Horror Fiction In The 20th Century

Providing an indispensable resource for academics as well as readers interested in the evolution of horror fiction in the 20th century, this book provides a readable yet critical guide to global horror fiction and authors. Horror Fiction in the 20th Century encompasses the world of 20th-century horror literature and explores it in a critical but balanced fashion. Readers will be exposed to the world of horror literature, a truly global phenomenon during the 20th century. Beginning with the modern genre's roots in the 19th century, the book proceeds to cover 20th-century horror literature in all of its manifestations, whether in comics, pulps, paperbacks, hardcover novels, or mainstream magazines, and from every country that produced it. The major horror authors of the century receive their due, but the works of many authors who are less well-known or who have been forgotten are also described and analyzed. In addition to providing critical assessments and judgments of individual authors and works, the book describes the evolution of the genre and the major movements within it. Horror Fiction in the 20th Century stands out from its competitors and will be of interest to its readers because of its informed critical analysis, its unprecedented coverage of female authors and writers of color, and its concise historical overview.

The most renowned writers, illustrators, publishers, actors, and filmmakers are drawn together in this exquisite portrayal of horror. Every media from comics, paperbacks, hardcovers, and movies is represented in full color.

From the New York Times bestselling author of NOS4A2 and Horns comes this e-short story—from Joe Hill’s award-winning collection 20th Century Ghosts. Imogene is young and beautiful. She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon one afternoon in 1945. . . . Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn't easy to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town. . . . Francis is unhappy. Francis was human once, but that was then. Now he's an eight-foot-tall locust and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing. . . . John Finney is locked in a basement that's stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. In the cellar with him is an antique telephone, long since disconnected, but which rings at night with calls from the dead. . . .

We rely on your support to help us keep producing beautiful, free, and unrestricted editions of literature for the digital age. Will you support our efforts with a donation? The House on the Borderland is unique in several ways. The narrative itself is a double-frame narrative: the editor of the volume is presenting a manuscript he found under mysterious circumstances, describing the account of two fishermen who themselves discovered a hand-written account of the cosmic haunting of a recluse’s remote home. Additionally, the novel is one of the earliest examples of the departure of horror fiction from the Gothic style of supernatural, psychological hauntings, to more realist, science-fiction/cosmic horror themes. The recluse is, among other events, transported to a mysterious supra-universal plane populated by monsters and elder gods; and his house withstands assaults from legions of monsters as he travels across time and the solar system. The book was very influential on H. P. Lovecraft, who himself was famous for the cosmic horror themes in his work. The concept of an uncaring, and even evil, universe that Lovecraft found so disturbing is front and center in this supremely strange novel.

The first book to cover global horror fiction during the twentieth century, the decades in which the horror genre matured and came of age, HORROR NEEDS NO PASSPORT covers hundreds of authors and stories and novels from 72 countries. The great majority of these works have never been translated into English and are mentioned only slightly, if at all, in the standard horror genre reference books. Yet these stories and novels contain a wealth of high quality horror, whether written by Angolan authors or Uruguayan authors. It's a shame that nearly all of these horror stories and novels are unknown to readers in the United States and the United Kingdom, as they would enjoy these works greatly if they could read them. The book does not contain an over-arching narrative; the horror literatures of the world are far too varied for any one narrative to fit. Instead, each author gets their own one or two paragraph entry, placing them in the context of their time and place and describing what their horror fiction is about, why their horror fiction matters, and whether or not their horror fiction is worth reading. The following, about the fantastic Belgian horror writer Thomas Owen, is typical of the entries: "A much different writer from Ghelderode was Thomas Owen, a lawyer, plant manager, and art critic who became interested in writing following a meeting with detective writer Stanislas-Andr Steeman. From 1941-1943 Owen wrote detective novels, but in 1942, inspired by and perhaps jealous of the success of his friend Jean Ray, Owen began writing fantastika, primarily horror of l'ecole belge de l'etrange variety. In his lifetime Owen would write two dozen novels and over 300 short stories, most of which were fantastika. Owen would become (with Jean Ray) the most important Belgian writer of fantastika and horror, and arguably its best writer and stylist. Jean Ray never produced Art (and never bothered to try), while Owen routinely achieved it. Owen had obsessions distinctive to himself: morbid eroticism, perversity, and the animalistic. And Owen's characters were usually present to create the effect of horror in the reader rather than existing as sympathetic beings. But Owen's style-evocative, precise, restrained, clear and cold-overwhelmed these flaws, and the doomed atmosphere, erotically macabre imagery, and general existential dread Owen generates in the stories make them memorably frightening. Owen's brand of terror has been called "intimate horror," as it focuses closely on ordinary lives rent by the moral and emotional ambiguities of life to the point that Owen's protagonists are vulnerable to supernatural assault. "Owen refined the tale of supernatural horror to an almost anachronistic degree of economy and purity...his unsettling work has been compared to that of Poe and Buzzati." Other reference books about horror fiction cover a scant handful of the authors and works described and analyzed in HORROR NEEDS NO PASSPORT and rarely venture outside Western Europe, Japan, and parts of Latin America. HORROR NEEDS NO PASSPORT covers multiple countries from every continent, going back to at least the turn of the twentieth century and in some cases well into the nineteenth century. Written for both casual readers and interested academics, HORROR NEEDS NO PASSPORT is unlike anything else on the market.

Presents a collection of chronologically arranged horror stories from such authors as H.G. Wells, H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, and Jack Ketchum.

The first book to cover global horror fiction during the twentieth century, the decades in which the horror genre matured and came of age, HORROR NEEDS NO PASSPORT covers hundreds of authors and stories and novels from 72 countries. The great majority of these works have never been translated into English and are mentioned only slightly, if at all, in the standard horror genre reference books. Yet these stories and novels contain a wealth of high quality horror, whether written by Angolan authors or Uruguayan authors. It's a shame that nearly all of these horror stories and novels are unknown to readers in the United States and the United Kingdom, as they would enjoy these works greatly if they could read them. The book does not contain an over-arching narrative; the horror literatures of the world are far too varied for any one narrative to fit. Instead, each author gets their own one or two paragraph entry, placing them in the context of their time and place and describing what their horror fiction is about, why their horror fiction matters, and whether or not their horror fiction is worth reading. The following, about the fantastic Belgian horror writer Thomas Owen, is typical of the entries: "A much different writer from Ghelderode was Thomas Owen, a lawyer, plant manager, and art critic who became interested in writing following a meeting with detective writer Stanislas-Andr Steeman. From 1941-1943 Owen wrote detective novels, but in 1942, inspired by and perhaps jealous of the success of his friend Jean Ray, Owen began writing fantastika, primarily horror of l'ecole belge de l'etrange variety. In his lifetime Owen would write two dozen novels and over 300 short stories, most of which were fantastika. Owen would become (with Jean Ray) the most important Belgian writer of fantastika and horror, and arguably its best writer and stylist. Jean Ray never produced Art (and never bothered to try), while Owen routinely achieved it. Owen had obsessions distinctive to himself: morbid eroticism, perversity, and the animalistic. And Owen's characters were usually present to create the effect of horror in the reader rather than existing as sympathetic beings. But Owen's style-evocative, precise, restrained, clear and cold-overwhelmed these flaws, and the doomed atmosphere, erotically macabre imagery, and general existential dread Owen generates in the stories make them memorably frightening. Owen's brand of terror has been called "intimate horror," as it focuses closely on ordinary lives rent by the moral and emotional ambiguities of life to the point that Owen's protagonists are vulnerable to supernatural assault. "Owen refined the tale of supernatural horror to an almost anachronistic degree of economy and purity...his unsettling work has been compared to that of Poe and Buzzati." Other reference books about horror fiction cover a scant handful of the authors and works described and analyzed in HORROR NEEDS NO PASSPORT and rarely venture outside Western Europe, Japan, and parts of Latin America. HORROR NEEDS NO PASSPORT covers multiple countries from every continent, going back to at least the turn of the twentieth century and in some cases well into the nineteenth century. Written for both casual readers and interested academics, HORROR NEEDS NO PASSPORT is unlike anything else on the market.