Supernatural Horror in Literature

"Supernatural Horror in Literature" is a long essay by American 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.^[1] 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."^[2] Upon reading the essay, M. R. James proclaimed Lovecraft's style "most offensive".^[3] 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".^[4] David G. Hartwell has called "Supernatural Horror in Literature", "the most important essay on horror literature".^[5]

References

↑ Joshi, S. T. Joshi & Schultz, David E. "Supernatural Horror in Literature". An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia: 255.
↑ Joshi and Schultz, p. 255.
↑ Joshi and Schultz, p. 256.
↑ Wilson, Edmund (1994). "Afterward". H. P. Lovecraft's Book of Horror.
↑ Hartwell, David G. (1989). The Dark Descent. Tor Books. p. 85. ISBN 0-312-93035-6.

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Supernatural Horror in Literature

"Supernatural Horror in Literature"—eText at the H. P. Lovecraft Archive
"A Map on Chalkboards" – An imagemap following the chapters of the essay (containing its entire text)

H. P. Lovecraft
Works	List of novels, short stories, essays, and other works Dream Cycle
Locations	Arkham Dunwich Innsmouth Kingsport Miskatonic University Miskatonic River Lovecraft Country R'lyeh Celephaïs Sarkomand The Nameless City Yuggoth
Characters	Abdul Alhazred Robert Harrison Blake Randolph Carter Kuranes Herbert West
Cthulhu Mythos deities	Azathoth Cthulhu Ghatanothoa Hypnos Nodens Nyarlathotep Shub-Niggurath Tsathoggua Yog-Sothoth
Cthulhu Mythos species	Byakhee Colour out of space Deep Ones Dholes Elder Things Flying polyps Great Race of Yith Hounds of Tindalos Hunting Horrors Men of Leng Mi-Go Moon-beasts Nightgaunts Serpent Men Shantaks Shoggoth
Books about Lovecraft	H. P. Lovecraft: A Life H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Dreamer on the Nightside Lovecraft: A Biography Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos
Legacy and influence	Cthulhu Mythos Cthulhu Mythos in popular culture Lovecraftian horror Cosmicism Weird fiction
Related	Extraterrestrial places in the Cthulhu Mythos Books in the Cthulhu Mythos Cthulhu Mythos cults H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society Necronomicon Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown (documentary) Kalem Club
Family	Sonia Greene (wife) Whipple Van Buren Phillips (grandfather)
Category Commons Portal

Works by H. P. Lovecraft
Cthulhu Mythos Dream Cycle
Novels	The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
Novellas	The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath The Whisperer in Darkness At the Mountains of Madness The Shadow over Innsmouth The Shadow Out of Time
Short stories	"The Beast in the Cave" "The Alchemist" "The Tomb" "Dagon" "A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson" "Polaris" "Beyond the Wall of Sleep" "Memory" "Old Bugs" "The Transition of Juan Romero" "The White Ship" "The Street" "The Doom that Came to Sarnath" "The Statement of Randolph Carter" "The Terrible Old Man" "The Tree" "The Cats of Ulthar" "The Temple" "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" "Celephaïs" "From Beyond" "Nyarlathotep" "The Picture in the House" "Ex Oblivione" "Sweet Ermengarde" "The Nameless City" "The Quest of Iranon" "The Moon-Bog" "The Outsider" "The Other Gods" "The Music of Erich Zann" "Herbert West–Reanimator" "Hypnos" "What the Moon Brings" "Azathoth" "The Hound" "The Lurking Fear" "The Rats in the Walls" "The Unnamable" "The Festival" "The Shunned House" "The Horror at Red Hook" "He" "In the Vault" "Cool Air" "The Call of Cthulhu" "Pickman's Model" "The Silver Key" "The Strange High House in the Mist" "The Colour Out of Space" "The Descendant" "History of the Necronomicon" "The Very Old Folk" "Ibid" "The Dunwich Horror" "The Dreams in the Witch House" "The Thing on the Doorstep" "The Evil Clergyman" "The Book" "The Haunter of the Dark"
Collaborations	"The Green Meadow" "The Loved Dead" "Poetry and the Gods" "The Crawling Chaos" "The Horror at Martin's Beach" "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" "The Curse of Yig" "The Mound" "Medusa's Coil" "The Horror in the Museum" "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" "Out of the Aeons" "The Tree on the Hill" "Till A’the Seas" "In the Walls of Eryx" "The Thing in the Moonlight"
Poetry	Fungi from Yuggoth
Essays	"Supernatural Horror in Literature" To Quebec and the Stars The Cancer of Superstition Autobiography: Some Notes on a Nonentity

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Supernatural Horror in Literature

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