alot of obscure stuff out there.

The other day, I heard a story called "The Demon Spectre" by Anonymous, on some youtube channel. I was unable to locate the story on isfdb. After googling around some, the only information I found was that it may be from 1861, and now to be found in a volume called "The Wimbourne Book of Victorian Ghost Stories, volume 13". Which made me wonder what else that volume, and that series, may contain. Where it originally came from I do not know.

There must be much that is lost to time. I suspect that the "penny dreadfuls" produced a huge volume of materials that has been lost to time. The only reason we have the Varney penny dreadfuls is that they were published in book form before too many years had passed.

When looking for obscure stories, I prefer to focus on specific topics, such as my GHOUL thread, and my VAMPIRE thread. Currently, I am working on a list of stories dealing with "scary little people", which I was thinking of posting here in search of further suggestions. I just found one, thanks to you, as you just mentioned "The Horror Horn" in another thread.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 16 Jul 22 | 08:23PM by Platypus.

The Weird Tale and The Evolution of the Weird Tale by ST Joshi, especially the latter book for your purposes
Arkham's Masters of Horror ed by Peter Ruber, an anthology of weird fiction with critical essays
Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers by L. Sprague de Camp which covers some weird fiction as well as sword and sorcery

Thanks for the tips.