Living In Fear: The History Of Horror In The Mass Media

by Les Daniels

"It might seem that there are enough things to be afraid of in real life. Poverty and pain, crime and corruption, oppression and depression, disease and death -- all these lurk in the shadows, and sooner or later they pounce on everybody. And yet for a substantial audience, purely imaginary terrors represent an authentic experience."

With these words, Les Daniels shuts the door on "real life" and opens a shady path into the horrible, the terrible, the macabre, and the uncanny. Why do people like to be scared? What scares them? How to Hitchcock, Shakespeare, Poe transform our ordinary fears into "purely imaginary terrors"? What is the appeal, on otherwise sensible people, of pulp fiction, horror films, haunted houses, and murder mysteries?

Les Daniels explains in this far-reaching and pioneering history of mass media psychology. With a list of topics that runs from Dracula, Frank Frazetta, and Robert Louis Stevenson to Charles Manson, H.P. Lovecraft, Christopher Lee, and the Rolling Stones, Living in Fear unearths images overlooked or forgotten in the history of the movies, literature, comics, radio, theatre, and television. Guaranteed to send a frisson through the most jaded horror fan, here are a host of insights and leads for the student of popular culture, and hours of entertainment for fans of Stephen King, John Carpenter, and other contemporary terror inspirers.

Genres: Horror, Nonfiction, History, Film

256 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1975

About the author

Les Daniels was one of the earliest historians of comic books and an author of horror novels.

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This non fiction book with fiction inside (one story at the end of each chapter by authors like Bierce, M.R. James, Machen, Lovecraft) deals with the origins of horror. You'll find many great photos, illustrations and pictures inside. The chapters shine a light on Gothic ghosts, imps and the perverse (Clarke's superb illustrations for Poe tales), Varney, Carmilla, secret societies, mass media, horror comics (The Vault of Horror), illustrated horror (Creepy or Vampirella). The book is from 1975 and not a bit dated in my opinion. Here you find the true pillars of fear. Really recommended!

[Jordan Rogowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

The information is extremely robust and well-researched but — pardon my academic jargon — it is dry as all fucking shit. The Gobi in August.

[Doris Sutherland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Les Daniels is remembered mainly for his writing for and about comics, but he also wrote Living in Fear (title shortened to Fear for paperback), which is the single best overview of horror that I’ve ever read. Okay, it was published in 1975, so it’s a few decades out of date, but it more than makes up for this with its sheer breadth of scope in examining horror’s history. Daniels covers literature, cinema, television, theatre, music, comics and even religious tracts; his analysis kicks off in earnest with the gothic novels of the 18th century and continues up to the 1970s. Horace Walpole, Vampirella, Bram Stoker, John Zacherle and depressing pop songs about dead teenagers all have parts to play in the grand narrative. He also reprints a few classic horror stories, each one representing its general period. Well worth tracking down if you want a thorough assessment of how the horror genre took shape.

[Williwaw]

This is a generously illustrated book, which contains b&w reproductions of classic and pulp illustrations, movie stills, paintings, engravings, historic frontispieces, and even a complete E.C. Comics horror story! It is a scholarly treatment of the horror genre, in all its historic manifestations. Most chapters include an exemplary short story, to give the reader a first-hand experience of the source materials which Daniels has drawn upon. Authors include Poe, Machen, Lovecraft, Bierce, and Joseph Payne Brennan.

I'm sad to report that the author, celebrated as the first historian of the comic book, passed away in November of 2011.

I just read the first 50 pages or so of "Living in Fear." It is well-written and enlightening. Definitely a keeper!

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great study of horror in popular culture, literature and film from the distant past to the early 1980's, interspersed with some terrific, if sometimes familiar shorts horror stories. Well worth a look. Les Daniels, who recently passed wrote with a light touch, but was always extremely informative and his enthusiasm for the subject shines through on every page.

[Satyros Brucato · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this book as a kid in the mid-1970s, and it opened my world to Lovecraft, Tarot, the Golden Dawn, Ambrose Bierce, Gothic literature, the Decadent art movement, and so very much more. The single best book I've read on the subject, LIVING IN FEAR is dated, but crying out for a revised edition.