M. R. James’s ghost stories are among the most effective ever written, modernizing an old concept for contemporary tastes without sacrificing the terror, sometimes reinventing it altogether. This is one of his darkest and most famous. On a side note, this and the other stories were written to be entertainments at Christmas, which has traditionally long been the proper occasion for such tales, as it has been believed that the boundary between this world and […]
Machen’s decadent fiction is among the most effective of fin de siècle literature, achieving a tenuous balance between fantastic wonder and repellent horror – a sort of “holy terror.” This novella, arguably his most famous piece of work, is one of the finest examples of such efforts, momentarily piercing the veil that separates mortal perceptions from a greater spiritual reality – and reaping the consequences. THE GREAT GOD PAN (1894) by Arthur Machen […]
Hailed by Lovecraft as one of the greatest practitioners of the weird tale, Blackwood may also have been read by Tolkien at some point. The novella that follows is one of his most famous stories – perhaps his signature – and rightly so, for it takes a remarkable talent to turn Nature into something horrific half through suggestion. It’s an excellent example of what is not seen being more effective. THE WILLOWS (1907) […]