People’s Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos: Cosmic Horror, Lovecraft, Weird Fiction
Fiction:Science Fiction
Reading 60-66: Supernatural Horror in Literature
Supernatural Horror in Literatureis a long essay by the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft surveying the topic of horror fiction. It was written between November 1925 and May 1927 and revised during 1933–1934. It was first published in 1927 in the one-issue magazine The Recluse. More recently, it was included in the collection Dagon and Other Macabre Tales(1965).
Lovecraft examines the beginnings of weird fiction in the gothic novel (relying greatly on Edith Birkhead's 1921 survey The Tale of Terror) and traces its development through such writers as Ambrose Bierce, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe (who merits his own chapter). Lovecraft names as the four "modern masters" of horror: Algernon Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, M. R. James, and Arthur Machen.
An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia terms the work "HPL's most significant literary essay and one of the finest historical analyses of horror literature." Upon reading the essay, M. R. James proclaimed Lovecraft's style "most offensive". However, Edmund Wilson, who was not an admirer of Lovecraft's fiction, praised the essay as a "really able piece of work...he had read comprehensively in this field—he was strong on the Gothic novelists—and writes about it with much intelligence". David G. Hartwell has called "Supernatural Horror in Literature", "the most important essay on horror literature".
PGttCM is part of DarkMyths.org
Read by Piotr Nater
Produced and Edited by DB Spitzer
Sponsored by
FoundItemClothing.com
bunnyslippers.com
The Chamber
The Voices
Soaring
Oppresive Gloom
Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Dark Moon 11
Dark Moon 10
Dark Moon 9
Dark Moon 8
Dark Moon 7
The Dark Moon 6
Dark Moon 5
Dark Moon 4
Dark Moon 3
Satampra Zeiros/Rock Apes/Silent Hill
Dark Moon 2
Dark Moon 1
Writings of Clark Ashton Smith parts 7-18
Writings of Clark Ashton Smith parts 1-6
Readers_World_April_1931.exe
The Menace of the Insect/The Ghost World by Sewell Peaslee Wright
Lake of Light by Jack Williamson
Four Miles Within by Anthony Gilmore, A Complete Novelette
SARNATH/The DOOM that Came to Sarnath/Hellraiser
The World Behind the Moon by Paul Ernst
Join Podbean Ads Marketplace and connect with engaged listeners.
Advertise Today
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Museum of the Missing
Cryptids
Middle Aged and Creeped Out
Great Expectations
Frankenstein
Welcome to Night Vale
SCP Archives