Towards the end of the 18th Century a new type of literature appeared - horror. What was different about these stories was that they told of supernatural beings or happenings instead of the more usual realism. The genre bloomed in the 19th Century and many of the horror stories written then, for example Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde or Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray are considered classics today. The abundance of magazines in the early part of the 20th Century brought about a boom in the amount of horror literature. Specialist periodicals devoted to... Show more Towards the end of the 18th Century a new type of literature appeared - horror. What was different about these stories was that they told of supernatural beings or happenings instead of the more usual realism. The genre bloomed in the 19th Century and many of the horror stories written then, for example Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde or Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray are considered classics today. The abundance of magazines in the early part of the 20th Century brought about a boom in the amount of horror literature. Specialist periodicals devoted to horror and fantasy, like Weird Tales, hit the market, giving budding writers the outlet they needed. Great authors such as HP Lovecraft, MR James and Dennis Wheatley emerged, each with their own particular style. We were told stories about ghosts and other supernatural phenomena. Demons were summoned from Hell to the earthly plane whilst the dead rose up from the grave to terrorise the living... The horror genre, begun by such names as Edgar Allen Poe, Mary Shelly and Bram Stoker, has stood the test of time. Contemporary authors include such names as James Herbert who brought us The Fog, Clive Barker the creator of the Books of Blood, and Dean Koontz who wrote The Flesh in the Furnace. And Stephen King, who has written works like Carrie, The Shining, It and Misery along with many more. Show less
Towards the end of the 18th Century a new type of literature appeared - horror. What was different about these stories was that they told of supernatural beings or happenings instead of the more usual realism. The genre bloomed in the 19th Century and many of the horror stories written then, for example Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde or Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray are considered classics today.
The abundance of magazines in the early part of the 20th Century brought about a boom in the amount of horror literature. Specialist periodicals devoted to horror and fantasy, like Weird Tales, hit the market, giving budding writers the outlet they needed. Great authors such as HP Lovecraft, MR James and Dennis Wheatley emerged, each with their own particular style. We were told stories about ghosts and other supernatural phenomena. Demons were summoned from Hell to the earthly plane whilst the dead rose up from the grave to terrorise the living...
The horror genre, begun by such names as Edgar Allen Poe, Mary Shelly and Bram Stoker, has stood the test of time. Contemporary authors include such names as James Herbert who brought us The Fog, Clive Barker the creator of the Books of Blood, and Dean Koontz who wrote The Flesh in the Furnace. And Stephen King, who has written works like Carrie, The Shining, It and Misery along with many more.
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