by Alden Jerry
Man has a desire to get frightened. This is evident
from the ghost stories told and retold over centuries. This desire
to get frightened had given birth to thousands of horror stories over
ages. Almost all the languages around the globe have a particular
section of literature called horror literature which has gained prominence
in the past few decades. Most often, horror stories are called fiction
as they carry imaginary stories revolving around supernatural powers,
evil forces and black magic.
The fiction intended to scare, unsettle or horrify the
audience gained popularity as literature since the 1960s. This type
of fiction often overlaps science fiction or fantasy and is also called
speculative or supernatural fiction. In most of the big cities there
are horror book store that sell books based on horror fiction.
Even though not as a polished literary form, the horror
stories prevailed years back as tales of demons and vampires in folklores.
But as a literature it gained popularity in the late eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, The
Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe and Mary Shelly's Frankenstein
were the famous horror fiction books of the nineteenth century. The
first American horror novel was The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington
Irvin. Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James were some of
the finest ghost stories writers of English language.
The contemporary horror books have moved way for extreme
violence or shock to entertain the readers. The horror books by Ramsey
Campbell and Thomas Ligotti have widely been accepted by the readers.
The expansion of horror literature to a wider audience took place
in the 1920's with the rise of the American pulp magazine. The book
Weird Tales depicted many stories by Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith,
E. Hoffmann Price, Seabury Quinn, C.M. Eddy, Jr. and Robert Bloch,
thereby making horror literature much popular.
Many critics consider "The Metamorphosis,"
"In the Penal Colony" by Franz Kafka and "A Rose for
Emily," by William Faulkner as some of the best horror books
in literature. Bram Stoker, Peter Straub, R.L. Stine and Ray Bradbury
fall into the category of some of the finest horror writers of the
English language.
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