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reaperreads's review
4.0
For someone who has not read much more than a few Gothic novels and one or two contemporary horror novels, this book was incredibly informative about the scope and history of this genre. Currently, I am a Literary Studies MA student and am used to jargon-infused volumes on literary matters, so it was refreshing to find this much more approachable text at my university library. My only (very minor) gripe with this book is that it does not look as thoroughly into the roots of American horror fiction as I would have liked it to. For example, one of the authors covers Poe with broad strokes, but sort of skips around the turn of the century to arrive at Lovecraft's doorstep without any mention of Ambrose Bierce or R.W. Chambers, who are two significant influences on Lovecraft's work and psychological horror at large. As someone who is working on a thesis about Bierce, it felt sort of disheartening to not see him credited as a major influence on Lovecraft nor on the journalistic tact with which contemporary horror fiction is composed. But, I can set aside my fanatic interest in Bitter Bierce and give Horror: A Literary History a superb rating because it most definitely helped supplement my knowledge in this area and is by far a more accurate representation of this field of genre study than Continuum's volume written by Gina Wisker. (I guess we cannot always trust a scholarly publishing house to fact-check its authors...) Anyway, I highly recommend Horror: A Literary History for readers who are not as familiar with this genre as they would like to be--who want to broaden their knowledge of the history and societal function of horror fiction through the generations of mostly American and English authors.
theduchess93's review
5.0
Definitely going to recommend this to anyone who wants a comprehensible yet fairly comprehensive history of Western horror lit.
ameliareadsstuff's review against another edition
dark
informative
slow-paced
4.0
A strong introduction to the history of Horror literature, at least in the UK and the US. Each chapter is written by a different writer and covers a different period in the development of the genre, starting in the 18th century. The editor's intention was for the book to be informative without being too academically opaque to the average reader, and I'd say it succeeds at that.
I had to read the first chapter on the Gothic for, what else, my university Gothic course, and enjoyed it enough to read through the entire volume. It continued to be a good, informative read, though, due to space constraints and its limited scope, it perhaps was not as comprehensive as it could have been.
It was interesting reading the last chapter, 2000-2016, to see how things have already changed so much in less than a decade—zombies are a big topic that rapidly fell off in popularity after the book was published, for example. But maybe that 2016 cut off was accidentally apt, given the cultural changes that followed the disruptive events of late 2016 through the pandemic. I suppose only time will tell.
I had to read the first chapter on the Gothic for, what else, my university Gothic course, and enjoyed it enough to read through the entire volume. It continued to be a good, informative read, though, due to space constraints and its limited scope, it perhaps was not as comprehensive as it could have been.
It was interesting reading the last chapter, 2000-2016, to see how things have already changed so much in less than a decade—zombies are a big topic that rapidly fell off in popularity after the book was published, for example. But maybe that 2016 cut off was accidentally apt, given the cultural changes that followed the disruptive events of late 2016 through the pandemic. I suppose only time will tell.
aliciagw's review
informative
medium-paced
4.0
This is a non-fiction history of the literary genres of Gothic and horror. It covers the time period from the mid 1700's to the late 2010's. It delves into different authors and different books that were important to the genres, for the most part in the US and the UK. It is a series of essays written by different authors, each covering a specific time period.
I found it to be interesting and informative. I especially liked the lists of references and further reading suggestions at the end of each chapter. It was nice to have clear lists of all the books that had been discussed.
I found it to be interesting and informative. I especially liked the lists of references and further reading suggestions at the end of each chapter. It was nice to have clear lists of all the books that had been discussed.
fiendfull's review
3.0
An interesting collection of essays charting the history of horror books, but there's some glaring areas for me that could've been considered more, e.g. young adult horror and its impact, more nuance around marginalisation and horror writing.