Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
In 1927, H. P. Lovecraft published a 30,000word essay titled "Supernatural Horror in Literature." In it, the father of American horror writing, whose tales presented one of the earliest scholarly studies of the supernatural in fiction, defined the horror story as one in which "a certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present." With H. P. Lovecraft's Book of the Supernatural, Stephen Jones uses Lovecraft's essay as inspiration for an anthology of nineteen selections, each preceded by an excerpt from Lovecraft. Includes the following: "The Tale of the German Student" by Washington Irving, "Markheim" by Robert Louis Stevenson, "Who Knows?" by Guy de Maupassant, "The Invisible Eye" by ErckmannChatrian, "The Torture" by Hope by Villiers de l'Isle Adam, "Ms. Found in a Bottle" by Edgar Allan Poe, "What Was It?" by Fitz James O'Brien, "The Middle Toe of the Right Foot" by Ambrose Bierce, "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James, "The Dead Smile" by F. Marion Crawford, "The Wind in the RoseBush" by Mary E. WilkinsFreeman, "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Recrudescence of Imray" by Rudyard Kipling, "The Hands of Karma (Ingwabanashi)" by Lafcadio Hearn, "The Burial of the Rats" by Bram Stoker, "The Red Lodge" by H. R. Wakefield, "The Captain of the PoleStar" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Villa Desiree" by May Sinclair, "The Voice in the Night" by William Hope Hodgson, and "Novel of the White Powder" by Arthur Machen. The book also includes a short essay from Lovecraft himself, "Notes on Writing Weird Fiction," in which he lays out tips and rules for mastering the form.
Synopsis
H. P. Lovecraft is arguably the most important horror writer of the twentieth century. Culled from his 1927 essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature," Lovecraft acknowledges those authors and stories that he feels are the very finest the horror field has to offer, including Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Guy de Maupassant, Ambrose Bierce, and Arthur Conan Doyle. This chilling collection includes twenty works, each prefaced by Lovecraft's own opinions and insights in each author's work, as well as Henry James' wonderfully atmospheric short novel, The Turn of the Screw. For every fan of modern horror, here is an opportunity to rediscover the origins of the genre with some of most terrifying stories ever imagined.
About the Author
Howard Phillips Lovecraft, of Providence, Rhode Island, was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction. Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades. He is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and is frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.