Abstract
The introduction offers a brief survey of Supernatural Horror in Literature’s genesis, publication history, critical reception, and influence. It glosses some of the essay’s key critical terms, especially atmosphere, while highlighting how Lovecraft’s racial and social views shape the essay’s conceptions in ways that have gone strangely unexamined by most critical assessments that admit its value and importance to the course of modern horror and weird fiction.
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- 1.
Readers interested in a more detailed account of the essay’s biographical context and publication history should consult S.T. Joshi’s “Introduction” to The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2000), 9–20.
- 2.
Stephen King, Danse Macabre (New York: Berkeley Books, 1983).
- 3.
David G. Hartwell, The Dark Descent (New York: Tor Books, 1987), 5.
- 4.
For a cogent discussion of the significance of this conception, its roots in Lovecraft’s reading of Poe , and its evolution in his later critical writings, see S.T. Joshi, “Poe , Lovecraft and the Revolution in Weird Fiction,” (paper presented at the Ninth Annual Commemoration Program of the Poe Society, October 7, 2012), http://www.eapoe.org/papers/psblctrs/pl20121.html
- 5.
Hartwell, The Dark Descent, 85.
- 6.
James Ursini and Alain Silver, More Things than Are Dreamt of: Masterpieces of Supernatural Horror (Limelight, 1994), 61.
- 7.
S.T. Joshi, “Preface,” The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature, edited by S.T. Joshi (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2000), 7.
- 8.
Lovecraft, Selected Letters II, 160.
- 9.
Lovecraft, Selected Letters II, 301.
- 10.
Lovecraft, Selected Letters II, 300.
- 11.
Touponce , 59.
- 12.
Lovecraft, Selected Letters II, 300.
- 13.
H.P. Lovecraft, Selected Letters Volume II (Sauk City: Arkham House, 1971), 290.
- 14.
Lovecraft, Selected Letters II, 292.
- 15.
Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, “Introduction,” The Weird (New York: Tor Books, 2011), xv.
- 16.
The Weird, xvi.
- 17.
S.T. Joshi, “Preface,” The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature, edited by S.T. Joshi (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2000), 7.
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Moreland, S. (2018). Introduction: The Critical (After)Life of Supernatural Horror in Literature. In: Moreland, S. (eds) New Directions in Supernatural Horror Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95477-6_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95477-6_1
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