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Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction #1-2
Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction
S. T. Joshi is one of the leading authorities on weird fiction, and in this World Fantasy Award-winning study he provides a comprehensive history and analysis of the entire range of weird fiction from antiquity to the present day. For the first time, the full contents of both print volumes are available together in a single electronic book file. As Joshi’s landmark survey of supernatural literature begins, the focus is on weird fiction from the Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 1700 B.C.E.) to the end of the nineteenth century. Joshi focuses on key works of Greek and Latin literature that introduced many long-enduring motifs in weird literature. Moving on down through Dante, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Milton, Joshi provides a compact overview of the several different strands of Gothic fiction, beginning with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) and culminating with Charles Robert Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), with detailed discussions of Ann Radcliffe, M. G. Lewis, Mary Shelley, and others. Edgar Allan Poe was a watershed in the history of weird fiction, and his fusion of psychological and supernatural horror was pioneering. He was followed by the prolific Irish writer J. Sheridan Le Fanu, numerous practitioners of the English ghost story (including Henry James and Edith Wharton), and the cynical Ambrose Bierce. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Oscar Wilde, and others made weird fiction a genre that fused popular appeal with aesthetic richness. As S. T. Joshi’s landmark history of supernatural fiction continues, the focus is placed on an incredible efflorescence of weird writing at the turn of the twentieth century—a period that many scholars have referred to as the Golden Age of weird fiction. Such figures as Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, M. R. James, and H. P. Lovecraft elevated weird fiction to a level of high artistry never seen before, and their work continues to inspire writers up to the present day. Other authors such as Walter de la Mare, L. P. Hartley, and William Hope Hodgson also contributed important novels and tales. Lovecraft’s influence extended to such of his contemporaries and successors as Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, Robert Bloch, and Fritz Leiber. In the years following Lovecraft’s death, a new crop of writers—led by Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Shirley Jackson, and Charles Beaumont—brought horror down to earth and into the realm of ordinary life. Their work laid the groundwork for the extraordinary emergence of weird fiction as a best-selling phenomenon in the work of Ira Levin, Stephen King, Peter Straub, Clive Barker, Anne Rice, and many others. At the same time, more literate figures such as Ramsey Campbell, T. E. D. Klein, and Thomas Ligotti continued to expand the boundaries of the weird in work of the highest literary polish. Today, such writers as Caitlín R. Kiernan, Dennis Etchison, and many others continue to probe new directions in weird fiction.
776 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2014
50 people are currently reading
160 people want to read
About the author
S.T. Joshi
795 books455 followersSunand Tryambak Joshi is an Indian American literary scholar, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors. Besides what some critics consider to be the definitive biography of Lovecraft (H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, 1996), Joshi has written about Ambrose Bierce, H. L. Mencken, Lord Dunsany, and M.R. James, and has edited collections of their works.
His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite and others.
Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, published by Necronomicon Press. He is also the editor of Lovecraft Annual and co-editor of Dead Reckonings, both small-press journals published by Hippocampus Press.
In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and social relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; In Her Place (2006), which collects written examples of prejudice against women; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan, among others. An Agnostic Reader, collecting pieces by such writers as Isaac Asimov, John William Draper, Albert Einstein, Frederic Harrison, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert Ingersoll, Corliss Lamont, Arthur Schopenhauer and Edward Westermarck, was published in 2007.
Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley, Jr., William James, Stephen L. Carter, Annie Dillard, Reynolds Price, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Guenter Lewy, Neale Donald Walsch and Jerry Falwell, which is dedicated to theologian and fellow Lovecraft critic Robert M. Price.
In 2006 he published The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong, which criticised the political writings of such commentators as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, David and Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, William Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving and William Kristol, arguing that, despite the efforts of right-wing polemicists, the values of the American people have become steadily more liberal over time.
Joshi, who lives with his wife in Moravia, New York, has stated on his website that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been his biography of Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life and The Weird Tale.
His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and the dominant worldviews of the authors in question; his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy (namely Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Dunsany, M. R. James, Bierce and Lovecraft), and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. A follow-up volume, The Modern Weird Tale, examines the work of modern writers, including Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Robert Aickman, Thomas Ligotti, T. E. D. Klein and others, from a similar philosophically oriented viewpoint. The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) includes essays on Dennis Etchison, L. P. Hartley, Les Daniels, E. F. Benson, Rudyard Kipling, David J. Schow, Robert Bloch, L. P. Davies, Edward Lucas White, Rod Serling, Poppy Z. Brite and others.
Joshi is the editor of the small-press literary journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, published by Necronomicon Press. He is also the editor of Lovecraft Annual and co-editor of Dead Reckonings, both small-press journals published by Hippocampus Press.
In addition to literary criticism, Joshi has also edited books on atheism and social relations, including Documents of American Prejudice (1999), an annotated collection of American racist writings; In Her Place (2006), which collects written examples of prejudice against women; and Atheism: A Reader (2000), which collects atheistic writings by such people as Antony Flew, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan, among others. An Agnostic Reader, collecting pieces by such writers as Isaac Asimov, John William Draper, Albert Einstein, Frederic Harrison, Thomas Henry Huxley, Robert Ingersoll, Corliss Lamont, Arthur Schopenhauer and Edward Westermarck, was published in 2007.
Joshi is also the author of God's Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong (2003), an anti-religious polemic against various writers including C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley, Jr., William James, Stephen L. Carter, Annie Dillard, Reynolds Price, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Guenter Lewy, Neale Donald Walsch and Jerry Falwell, which is dedicated to theologian and fellow Lovecraft critic Robert M. Price.
In 2006 he published The Angry Right: Why Conservatives Keep Getting It Wrong, which criticised the political writings of such commentators as William F. Buckley, Jr., Russell Kirk, David and Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, William Bennett, Gertrude Himmelfarb and Irving and William Kristol, arguing that, despite the efforts of right-wing polemicists, the values of the American people have become steadily more liberal over time.
Joshi, who lives with his wife in Moravia, New York, has stated on his website that his most noteworthy achievements thus far have been his biography of Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft: A Life and The Weird Tale.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 12, 2015
Joshi remembers every book he ever read, from his time in freshman composition to present, that contained supernatural elements. Beowulf? Grendel was a monster, and therefore influenced Lovecraft, Machen, Blackwood, and Dunsany (his favorites). So too with Shakespeare, Marlowe, the Gothics, and every one else who ever wrote a supernatural character. The title is accurate: a history of supernatural fiction -- because that's what he writes: a history. Not an analysis, not an effort to understand how it came about. Just a history, a listing of books, their plots, and some basic information about the authors. It is just a list of books from antiquity to present that contain supernatural elements.
I'd like to read some of his other books. Maybe his books that focus on individual authors go into more depth. I'd like to read his Lovecraft biography. It is probably better than this book. This book just lists all of the books and stories we have all read already, summarizes the plots, and presents them in a chronological order.
I admit I only read like 50 percent of it, but I think it was enough to see what he was doing.
If this is what it takes to win a Locus Fantasy Award, I cannot wait to have my own.
I say save your time, and read Lovecraft's "Supernatural Horror in Literature." It's the same thing, only more concise.
The prose style? I lost count of the number of times he said "to be sure," "indeed," and the rest of those silly phrases that no one but English professors ever uses.
I don't like writing nasty reviews like this, but Joshi has done his own share of trashing others and their efforts, so here is my review of his massive tome, A History of Supernatural Fiction.
I'd like to read some of his other books. Maybe his books that focus on individual authors go into more depth. I'd like to read his Lovecraft biography. It is probably better than this book. This book just lists all of the books and stories we have all read already, summarizes the plots, and presents them in a chronological order.
I admit I only read like 50 percent of it, but I think it was enough to see what he was doing.
If this is what it takes to win a Locus Fantasy Award, I cannot wait to have my own.
I say save your time, and read Lovecraft's "Supernatural Horror in Literature." It's the same thing, only more concise.
The prose style? I lost count of the number of times he said "to be sure," "indeed," and the rest of those silly phrases that no one but English professors ever uses.
I don't like writing nasty reviews like this, but Joshi has done his own share of trashing others and their efforts, so here is my review of his massive tome, A History of Supernatural Fiction.
June 24, 2021
Unutterable Horror es un ensayo muy estimulante que traza la historia de la ficción sobrenatural y de terror. En este primer volumen Joshi repasa sus antecedentes hasta finales del siglo XIX. La lectura es muy amena y sugerente, pues repasa los principales autores y sus obras ordenándolas por períodos y geográficamente lo que permite trazar nexos en común y evoluciones que permiten entender cómo este género literario ha logrado mantenerse con buena salud hasta la actualidad. Recomendado para aquellos interesados en historia de la literatura.
May 13, 2016
Joshi's much longer and time-expanded version of Lovecraft's 'Supernatural Horror in Literature' and an even more thorough and enjoyable read than that one. You may not agree with all of his judgement, but I find most of them to be on or near the mark. There was of course some things which I did not previously know of, so my 'too read' list might expand soon in consequence of reading this over the past two weeks.
As always Joshi's wit and clever prose carry his writing on other's writing. I was, however, somewhat disappointing by the lack of mentioning what I feel is the most overlooked weird tale in the anglosphere for bringing forth the sense of baffled awe Lovecraft's later stories got: that of Roadside Picnic.
Also, weird fiction has continued to grow and get even better since this book came out, though it is hardly the fault of the book to not yet have this information.
As always Joshi's wit and clever prose carry his writing on other's writing. I was, however, somewhat disappointing by the lack of mentioning what I feel is the most overlooked weird tale in the anglosphere for bringing forth the sense of baffled awe Lovecraft's later stories got: that of Roadside Picnic.
Also, weird fiction has continued to grow and get even better since this book came out, though it is hardly the fault of the book to not yet have this information.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews