Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name refers to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of early Gothic novels.
Horror is a genre of fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten or scare. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which are in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length... which shocks, or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing". Horror intends to create an eerie and frightening atmosphere for the reader. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for larger fears of a society.
Arthur Machen was the pen-name of Arthur Llewellyn Jones, a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella The Great God Pan has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror, with Stephen King describing it as "Maybe the best [horror story] in the English language." He is also well known for "The Bowmen", a short story that was widely read as fact, creating the legend of the Angels of Mons.
Adrian Malcolm Conan Doyle was the youngest son of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his second wife Jean, Lady Doyle or Lady Conan Doyle. He had two siblings, sister Jean Conan Doyle and brother Denis, as well as two half-siblings, sister Mary and brother Kingsley.
The Jewel of Seven Stars is a horror novel by Irish writer Bram Stoker, first published by Heinemann in 1903. The story is a first-person narrative of a young man pulled into an archaeologist's plot to revive Queen Tera, an ancient Egyptian mummy. It explores common fin de siècle themes such as imperialism, the rise of the New Woman and feminism, and societal progress.
The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned is a 1989 horror novel by American writer Anne Rice. Taking place during the early twentieth century, it follows the collision between a British archeologist's family and a resurrected mummy. The novel ends with the statement, "The Adventures of Ramses the Damned Shall Continue", and twenty-eight years later, Rice fulfilled this promise with Ramses the Damned: The Passion of Cleopatra, written in collaboration with her son, novelist Christopher Rice. A third jointly-authored novel in this series, Ramses the Damned: The Reign of Osiris, was released on February 1, 2022, two months after Anne Rice's death.
The Great God Pan is a horror and fantasy novella by Welsh writer Arthur Machen. Machen was inspired to write The Great God Pan by his experiences at the ruins of a pagan temple in Wales. What would become the first chapter of the novella was published in the magazine The Whirlwind in 1890. Machen later extended The Great God Pan and it was published as a book alongside another story, "The Inmost Light", in 1894. The novella begins with an experiment to allow a woman named Mary to see the supernatural world. This is followed by an account of a series of mysterious happenings and deaths over many years surrounding a woman named Helen Vaughan. At the end, the heroes confront Helen and force her to kill herself. She undergoes a series of unearthly transformations before dying and she is revealed to be a supernatural entity.
"The Picture in the House" is a short story written by H. P. Lovecraft. It was written on December 12, 1920, and first published in the July issue of The National Amateur—which was published in the summer of 1921. It was reprinted in Weird Tales in 1923 and again in 1937.
Everett Franklin Bleiler was an American editor, bibliographer, and scholar of science fiction, detective fiction, and fantasy literature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he co-edited the first "year's best" series of science fiction anthologies, and his Checklist of Fantastic Literature has been called "the foundation of modern SF bibliography". Among his other scholarly works are two Hugo Award–nominated volumes concerning early science fiction—Science-Fiction: The Early Years and Science-Fiction: The Gernsback Years—and the massive Guide to Supernatural Fiction.
Bertram Fletcher Robinson was an English sportsman, journalist, editor, author and Liberal Unionist Party activist. During his life-time, he wrote at least three hundred items, including a series of short stories that feature a detective called 'Addington Peace'. Following his untimely death at the age of just 36 years, speculation grew that Robinson was the victim of a curse bestowed upon him by an Egyptian antiquity at the British Museum, which he had researched whilst working as a journalist for a British newspaper. However, Robinson is perhaps best remembered for his literary collaborations with his friends and fellow Crimes Club members, Arthur Conan Doyle, P. G. Wodehouse and Max Pemberton.
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for A Study in Scarlet, the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Holmes and Dr. Watson. The Sherlock Holmes stories are milestones in the field of crime fiction.
The curse of the pharaohs or the mummy's curse is a curse alleged to be cast upon anyone who disturbs the mummy of an ancient Egyptian, especially a pharaoh. This curse, which does not differentiate between thieves and archaeologists, is claimed to cause bad luck, illness, or death. Since the mid-20th century, many authors and documentaries have argued that the curse is 'real' in the sense of having scientifically explicable causes such as bacteria, fungi or radiation. However, the modern origins of Egyptian mummy curse tales, their development primarily in European cultures, the shift from magic to science to explain curses, and their changing uses—from condemning disturbance of the dead to entertaining horror film audiences—suggest that Egyptian curses are primarily a cultural, not scientific, phenomenon.
"Some Words with a Mummy" is a satirical short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. It was first published in The American Review: A Whig Journal of Politics, Literature, Art and Science in April 1845. It is an important early portrayal of a revived Egyptian mummy.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle KStJ, DL (1859–1930) was a Scottish writer and physician. In addition to the series of stories chronicling the activities of Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr John Watson for which he is well known, Doyle wrote on a wide range of topics, both fictional and non-fictional. In 1876 Doyle entered the University of Edinburgh Medical School, where he became a pupil of Joseph Bell, whose deductive processes impressed his pupil so much that the teacher became the chief model for Holmes. Doyle began writing while still a student, and in October 1879 he had his first work—"The Mystery of the Sasassa Valley"—published in Chambers's Journal. He continued writing short works—both fictional and non-fictional—throughout his career, and had over 200 stories and articles published.
Marty Ross is a Scottish writer, best known for his audio dramas for the British Broadcasting Corporation, Big Finish Productions and for the Wireless Theatre Company and 3Dhorrorfi. He is author of the 'Tartan Noir' thriller novel Aztec Love Song. He has had several plays performed on stage, mostly with an emphasis on Gothic horror and the surreal. He has dramatized stories by other Scottish writers such as James Hogg, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his radio series The Darker Side of the Border. Among his influences are the work of Hammer Films and British science fiction dramatist Nigel Kneale.
The Narrative of John Smith (2011) is a novel written in 1883 by Arthur Conan Doyle, published posthumously by The British Library. In a work of narrative fiction, Doyle writes from the perspective of a middle-aged bachelor named John Smith recovering from rheumatic gout. Unlike his later work in detective fiction, fantasy, and science fiction, this novel unfolds through a series of tangential, essay-like thoughts stemming from observations on everyday life. The subjects are of a “personal-social-political complexion”.
Mummies are commonly featured in horror genres as undead creatures wrapped in bandages. Similar undead include skeletons and zombies.
Henrietta Dorothy Everett who wrote under the pen name Theo Douglas was a British novelist who was popular during her lifetime but who is now largely forgotten. Her identity was revealed in 1910 but little is known of her life.
Eric J. Guignard is an American horror, dark fantasy, and literary fiction anthologist, editor, and author. He is a lifelong resident of Southern California, and teaches Technical Writing through the University of California system.
Lot No. 249 is a supernatural television drama produced by the BBC based on the story "Lot No. 249" by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle, first published in Harper's Magazine in 1892. Adapted and directed by Mark Gatiss, it stars Kit Harington and Freddie Fox and was first broadcast on 24 December 2023 on BBC Two as part of the long-running A Ghost Story for Christmas series.
