This one is probably for the members of this forum who are from the UK ...

The other day I had a long chat with a guy from Scotland who turned out to be a keen reader with a massive library in his native home but what surprised me most was he had absolutely no clue who Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, M.P. Shiel, let alone Walter de la Mare or W.H Hodgson were. So my question is: How popular are the classic writers in modern Great Britain? I am asking because I have always thought the afore-mentioned authors are famous in England but judging by what my learned friend from Scotland knows about them, I am not so sure now ... Of course, he knew Buchan and Stevenson, Poe and Conan The Barbarian (he did not know who was the author the classic fantasy figure, though), but Blackwood? Machen? (he knew the short story "The Bowmen," but had never heard about Machen ...) De La Mare? Hodgson? No, never ...

Did he know of HPL or CAS?

--Sawfish

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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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Sawfish Wrote:
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> Did he know of HPL or CAS?


Of course I mentioned HPL, but he was at sea, he had no idea who I am talking about ... :-)

I spent 5 years of my childhood in Ireland; otherwise United States. Of the authors mentioned by the original poster, I had only heard of de la Mare, Poe, Stevenson. I knew Walter de la Mare from a book of poetry my mother read us from my dad's library - I did not know he wrote horror. I was much older when I heard of Machen, Buchan, Shiel and Hodgson.

My parents encouraged Christian fantasists J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald. Love of Tolkien caused me to pursue other fantasy in my childhood, including R.E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, M. Moorcock, Fritz Lieber. I then moved on to more modern stuff, but grew quickly bored and disillusioned, and began to pursue older material.