The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction

by Dorothy Scarborough

The supernatural is a traditional element in literature. Since the epic of Beowulf, there has been a continuing presence of the unearthly and weird in poetry, drama, and fiction. The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction, first published in 1917 during a period of renewed social and literary interest in the occult and spiritualism, offers readers an overview of some of the greatest known, as well as some forgotten yet eerily important, works of English literature. From the precursor of supernaturalism, the Gothic novel with its gloomy castles and cloisters, to the ghosts and madness and horrors written in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, this volume is a guide to a grotesquerie of tales. With chapters like The Devil and His Allies, The Supernatural in Folk-Tales, and Supernatural Science, the unearthly and the bizarre are met inside these pages in all their myriad guises. This is a book that will appeal to aficionados of fantastic and horror literature, offering new insight into the history of so many grand and delightfully macabre stories.

Genres: Nonfiction, Gothic, Horror, Reference

342 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1917

About the author

Emily Dorothy Scarborough was an American writer who wrote about Texas, folk culture, cotton farming, ghost stories and women's life in the Southwest.

Scarborough was born in Mount Carmel, Texas. At the age of four she moved to Sweetwater, Texas for her mother's health, as her mother needed the drier climate. The family soon left Sweetwater in 1887, so that the Scarborough children could get a good education at Baylor College.

Even though Scarborough's writings are identified with Texas, she studied at University of Chicago and Oxford University and beginning in 1916 taught literature at Columbia University.

While receiving her PhD from Columbia, she wrote a dissertation, "The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction (1917)". Sylvia Ann Grider writes in a critical introduction [1] the dissertation "was so widely acclaimed by her professors and colleagues that it was published and it has become a basic reference work."

Dorothy Scarborough came in contact with many writers in New York, including Edna Ferber and Vachel Lindsay. She taught creative writing classes at Columbia. Among her creative writing students were Eric Walrond, and Carson McCullers, who took her first college writing class from Scarborough.[1]

Her most critically acclaimed book, The Wind (first published anonymously in 1925), was later made into a film of the same name starring Lillian Gish.

Reviews

[Quirkyreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

See my review on my book blog :

http://quirkyreader.livejournal.com/2...

[Chrissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I checked this out before checking the publication date (originally 1917, reprinted in 1967) and therefore ended up with an interesting (although no longer modern) take on the expression of supernatural effects in popular literature.

This book has some non-pc language in reference to certain groups of people, so fair warning for stereotyping and primitive vs. civilized comparisons.

What I found most valuable in reading was the thorough coverage of the change in presentation of the supernatural in stories ranging from Gothic novels to novels published close to the book's own publication date. The author traces the way that ghosts, etc. are handled as authors shift toward more psychological or Spiritualist interpretations, incorporate humor into previously more serious territory, and bring the supernatural characters closer to the human experience, such as ghosts becoming more visibly reflections of the people who had died, down to the replication of clothing worn.

The author is includes information on several titles to allow you to read further.

[GracieKat · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book explores various roots of horror and fantasy. The 'modern' though, is 1917 so don't expect Stephen King or any of the Weird Tales gang here.
The writing is good with a nice breezy attitude but giving the books their due. If there is one major fault with it, it is that she whirls you through the books so quickly that it is dizzying at times. She also presumes a previous knowledge of most of them so she rarely does a synopsis.For some reason there are quite a few left out that had me scratching my head such as M.R. James and some others.
My Amazon review noted some scanning errors such as words being spelled phonetically (ex. donjon for dungeon) and random characters here and there. These seem to be gone now, perhaps there was an update for the kindle version. However, the biggest issue with it is still the same. As you read through it she mentions various authors and their books. Sometimes the books that she does not mention in the text proper are footnotes. Now, I'm assuming that in the original book these footnotes came at the bottom of the page. However, due to the scanning process, sometimes the footnotes are in the middle of the page and sometimes even in the middle of sentences. It can make reading difficult in sections. There is also an index in the back. Unfortunately it is not linked and the page numbers given do not correspond with the kindle pages so it can be somewhat difficult to navigate.
On the plus side I was able to expand my library quite a bit with books I had never heard of.
So, if you're interested in the roots of fantasy and horror this is a good place to start.

[Mengxing Fu · Rating 3 out of 5]

the chapter on modern ghost is humorous; could also be titled 'an anatomy of ghosts'