Horror is a genre of speculative fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten, or scare an audience. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length... which shocks, or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing". Horror intends to create an eerie and frightening atmosphere for the reader. The threats present in horror fiction often reflect broader cultural anxieties.
History Before 1000
The horror genre has ancient origins, with roots in folklore and religious traditions focusing on death, the afterlife, evil, the demonic, and the principle of the thing embodied in the person. These manifested in stories of beings such as demons, witches, vampires, werewolves, and ghosts. Some early European horror-fiction came from the Ancient Greeks and Ancient Romans. Mary Shelley's well-known 1818 novel about Frankenstein was greatly influenced by the story of Hippolytus, whom Asclepius revives from death.Though the sub-title of Frankenstein references the titan Prometheus, none of the ancient myths about Prometheus is itself a horror tale. Euripides wrote plays based on the story, Hippolytos Kalyptomenos and Hippolytus.* Edward P. Coleridge, 1891, prose: full text In Plutarch's Parallel Lives in the account of Cimon, the author describes the spirit of a murderer, Damon, who himself was murdered in a bathhouse in Chaeronea.* John Dryden, 1683: full text
Pliny the Younger (61 to 113) tells the tale of Athenodorus Cananites, who bought a haunted house in Athens. Athenodorus was cautious since the house seemed inexpensive. While writing a book on philosophy, he was visited by a ghostly figure bound in chains. The figure disappeared in the courtyard; the following day, the magistrates dug in the courtyard and found an unmarked grave.Pliny the Younger (1909–14). "LXXXIII. To Sura". In Charles W. Eliot. Letters, by Pliny the Younger; translated by William Melmoth; revised by F. C. T. Bosanquet. The Harvard Classics. 9. New York: P.F. Collier & Son.
Elements of the horror genre also occur in Biblical texts, notably in the Book of Revelation.
After 1000
The Witch of Berkeley by William of Malmesbury has been viewed as an early horror story. Werewolf stories were popular in medieval French literature. One of Marie de France's twelve lais is a werewolf story titled "Bisclavret".
The Countess Yolande commissioned a werewolf story titled "Guillaume de Palerme". Anonymous writers penned two werewolf stories, "Biclarel" and "Melion".
Much horror fiction derives from the cruellest personages of the 15th century. Allegedly, Dracula, can be traced to the Prince of Wallachia Vlad III, whose alleged war crimes were published in German pamphlets, though no evidence for this exists in Bram Stoker's notes. A 1499 pamphlet was published by Markus Ayrer which is most notable for its woodcut imagery.Raymond T. McNally and Radu R. Florescu (1972). "In Search of Dracula." Houghton Milton. Pages 8–9. The alleged serial-killer sprees of Gilles de Rais have been seen as the presumed inspiration for "Bluebeard".Kiernan, Dr. Jas. G. "Sexual Perversion, and the Whitechapel Murders." The Medical Standard: IV.5. G. P. Engelhard and Company: Chicago. The motif of the vampiress is most notably derived from the real-life noblewoman and murderer Elizabeth Bathory, and helped usher in the emergence of horror fiction in the 18th century, such as through László Turóczi's 1729 book Tragica Historia.in Ungaria suis cum regibus compendia data, Typis Academicis Soc. Jesu per Fridericum Gall. Anno MCCCXXIX. Mense Sepembri Die 8. p 188-193, quoted by Farin
18th century
The 18th century saw the gradual development of Romanticism and the Gothic horror genre. It drew on the written and material heritage of the Late Middle Ages, finding its form with Horace Walpole's seminal and controversial 1764 novel, The Castle of Otranto. In fact, the first edition was published disguised as an actual medieval romance from Italy, discovered and republished by a fictitious translator. Once revealed as modern, many found it anachronistic, reactionary, or simply in poor taste, but it proved immediately popular."The Castle of Otranto: The creepy tale that launched gothic fiction" . BBC. Retrieved 15 July 2017
Otranto inspired Vathek (1786) by William Beckford, A Sicilian Romance (1790), The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), The Italian (1796) by Ann Radcliffe, and The Monk (1797) by Matthew Lewis. A significant amount of horror fiction of this era was written by women and marketed towards a female audience, a typical scenario of the novels being a resourceful female menaced in a gloomy castle.
19th century
The Gothic tradition blossomed into the genre that modern readers today call horror literature in the 19th century. Influential works and characters that continue resonating in fiction and film today saw their genesis in the Brothers Grimm's "Hänsel und Gretel" (1812), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), John Polidori's "The Vampyre" (1819), Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820), Jane C. Loudon's The Mummy!: Or a Tale of the Twenty-Second Century (1827), Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831), Thomas Peckett Prest's Varney the Vampire (1847), the works of Edgar Allan Poe, the works of Sheridan Le Fanu, Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Lot No. 249" (1892), H. G. Wells' The Invisible Man (1897), and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897). Each of these works created an enduring icon of horror seen in later re-imaginings on the page, stage, and screen.
20th century A proliferation of cheap periodicals around the turn of the century led to a boom in horror writing. For example, Gaston Leroux serialized his Le Fantôme de l'Opéra before it became a novel in 1910. One writer who specialized in horror fiction for mainstream pulps, such as All-Story Magazine, was Tod Robbins, whose fiction deals with themes of madness and cruelty.Brian Stableford, "Robbins, Tod", in David Pringle, ed., St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost & Gothic Writers (London: St. James Press, 1998) (pp. 480–1).Lee Server. Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers. New York: Facts On File, 2002. (pp. 223–224). In Russia, the writer Alexander Belyaev popularized these themes in his story Professor Dowell's Head (1925), in which a mad doctor performs experimental head transplants and reanimations on bodies stolen from the morgue and which was first published as a magazine serial before being turned into a novel. Later, specialist publications emerged to give horror writers an outlet, prominent among them was Weird TalesRobert Weinberg, "Weird Tales" in M.B Tymn and Mike Ashley, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1985. (pp. 727–736). and Unknown Worlds."Unknown". in: M.B. Tymn and Mike Ashley, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines. Westport: Greenwood, 1985. pp.694-698.
Influential horror writers of the early 20th century made inroads in these mediums. Particularly, the venerated horror author H. P. Lovecraft, and his enduring Cthulhu Mythos transformed and popularized the genre of cosmic horror, and M. R. James is credited with redefining the ghost story in that era.
The serial murderer became a recurring theme. Yellow journalism and sensationalism of various murderers, such as Jack the Ripper, and lesser so, Carl Panzram, Fritz Haarman, and Albert Fish, all perpetuated this phenomenon. The trend continued in the postwar era, partly renewed after the murders committed by Ed Gein. In 1959, Robert Bloch, inspired by the murders, wrote Psycho. The crimes committed in 1969 by the Manson Family influenced the slasher theme in horror fiction of the 1970s. In 1981, Thomas Harris wrote Red Dragon, introducing Dr. Hannibal Lecter. In 1988, the sequel to that novel, The Silence of the Lambs, was published.
Early cinema was inspired by many aspects of horror literature, and started a strong tradition of horror films and subgenres that continues to this day. Up until the graphic depictions of violence and gore on the screen commonly associated with 1960s and 1970s slasher films and splatter films, comic books such as those published by EC Comics (most notably Tales From The Crypt) in the 1950s satisfied readers' quests for horror imagery that the silver screen could not provide. This imagery made these comics controversial, and as a consequence, they were frequently censored.Collins, Max Allan (28 February 2013). "11 Most Controversial Comic Books" . HuffPost. Retrieved 5 February 2019.Hansen, Kelli (1 October 2012). "Banned Books Week: Comics and Controversy" . University of Missouri. Retrieved 5 February 2019.
The modern zombie tale dealing with the motif of the living dead harks back to works including H. P. Lovecraft's stories "Cool Air" (1925), "In The Vault" (1926), and "The Outsider" (1926), and Dennis Wheatley's "Strange Conflict" (1941). Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend (1954) influenced an entire genre of apocalyptic zombie fiction emblematized by the films of George A. Romero.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the enormous commercial success of three books – Rosemary's Baby (1967) by Ira Levin, The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, and The Other by Thomas Tryon – encouraged publishers to begin releasing numerous other horror novels, thus creating a "horror boom"."Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby (1967), Thomas Tyron's The Other (1971), and William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist (1971) were all released within a few years of one another...and their immense combined sales indicted to many publishers that horror was now a profitable marketing niche." Simmons, David, American Horror Fiction and Class: From Poe to Twilight. London: Palgrave Macmillan 2017 (p.119)Pringle, David, "Rosemary's Baby", in Pringle (ed.) Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels. London, Grafton, 1988. (p.103-5)
One of the best-known late-20th century horror writers is Stephen King, known for Carrie, The Shining, It, Misery, and several dozen other novels and about 200 short stories.Barone, Matt (8 November 2011). "The 25 Best Stephen King Stories" . Complex. Retrieved 5 February 2019.Jackson, Dan (18 February 2016). "A Beginner's Guide to Stephen King Books" . Thrillist. Retrieved 5 February 2019.Richard Bleiler, "Stephen King" in: Bleiler, Ed. Supernatural Fiction Writers: Contemporary Fantasy and Horror. New York: Thomson/Gale, 2003, . (pp. 525-540). Beginning in the 1970s, King's stories have attracted a large audience, for which he was awarded by the U.S. National Book Foundation in 2003. Other popular horror authors of the period included Anne Rice, Shaun Hutson, Brian Lumley, Graham Masterton, James Herbert, Dean Koontz, Richard Laymon, Clive Barker,K.A. Laity "Clive Barker" in Richard Bleiler, ed. Supernatural Fiction Writers: Contemporary Fantasy and Horror. New York: Thomson/Gale, 2003. (pp. 61–70). Ramsey Campbell,K.A. Laity, "Ramsey Campbell", in Richard Bleiler, ed. Supernatural Fiction Writers: Contemporary Fantasy and Horror. New York: Thomson/Gale, 2003. (pp. 177–188.) and Peter Straub.
21st century