Download or read book Colonial Horrors written by Graeme Davis and published by Pegasus Books. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most spine-tingling suspense stories from the colonial era—including Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, and H. P. Lovecraft—are presented anew to the contemporary reader. This stunning anthology of classic colonial suspense fiction plunges deep into the native soil from which American horror literature first sprang. While European writers of the Gothic and bizarre evoked ruined castles and crumbling abbeys, their American counterparts looked back to the Colonial era’s stifling religion and its dark and threatening woods. Today the best-known tale of Colonial horror is Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” although Irving’s story is probably best-known today from various movie versions it has inspired. Colonial horror tales of other prominent American authors—Nathaniel Hawthorne and James Fenimore Cooper among them—are overshadowed by their bestsellers and are difficult to find in modern libraries. Many other pioneers of American horror fiction are presented afresh in this breathtaking volume for today’s reading public. Some will have heard the names of Increase and Cotton Mather in association with the Salem witch trials, but will not have sought out their contemporary accounts of what were viewed as supernatural events. By bringing these writers to the attention of the contemporary reader, the book will help bring their names—and their work—back from the dead. Featuring stories by Cotton Mather, Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, H. P. Lovecraft, and many more.
Download or read book Horror Fiction in the 20th Century written by Jess Nevins and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing an indispensable resource for academics as well as readers interested in the evolution of horror fiction in the 20th century, this book provides a readable yet critical guide to global horror fiction and authors. Horror Fiction in the 20th Century encompasses the world of 20th-century horror literature and explores it in a critical but balanced fashion. Readers will be exposed to the world of horror literature, a truly global phenomenon during the 20th century. Beginning with the modern genre's roots in the 19th century, the book proceeds to cover 20th-century horror literature in all of its manifestations, whether in comics, pulps, paperbacks, hardcover novels, or mainstream magazines, and from every country that produced it. The major horror authors of the century receive their due, but the works of many authors who are less well-known or who have been forgotten are also described and analyzed. In addition to providing critical assessments and judgments of individual authors and works, the book describes the evolution of the genre and the major movements within it. Horror Fiction in the 20th Century stands out from its competitors and will be of interest to its readers because of its informed critical analysis, its unprecedented coverage of female authors and writers of color, and its concise historical overview.
Download or read book A Dark Night s Dreaming written by Tony Magistrale and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Dark Night's Dreaming opens by defining the shape of horror fiction today, illuminating the genre's narrative themes, psychological and social contexts, and historical development. The core of the volume focuses on the lives and major works of the six who have dramatically shaped the genre: William Peter Blatty, Thomas Harris, Stephen King, Anne Rice, Peter Straub, and Whitley Strieber. A final chapter analyzes the complex relationship between horror fiction and its adaptation to film. Looking beyond the tormented maidens, madmen, monsters, and other archetypes of the genre, these critics differentiate contemporary Gothic fiction from that of earlier generations while demonstrating that horror remains one of the most important and consistent strains connecting the diverse elements of the American literary tradition. They comment on the genre's enormous popularity and undeniable influence in American society and scrutinize its changing representations of women, monsters, and gore. The volume concludes with an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary works.
Download or read book American Silent Horror Science Fiction and Fantasy Feature Films 1913 1929 written by John T. Soister and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 831 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Silent Era, when most films dealt with dramatic or comedic takes on the "boy meets girl, boy loses girl" theme, other motion pictures dared to tackle such topics as rejuvenation, revivication, mesmerism, the supernatural and the grotesque. A Daughter of the Gods (1916), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), The Magician (1926) and Seven Footprints to Satan (1929) were among the unusual and startling films containing story elements that went far beyond the realm of "highly unlikely." Using surviving documentation and their combined expertise, the authors catalog and discuss these departures from the norm in this encyclopedic guide to American horror, science fiction and fantasy in the years from 1913 through 1929.
Download or read book Horror Another 100 Best Books written by Stephen Jones and published by Running Press. This book was released on 2005-09-21 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Horror: Another 100 Best Books features one hundred of the top names in the horror field discussing one hundred of the most spine-chilling novels ever written. Each entry includes a synopsis of the work as well as publication history, biographical information about the author of each title, and recommended reading and biographical notes on the contributor. Author Ramsey Campbell also offers a new foreword to the book describing the evolution of horror over the past two decades — from the way it's written by a crop of new and exciting writers to the way it's received by a new market of readers. Horror: Another 100 Best Books will be the definitive guide to the tremendous library of horror fiction available today —a reference that no fan can live without.
Download or read book Horror Noire written by Robin R. Means Coleman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-03 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From King Kong to Candyman, the boundary-pushing genre of the horror film has always been a site for provocative explorations of race in American popular culture. In Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from 1890's to Present, Robin R. Means Coleman traces the history of notable characterizations of blackness in horror cinema, and examines key levels of black participation on screen and behind the camera. She argues that horror offers a representational space for black people to challenge the more negative, or racist, images seen in other media outlets, and to portray greater diversity within the concept of blackness itself. Horror Noire presents a unique social history of blacks in America through changing images in horror films. Throughout the text, the reader is encouraged to unpack the genre’s racialized imagery, as well as the narratives that make up popular culture’s commentary on race. Offering a comprehensive chronological survey of the genre, this book addresses a full range of black horror films, including mainstream Hollywood fare, as well as art-house films, Blaxploitation films, direct-to-DVD films, and the emerging U.S./hip-hop culture-inspired Nigerian "Nollywood" Black horror films. Horror Noire is, thus, essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how fears and anxieties about race and race relations are made manifest, and often challenged, on the silver screen.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to American Horror written by Stephen Shapiro and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-04 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking Horror seriously, the book surveys America's bloody and haunted history through its most terrifying cultural expressions.
Download or read book Rational Fears written by Mark Jancovich and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This re-assessment of 1950s American horror films relates them to the cultural debates of the period and to other examples of the horror genre: novels and comics.
Download or read book Post 9 11 Horror in American Cinema written by Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2012-03-22 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The horror film is meant to end in hope: Regan McNeil can be exorcized. A hydrophobic Roy Scheider can blow up a shark. Buffy can and will slay vampires. Heroic human qualities like love, bravery, resourcefulness, and intelligence will eventually defeat the monster. But, after the 9/11, American horror became much more bleak, with many films ending with the deaths of the entire main cast. Post-9/11 Horror in American Cinema illustrates how contemporary horror films explore visceral and emotional reactions to the attacks and how they underpin audiences' ongoing fears about their safety. It examines how scary movies have changed as a result of 9/11 and, conversely, how horror films construct and give meaning to the event in a way that other genres do not. Considering films such as Quarantine, Cloverfield, Hostel and the Saw series, Wetmore examines the transformations in horror cinema since 9/11 and considers not merely how the tropes have changed, but how our understanding of horror itself has changed.
Download or read book American Horror Writers written by Bob Madison and published by Enslow Publishing. This book was released on 2001 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book profiles ten American horror writers, including Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Bloch, Shirley Jackson, Rod Serling, and others.
Download or read book Japanese and American Horror written by Katarzyna Marak and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-11-14 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Horror fiction is an important part of the popular culture in many modern societies. This book compares and contrasts horror narratives from two distinct cultures--American and Japanese--with a focus on the characteristic mechanisms that make them successful, and on their culturally-specific aspects. Including a number of narratives belonging to film, literature, comics and video games, this book provides a comprehensive perspective of the genre. It sheds light on the differences and similarities in the depiction of fear and horror in America and Japan, while emphasizing narrative patterns in the context of their respective cultures.
Download or read book Paperbacks from Hell written by Grady Hendrix and published by Quirk Books. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times best-selling author of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires comes a nostalgic and unflinchingly funny celebration of the horror fiction boom of the 1970s and ’80s. Take a tour through the horror paperback novels of two iconic decades . . . if you dare. Page through dozens and dozens of amazing book covers featuring well-dressed skeletons, evil dolls, and knife-wielding killer crabs! Read shocking plot summaries that invoke devil worship, satanic children, and haunted real estate! Horror author and vintage paperback book collector Grady Hendrix offers killer commentary and witty insight on these trashy thrillers that tried so hard to be the next Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby. Complete with story summaries and artist and author profiles, this unforgettable volume dishes on familiar authors like V. C. Andrews and R. L. Stine, plus many more who’ve faded into obscurity. Also included are recommendations for which of these forgotten treasures are well worth your reading time and which should stay buried.
Download or read book The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall written by Katie Alender and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2015-08-25 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: IN THIS ASYLUM, YOUR MIND PLAYS TRICK ON YOU ALL THE TIME ... Delia's new house isn't just a house. Long ago, it was the Piven Institute for the Care and Correction of Troubled Females -- an insane asylum nicknamed "Hysteria Hall." However, many of the inmates were not insane, just defiant and strong willed. Kind of like Delia herself.But the house still wants to keep "troubled" girls locked away. So, in the most horrifying way, Delia becomes trapped. And that's when she learns that the house is also haunted.Ghost girls wander the hallways in their old-fashioned nightgowns. A handsome ghost boy named Theo roams the grounds. Delia learns that all the spirits are unsettled and full of dark secrets. The house, too, harbors shocking truths within its walls -- truths that only Delia can uncover, and that may set her free. And she'll need to act quickly -- before the house's power overtakes everything she loves.Katie Alender brings heart-pounding suspense, gorgeous writing, and a feminist twist to this tale of memories and madness.
Download or read book Supernatural Horror in Literature written by H. P. Lovecraft and published by The Palingenesis Project (Wermod and Wermod Publishing Group). This book was released on 2013-06-10 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1927 in a small-circulation amateur magazine, spanning the period from antiquity until the 1930s, and covering both the Anglo-American world and Continental Europe, Lovecraft’s essay remains unparallelled as a survey of horror literature in our hemisphere. Said literature’s emergence as a genre coincided with the institutional establishment of liberalism, which represents a diametrically opposed worldview. This would suggest that horror literature, even if inadvertently or subconsciously, represents an attempt at escaping the limitations of the secular, materialist, rationalist Weltanschauung of liberal modernity, as well as a desire for meaning in a world rendered meaningless through ‘liberation’ from hierarchies, folk traditions, the occult, and the supernatural. Also of interest is the fact that the aesthetics of Gothic horror are invariably and luxuriantly beautiful (if in a dark way), whereas the logical extreme of rationality (utilitarianism, standardisation) is inherently anti-aesthetic. Would this not indicate, then, that the Age of Reason marked the beginning of a process that concluded in late modernity with the wholesale destruction of beauty, except where it, or the counterfeiting of it, was dictated by economic necessity? If so, we may view Lovecraft’s essay not merely as a resource for those seeking entertainment within a genre of literature, but also a map for those seeking to escape, and begin to transcend, the despair engendered by a worldview that pronounced itself dead when someone spoke of ‘the end of history’.
Download or read book The Best of Richard Matheson written by Richard Matheson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-10-10 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive collection of terrifying stories by "one of the greatest writers of the 20th century" (Ray Bradbury), edited by award-winning author Victor LaValle Among the greats of 20th-century horror and fantasy, few names stand above Richard Matheson. Though known by many for novels like I Am Legend and his sixteen Twilight Zone episodes, Matheson truly shines in his chilling, masterful short stories. Since his first story appeared in 1950, virtually every major writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy has fallen under his influence, including Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Peter Straub, and Joe Hill, as well as filmmakers like Stephen Spielberg and J.J. Abrams. Matheson revolutionized horror by taking it out of Gothic castles and strange cosmos and setting it in the darkened streets and suburbs we recognize as our own. He infused tales of the fantastic and supernormal with dark explorations of human nature, delving deep into the universal dread of feeling alone and threatened in a dangerous world. The Best of Richard Matheson brings together his greatest hits as chosen by Victor LaValle, an expert on horror fiction and one of its brightest talents, marking the first major overview of Matheson's legendary career. "[Matheson is] the author who influenced me most as a writer." -Stephen King "Richard Matheson's ironic and iconic imagination created seminal science-fiction stories . . . For me, he is in the same category as Bradbury and Asimov." -Steven Spielberg "He was a giant, and YOU KNOW HIS STORIES, even if you think you don't." -Neil Gaiman For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Download or read book Infidel written by Pornsak Pichetshote and published by Image Comics. This book was released on 2018-09-26 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A haunted house story for the 21st century, INFIDEL follows an American Muslim woman and her multi-racial neighbors who move into a building haunted by entities that feed off xenophobia. Best-selling editor PORNSAK PICHETSHOTE (Swamp Thing, Daytripper, The Unwritten) makes his comics writing debut alongside artist extraordinaire AARON CAMPBELL (The Shadow, James Bond: Felix Leiter), award-winning colorist and editor JOSE VILLARRUBIA (Batman: Year 100, Spider-Man: Reign) and letterer / designer JEFF POWELL (SCALES AND SCOUNDRELS). Like nothing I've read beforeÉ Highly recommended. STEVE NILES (30 Days of Night, WINNEBAGO GRAVEYARD) Believable horror that's as unsettling as it is beautiful to look at. JOCK (WYTCHES) "Brilliant horror with a terrifying contemporary resonance. This feels way, way too real." - MIKE CAREY (Lucifer) Collects INFIDEL #1-5
Download or read book Dark Carnivals written by W. Scott Poole and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2023-10-03 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The panoramic story of how the horror genre transformed into one of the most incisive critiques of unchecked American imperial power The American empire emerged from the shadows of World War II. As the nation’s influence swept the globe with near impunity, a host of evil forces followed—from racism, exploitation, and military invasion to killer clowns, flying saucers, and monsters borne of a fear of the other. By viewing American imperial history through the prism of the horror genre, Dark Carnivals lays bare how the genre shaped us, distracted us, and gave form to a violence as American as apple pie. A carnival ride that connects the mushroom clouds of 1945 to the beaches of Amity Island, Charles Manson to the massacre at My Lai, and John Wayne to John Wayne Gacy, the new book by acclaimed historian W. Scott Poole reveals how horror films and fictions have followed the course of America’s military and cultural empire and explores how the shadow of our national sins can take on the form of mass entertainment.
