1. Name: Horror : A Literary History
2. Edited By: Xavier Aldana Reyes
3. Genre: Non Fiction/History/Horror
4. Book Post No. : 70
5. What is it about? : This book, as the name suggests, is a history of horror fiction i.e. horror in the written form; short stories, novellas, novels etc. It starts from the first gothic horror novel which was published in 1764, The Castle of Otranto (which I have read and written about here) ends with the horror of modern times which is dominated by one author, Stephen King. Over the course of seven chapters, each written by an expert, the book traces the evolution of horror over the past 250 years.
6. How I came to read it? : I was feeling a bit stressed lately so I turned to horror (only gothic type) for comfort and watched two TV shows Midnight Mass and The Fall of the House of Usher. The latter especially revived my interest in Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories and I thought to myself that now is a good time to read a book on horror. A search in Surrey Libraries showed this book and I promptly borrowed it.
7. Did I like it? : This was a moderately good read so I will keep the description short for this one. The book does a good job of tracing the evolution of horror and how horror has always been a reflection of the fears and tensions of what the world was going through. For a horror fan like me who has been reading horror stories from my childhood, and who could recognize (having read) many of the works mentioned in the book, it was a revelation to understand the real world influence behind those works.
Also, horror is usually brushed aside as a genre not worthy of attention by intellectuals. But many ‘serious’ authors in the past have indulged in this genre. Charles Dickens (The Signalman), Arthur Conan Doyle (The Brown Hand), Louisa May Alcott, Geoffrey Chaucer, H.G. Wells etc. all wrote horror short stories. Horror is the only genre which gives the writer the ability to take a premise and play with it not worrying about crossing over into realms or areas which are not present in science. This offers the chance to explore themes that normal literary writings couldn’t explore.
I will borrow some lines from the books back cover to summarize the topics in the book: “The topics examined include: horror’s roots in the Gothic romance and antebellum American fiction; the penny dreadful and sensation novels of Victorian England; fin-de-siecle ghost stories; decadent fiction and the weird; the familial horrors of the Cold War era; the publishing boom of the 1980s; the establishment of contemporary horror auteurs; and the post-millennial zombie trend.”
The book is very scholarly in its approach towards horror which is okay but the love for horror is sorely missing. Sometimes you love something just because how ‘cool’ something is. Especially for a subject like horror, it would have been nice to see some love for horror showing through instead the tone of the book feels a bit robotic.
8. Positives:
- Good overview of the history
- Analytical approach
- Good illustrations
9. Areas of improvement:
- Very scholarly in its approach. Would have been nice to see some love for the genre in the writing.
- Heavy focus on just USA and Britain. Would have been nice to have included other countries as well.
10. Any other personal notes, observations, fun facts etc.
I am a huge horror fan and have written many posts on my blog about it. Here are a few:
- About The Castle of Otranto, the first ever gothic horror novel
- Horror: One of my favorite genres. Part 1 (Short stories, novels and books)
- Horror: One of my favorite genres. Part 2 (Movies)
- My Top 5 Horror movies
- About the graphic novel Uzumaki: Spiral into Horror
- About the horror graphic novel Tomie: No use escaping
- About We are where the nightmares go
- Phenomena (1985) Another of Dario Argento’s classics
- About At the Mountains of Madness
- A Ghost Tour