Shadows in the Attic: A Guide to British Supernatural Fiction, 1820-1950

by Neil Wilson

This is a portrait of a diverse genre which is richer and more influential than commonly supposed. Based on the collections of the British Library, Neil Wilson has identified the 200 top writers active in the supernatural genre during its "golden age" - from the end of the Gothic period to the birth of modern Horror. Bibliographic details of first book appearances of stories and novels are given, with separate author and title indexes. Every work listed is accompanied by annotations and notes. Biographical information is provided on every author included, together with sources for further research and reading, biographies, critical studies, associated works and bibliographies.

576 pages, Hardcover

First published July 15, 2000

About the author

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Reviews

[Jordan West · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid, if somewhat basic, reference guide to the first 130 years of weird fiction from the UK. However, readers should know going in that its much more of a checklist or annotated bibliography than a monograph, so the overall amount of information is somewhat scanty, and if one happens to be an obsessive reader of the weird odds are you'll already be familiar with 90% of the authors listed. Also, it devotes a number of entries to the most marginal of figures or the limited supernatural outputs of established writers like Forster or Maugham while some notable names go unmentioned. So, while far from definitive, it is still a hefty, well-intentioned source of information on its subject with a few surprises for even the most well-read reader; one might only hope that a revised, more readily-available edition shall someday appear.

[Ben Lovegrove · Rating 5 out of 5]

The British Library's bibliography of ghost stories 1820s-1950s