Supernatural Horror in Literature

Written by H. P. Lovecraft

Narrated by Peter Coates

"Supernatural Horror in Literature" is a essay by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, surveying the development and achievements of horror fiction as the field stood in the 1920s and 30s. The essay was researched and written between November 1925 and May 1927, first published in August 1927, and then revised and expanded during 1933–1934.
Lovecraft's essay ranges widely, but he first examines the beginnings of weird fiction in the early gothic novel. As a guide for what to read in the early gothic he relied partly on Edith Birkhead's 1921 historical survey The Tale of Terror, and he was also able to draw on the expertise of the great many experts and collectors in his circle. The bulk of the essay was written in New York City giving Lovecraft easy access to the resources of the city's great public libraries and also to the collections of his friends, and thus he was able to read widely and obtain obscure and rare works. His survey then proceeds to outline the development of the supernatural and the weird in the work of major writers such as Ambrose Bierce, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe. Lovecraft names as the four "modern masters" of horror: Algernon Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, M. R. James, and Arthur Machen. In addition to these masters, Lovecraft attempts to make the essay an encompassing survey, and thus he mentions or notes many others in passing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing
• Release date: Feb 29, 2024

H. P. Lovecraft

Renowned as one of the great horror-writers of all time, H.P. Lovecraft was born in 1890 and lived most of his life in Providence, Rhode Island. Among his many classic horror stories, many of which were published in book form only after his death in 1937, are ‘At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels of Terror’ (1964), ‘Dagon and Other Macabre Tales’ (1965), and ‘The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions’ (1970).