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Library of Weird Fiction
Robert Aickman
In the decades following his death, British writer Robert Aickman (1914-1981) has emerged as one of the pioneering authors of weird fiction in the later twentieth century. During his lifetime, he published eight collections of tales, beginning with We Are for the Dark (1951) and concluding with Intrusions (1980).
In his fiction, Aickman evolved a distinctive idiom emphasizing subtlety and the slow, gradual accumulation of weird atmosphere. He was a master of English prose, writing with effortless fluency and never requiring violence of diction or incident to create powerful horrific effects. He himself referred to his narratives as “strange tales,” signifying his scorn of the standard motifs of conventional supernatural fiction.
While some stories utilize such well-worn themes as the resurrection of the dead (“Ringing the Changes”) or vampirism (“Pages from a Young Girl’s Journal”), others create the sense of weirdness from the sheer oddity of the scenario: the harrowingly bland office worker in “Meeting Mr. Millar,” or the inscrutable residents of a home for the elderly in “The Hospice.” Many of his tales — including “The Swords” and “Letters to the Postman” — feature covert or overt sexuality, as Aickman continually expressed his fascination with “the eternal feminine.”
This selection of eighteen of Aickman’s best weird tales demonstrates why he has become such an influential voice in contemporary weird fiction: his supple, oblique prose, the strangeness of his weird conceptions, and his sure grasp of narrative pacing have made him far more popular than he was in his own day.
The volume has been edited by S. T. Joshi, a leading authority on weird fiction. Joshi is the author of The Weird Tale (1990), The Modern Weird Tale (2001), and Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction (2012).
In his fiction, Aickman evolved a distinctive idiom emphasizing subtlety and the slow, gradual accumulation of weird atmosphere. He was a master of English prose, writing with effortless fluency and never requiring violence of diction or incident to create powerful horrific effects. He himself referred to his narratives as “strange tales,” signifying his scorn of the standard motifs of conventional supernatural fiction.
While some stories utilize such well-worn themes as the resurrection of the dead (“Ringing the Changes”) or vampirism (“Pages from a Young Girl’s Journal”), others create the sense of weirdness from the sheer oddity of the scenario: the harrowingly bland office worker in “Meeting Mr. Millar,” or the inscrutable residents of a home for the elderly in “The Hospice.” Many of his tales — including “The Swords” and “Letters to the Postman” — feature covert or overt sexuality, as Aickman continually expressed his fascination with “the eternal feminine.”
This selection of eighteen of Aickman’s best weird tales demonstrates why he has become such an influential voice in contemporary weird fiction: his supple, oblique prose, the strangeness of his weird conceptions, and his sure grasp of narrative pacing have made him far more popular than he was in his own day.
The volume has been edited by S. T. Joshi, a leading authority on weird fiction. Joshi is the author of The Weird Tale (1990), The Modern Weird Tale (2001), and Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction (2012).
- GenresHorror
686 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2019
3 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
About the author
Robert Aickman
155 books538 followersAuthor of: close to 50 "strange stories" in the weird-tale and ghost-story traditions, two novels (The Late Breakfasters and The Model), two volumes of memoir (The Attempted Rescue and The River Runs Uphill), and two books on the canals of England (Know Your Waterways and The Story of Our Inland Waterways).
Co-founder and longtime president of the Inland Waterways Association, an organization that in the middle of the 20th century restored a great part of England's deteriorating system of canals, now a major draw for recreation nationally and for tourism internationally.
Grandson of author Richard Marsh.
Co-founder and longtime president of the Inland Waterways Association, an organization that in the middle of the 20th century restored a great part of England's deteriorating system of canals, now a major draw for recreation nationally and for tourism internationally.
Grandson of author Richard Marsh.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 16, 2025
Subtly eccentric post-Freudian ghost stories that explore our most common anxieties - that is to say, our secret ones. Aickman's 'strange tales' are some of the best that there are.
June 12, 2023
This volume is part of the Library of Weird Fiction, and it's certainly weird. Not just in the subject matter, but also how the stories are written. The language is weird, full of unusual words or words used in unusual ways. The characters are weird as they behave in unexpected ways, even when they are meant to be your "average Joe". The plot lines are weird in that they often lead to nowhere and have no satisfying resolution.
I can't say that it was easy to take all this weirdness in, and my opinion of some stories swinged widely from amazement to annoyance and from urgent page-flipping to being unable to finish a story, and sometimes back again. In general, I feel Aikman is much better at setting up the bizarre and the unsettling situations than in resolving them. Endings of some of the earlier stories even have "boy scout campfire stories" feel, but later on he began to just leave things as they are, which works very well in some stories, but disappoints in others.
That said, about half of the stories in this volume are truly memorable and will stay in my mind for some time.
I can't say that it was easy to take all this weirdness in, and my opinion of some stories swinged widely from amazement to annoyance and from urgent page-flipping to being unable to finish a story, and sometimes back again. In general, I feel Aikman is much better at setting up the bizarre and the unsettling situations than in resolving them. Endings of some of the earlier stories even have "boy scout campfire stories" feel, but later on he began to just leave things as they are, which works very well in some stories, but disappoints in others.
That said, about half of the stories in this volume are truly memorable and will stay in my mind for some time.
January 4, 2022
A fantastic collection of his well known, and lesser known, stories that are Aickman’s mark in weird literature. My favorite are The Swords and The Stains. His stories require an in-depth reading that will stay with you for days.
June 5, 2022
Revelatory collection of some of the best weird tales ever written.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews