Horror is a genre of speculative 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.
Robert Albert Bloch was an American fiction writer, primarily of crime, psychological horror and fantasy, much of which has been dramatized for radio, cinema and television. He also wrote a relatively small amount of science fiction. His writing career lasted 60 years, including more than 30 years in television and film. He began his professional writing career immediately after graduation from high school, aged 17. Best known as the writer of Psycho (1959), the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock, Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over 30 novels. He was a protégé of H. P. Lovecraft, who was the first to seriously encourage his talent. However, while he started emulating Lovecraft and his brand of cosmic horror, he later specialized in crime and horror stories working with a more psychological approach.
Ramsey Campbell is an English horror fiction writer, editor and critic who has been writing for well over fifty years. He is the author of over 30 novels and hundreds of short stories, many of them winners of literary awards. Three of his novels have been adapted into films.
E.C. Publications, Inc., is an American comic book publisher specialized in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction, dark fantasy, and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series. Initially, EC was founded as Educational Comics by Maxwell Gaines and specialized in educational and child-oriented stories. After Max Gaines died in a boating accident in 1947, his son William Gaines took over the company and was renamed Entertaining Comics. He printed more mature stories, delving into horror, war, fantasy, science-fiction, adventure, and other genres. Noted for their high quality and shock endings, these stories were also unique in their socially conscious, progressive themes that anticipated the Civil Rights Movement and the dawn of the 1960s counterculture. In 1954–55, censorship pressures prompted it to concentrate on the humor magazine Mad, leading to the company's greatest and most enduring success. Consequently, by 1956, the company ceased publishing all its comic lines except Mad.
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, printed early work by H. P. Lovecraft, Seabury Quinn, and Clark Ashton Smith, all of whom went on to be popular writers, but within a year, the magazine was in financial trouble. Henneberger sold his interest in the publisher, Rural Publishing Corporation, to Lansinger, and refinanced Weird Tales, with Farnsworth Wright as the new editor. The first issue to list Wright as editor was dated November 1924. The magazine was more successful under Wright, and despite occasional financial setbacks, it prospered over the next 15 years. Under Wright's control, the magazine lived up to its subtitle, "The Unique Magazine", and published a wide range of unusual fiction.
Werewolf fiction denotes the portrayal of werewolves and other shapeshifting therianthropes, in the media of literature, drama, film, games and music. Werewolf literature includes folklore, legend, saga, fairy tales, Gothic and horror fiction, fantasy fiction and poetry. Such stories may be supernatural, symbolic or allegorical. A classic cinematic example of the theme is The Wolf Man (1941) which in later films joins with the Frankenstein Monster and Count Dracula as one of the three famous icons of modern day horror. However, werewolf fiction is an exceptionally diverse genre, with ancient folkloric roots and manifold modern re-interpretations.
Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Weird fiction either eschews or radically reinterprets traditional antagonists of supernatural horror fiction, such as ghosts, vampires, and werewolves. Writers on the subject of weird fiction, such as China Miéville, sometimes use "the tentacle" to represent this type of writing. The tentacle is a limb-type absent from most of the monsters of European gothic fiction, but often attached to the monstrous creatures created by weird fiction writers, such as William Hope Hodgson, M. R. James, Clark Ashton Smith, and H. P. Lovecraft.
Frank Belknap Long Jr. was an American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. Though his writing career spanned seven decades, he is best known for his horror and science fiction short stories, including contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos alongside his friend, H. P. Lovecraft. During his life, Long received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award (1977).
Unknown was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and illustrators contributed to both magazines. The leading fantasy magazine in the 1930s was Weird Tales, which focused on shock and horror. Campbell wanted to publish a fantasy magazine with more finesse and humor than Weird Tales, and put his plans into action when Eric Frank Russell sent him the manuscript of his novel Sinister Barrier, about aliens who own the human race. Unknown's first issue appeared in March 1939; in addition to Sinister Barrier, it included H. L. Gold's "Trouble With Water", a humorous fantasy about a New Yorker who meets a water gnome. Gold's story was the first of many in Unknown to combine commonplace reality with the fantastic.
Tanith Lee was a British science fiction and fantasy writer. She wrote more than 90 novels and 300 short stories, and was the winner of multiple World Fantasy Society Derleth Awards, the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award and the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in Horror. She also wrote a children's picture book, and many poems. She wrote two episodes of the BBC science fiction series Blake's 7 .
Virgil Finlay was an American pulp fantasy, science fiction and horror illustrator. He has been called "part of the pulp magazine history ... one of the foremost contributors of original and imaginative art work for the most memorable science fiction and fantasy publications of our time." While he worked in a range of media, from gouache to oils, Finlay specialized in, and became famous for, detailed pen-and-ink drawings accomplished with abundant stippling, cross-hatching, and scratchboard techniques. Despite the very labor-intensive and time-consuming nature of his specialty, Finlay created more than 2600 works of graphic art in his 35-year career.
Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc. is a fantasy and science fiction small press publisher in New Hampshire that was founded in 1964. It is notable for publishing fantasy and horror novels with lavish illustrations, most notably Stephen King's The Dark Tower series and the King/Peter Straub novel The Talisman.
Weird West, also known as Weird Western, is a term used for the hybrid genres of fantasy Western, horror Western and science fiction Western. The term originated with DC's Weird Western Tales in 1972, but the idea is older as the genres have been blended since the 1930s, possibly earlier, in B-movie Westerns, comic books, movie serials and pulp magazines. Individually, the hybrid genres combine elements of the Western genre with those of fantasy, horror and science fiction respectively.
Harold Warner Munn was an American writer of fantasy, horror and poetry, best remembered for his early stories in Weird Tales. He was an early friend and associate of authors H. P. Lovecraft and Seabury Quinn. He has been described by fellow author Jessica Amanda Salmonson, who interviewed him during 1978, as "the ultimate gentleman" and "a gentle, calm, warm, and good friend." He was known for his intricate plotting and the careful research that he did for his stories, a habit he traced back to two mistakes made when he wrote his early story "The City of Spiders".
John Gregory Betancourt is an American writer of science fiction, fantasy and mystery novels, as well as short stories. He is also known as the founder and publisher, with his wife Kim Betancourt, of Wildside Press in 1989. In 1998, they entered the print on demand (PoD) market and greatly expanded their production. In addition to publishing new novels and short stories, they have undertaken projects to publish new editions of collections of stories that appeared in historic magazines.
David Henry Keller was an American writer who worked for pulp magazines in the mid-twentieth century, in the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres. He was also a psychiatrist and physician to shell-shocked soldiers during World War I and World War II, and his experience treating mentally ill people is evident in some of his writing, which contains references to mental disorders. He initially wrote short stories as a hobby and published his first science fiction story in Amazing Stories in 1928. He continued to work as a psychiatrist while publishing over sixty short stories in science fiction and horror genres. Technically, his stories were not well-written, but focused on the emotional aspects of imaginative situations, which was unusual for stories at the time.
Edgar Hoffmann Trooper Price was an American writer of popular fiction for the pulp magazine marketplace. He collaborated with H. P. Lovecraft on "Through the Gates of the Silver Key".
Invaders from the Dark is a horror novel by American writer Greye La Spina. It was published by Arkham House in 1960 in an edition of 1,559 copies. It was La Spina's first and only hardcover book.
Mary Elizabeth Counselman was an American writer of short stories and poetry.
Tales of the Werewolf Clan is a two-volume collection of horror short stories by American writer H. Warner Munn. The first volume was first published in 1979 by Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc. in an edition of 1,000 copies and the second was published in 1980 in an edition of 1,018 copies. Many of the stories first appeared in the magazine Weird Tales or in the Lost Fantasies anthology series edited by Robert Weinberg. The first volume is subtitled In the Tomb of the Bishop and the second is subtitled The Master Goes Home.
