This landmark study, written by one of the premier critics of weird fiction, proposes a radical new theory of the weird tale. S. T. Joshi sees horror fiction as the "consequence of a worldview," whereby authors consciously restructure the nature of the universe in accordance with their philosophical presuppositions. Joshi analyzes in detail the work of six pioneering writers of weird fiction from the period 1880-1940: Arthur Machen, author of "The Great God Pan" and "The White People" who feared that science was robbing the human imagination of mystery; Algernon Blackwood, a pantheist who, in such works as "The Willows" and "The Wendigo," sought to expand human consciousness and evoke both terror and we; Lord Dunsany, a fantasist whose work anticipated that of J. R. R. Tolkien and who pleaded for the reunification of humanity with the natural world; M. R. James, who exhibited the limitations of the conventional ghost story; Ambrose Bierce, dark satirist whose tales underscored the folly and corruption of the human species; and H. P. Lovecraft, whose "cosmic" philosophy depicted a world, and an entire universe, in the process of inexorable decline. Throughout this book, Joshi writes incisively of individual works of terror and fantasy while examining the lives and philosophies of the authors he discusses. This work, first published in 1990, has taken its place as a seminal text in the interpretation of weird fiction.

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• Literature & Fiction

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