The Dark Chamber
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The Dark Chamber
''The Dark Chamber'' is a 1927 horror novel by American writer Leonard Cline. Brian Stableford, "The Cosmic Horror" in S. T. Joshi, ed., ''Icons of Horror and the Supernatural: an Encyclopedia of our Worst Nightmares'' (Greenwood, 2007), (p.87) The novel concerns Oscar Fitzalan and his interactions with Richard Pride who, trying to remember his past life, goes beyond his own memory and sinks into the gulfs of "primal memory." Plot The narrator, Oscar Fitzalan, a composer, is hired by Richard Pride to assist him at his estate and study at Mordance Hall. Here, he meets Hough, Pride's secretary; Miriam, Pride's wife; the Prides' daughter Janet; and their dog Tod, a German hound. They are later joined by Ramón Del Prado, one of Pride's employees. Also in the household are two black servants, old Mamie and her fourteen-year-old daughter Sally. Pride brings Fitzalan to play music in order to awaken his memories. However, the household is devastated: Janet, Oscar's first love intere ...
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Horror Novel
Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, or disgust. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which is in the realm of speculative fiction. 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. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for larger fears of a society. Prevalent elements of the genre include ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, ghouls, the Devil, witches, monsters, extraterrestrials, dystopian and post-apocalyptic worlds, serial killers, cannibalism, cults, dark magic, satanism, the macabre, gore and torture. History Before 1000 The horror genre has ancient origins, with roots in folklore and rel ...
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Leonard Cline
Leonard Lanson Cline (11 May 1893-15/16 January 1929) was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, and journalist. Biography Born in the United States in Bay City, Michigan, he attended the University of Michigan, was married in 1913, published his first book of poetry, ''Poems'', in 1914 and worked for ''The Detroit News'' from 1916 until 1922. In 1922 he began a job with the newspaper ''Baltimore Sun''. His writings were published in a variety of magazines: ''The New Republic'', ''The American Mercury'', ''The Smart Set'', ''The Nation'' and ''Scribner's Magazine''. His journalist work was published in the ''Baltimore Sun'', ''The New York World'', ''The Chicago Daily News'', ''The New York Herald Tribune'', and ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch''. Viking Press published his first novel, '' God Head'', in 1925. It deals with the Kalevala legends in a modern society. The critic Laurence Stallings wrote: "It is the most tempestuous novel of many seasons. It would be eminently fai ...
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Brian Stableford
Brian Michael Stableford (born 25 July 1948) is a British academic, critic and science fiction writer who has published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published under the name Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford. He has also used the pseudonym Brian Craig for a couple of very early works, and again for a few more recent works. The pseudonym derives from the first names of himself and of a school friend from the 1960s, Craig A. Mackintosh, with whom he jointly published some very early work. Biography Born in Shipley, Yorkshire, Stableford graduated with a degree in biology from the University of York in 1969 before going on to do postgraduate research in biology and later in sociology. In 1979 he received a PhD with a doctoral thesis on ''The Sociology of Science Fiction''. Until 1988, he worked as a lecturer in sociology at the University of Reading. Since then he has been a ful ...
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Supernatural Horror In Literature
"Supernatural Horror in Literature" is a 28,000 word essay by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, surveying the development and achievements of horror fiction as the field stood in the 1920s and 30s. The essay was researched and written between November 1925 and May 1927, first published in August 1927, and then revised and expanded during 1933–1934. The essay Lovecraft's essay ranges widely, but he first examines the beginnings of weird fiction in the early gothic novel. As a guide for what to read in the early gothic he relied partly on Edith Birkhead's 1921 historical survey ''The Tale of Terror'', and he was also able to draw on the expertise of the great many experts and collectors in his circle. The bulk of the essay was written in New York City giving Lovecraft easy access to the resources of the city's great public libraries and also to the collections of his friends, and thus he was able to read widely and obtain obscure and rare works. His survey then proceeds to outline ...
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Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961) was an American writer and artist. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Algernon Charles Swinburne, Swinburne. As a poet, Smith is grouped with the West Coast Romantics alongside Joaquin Miller, Sterling, and Nora May French and remembered as "The Last of the Great Romantics" and "The Bard of Auburn". Smith's work was praised by his contemporaries. H. P. Lovecraft stated that "in sheer daemonic strangeness and fertility of conception, Clark Ashton Smith is perhaps unexcelled", and Ray Bradbury said that Smith "filled my mind with incredible worlds, impossibly beautiful cities, and still more fantastic creatures". Smith was one of "the big three of ''Weird Tales'', with Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft", but some readers objected to his morbidness and violation of pulp traditions. The fantasy critic L. Sprague de Camp said of him th ...
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August Derleth
August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 – July 4, 1971) was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, and for his own contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and the Lovecraftian horror, cosmic horror genre, as well as his founding of the publisher Arkham House (which did much to bring supernatural fiction into print in hardcover in the US that had only been readily available in the UK), Derleth was a leading American American literary regionalism, regional writer of his day, as well as prolific in several other genres, including historical fiction, poetry, detective fiction, science fiction, and biography. A 1938 Guggenheim Fellow, Derleth considered his most serious work to be the ambitious ''Sac Prairie Saga'', a series of fiction, historical fiction, poetry, and non-fiction naturalist works designed to memorialize life in the Wisconsin he knew. Derleth can also be considered a pioneering naturali ...
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Selected Letters Of Clark Ashton Smith
''Selected Letters of Clark Ashton Smith'' is a book of letters by American writer Clark Ashton Smith. It was released in 2003 by Arkham House in an edition of approximately 3,000 copies. The collection was edited by David E. Schultz and Scott Conners. Contents ''Selected Letters of Clark Ashton Smith'' includes letters to: * George Sterling * Frank Belknap Long * Donald Wandrei * H. P. Lovecraft * August Derleth * R. H. Barlow * L. Sprague de Camp Lyon Sprague de Camp (; November 27, 1907 – November 6, 2000) was an American writer of science fiction, fantasy and non-fiction. In a career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and works of non-fiction, including biog ... {{Works of Clark Ashton Smith 2003 non-fiction books Works by Clark Ashton Smith Collections of letters Arkham House books ...
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Twilight Zone Literature
''Twilight Zone'' literature is an umbrella term for the many books and comic books which concern or adapt ''The Twilight Zone'' television series. Comics Gold Key Comics published a long-running ''Twilight Zone'' comic that featured the likeness of Rod Serling introducing both original stories and occasional adaptations of episodes. The comic outlived the television series by nearly 20 years and Serling by nearly a decade. A later revival of ''Twilight Zone'' comics was published by Now Comics, spinning off of the 1980s revival of the show. In 2008, The Savannah College of Art & Design and publisher Walker & Company collaborated to produce a series of graphic novel adaptations of episodes from the series that were written by Rod Serling. Beginning in December 2013, comics publisher Dynamite Entertainment ran a multi-issue series, written by J. Michael Straczynski and with art by Guiu Vilanova. Guides Marc Scott Zicree's episode-by-episode guide of the original series, ''The ...
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Neil Barron
Richard Neil Barron (23 March 1934 - 5 September 2010) was a science fiction bibliographer and scholar. His training was as a librarian. He is perhaps best known for his book '' Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction''. He won the Pilgrim Award for Lifetime Achievement in the field of science fiction scholarship in 1982. He died on September 5, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Bibliography * '' Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction'' (5th ed.). Englewood, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited, 2004. . * ''Fantasy and Horror''. The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1999. . * ''Fantasy Literature''. Garland, 1990. . * ''Horror Literature''. Garland, 1990. . * ''Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review: The Complete Series, 1979-1980''. Borgo Press, 2009. . (with Robert Reginald) * ''What Do I Read Next?: A Reader's Guide to Current Genre Fiction''. Detroit; Washington, DC; London: Gale Research Inc., 2006. . Notes References * Clute, John and Grant, John. ''The Encyclop ...
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Paddy Chayefsky
Sidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky (January 29, 1923 – August 1, 1981) was an American playwright, screenwriter and novelist. He is the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for writing both adapted and original screenplays. He was one of the most renowned dramatists of the Golden Age of Television. His intimate, realistic scripts provided a naturalistic style of television drama for the 1950s, dramatizing the lives of ordinary Americans. Martin Gottfried wrote in ''All His Jazz'' that Chayefsky was "the most successful graduate of television's slice of life school of naturalism." Following his critically acclaimed teleplays, Chayefsky became a noted playwright and novelist. As a screenwriter, he received three Academy Awards for '' Marty'' (1955), ''The Hospital'' (1971) and ''Network'' (1976). The movie ''Marty'' was based on his own television drama about two lonely people finding love. ''Network'' was a satire of the television industry and ''The Hospital'' was ...
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Altered States
''Altered States'' is a 1980 American science fiction body horror film directed by Ken Russell and based on the novel of the same name by playwright and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky. The film was adapted from Chayefsky's 1978 novel and is his final screenplay. The novel and the film are based in part on John C. Lilly's sensory deprivation research conducted in isolation tanks, under the influence of psychoactive drugs like mescaline, ketamine and LSD. It marked the film debuts of William Hurt and Drew Barrymore. Chayefsky withdrew from the project after disputes with Russell and took his name off the credits, substituting "Sidney Aaron," his actual first and middle names. The film score was composed by John Corigliano (with Christopher Keene conducting). The film was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Original Score and Best Sound. Plot Edward Jessup, a Columbia University psychopathologist, is studying schizophrenia, and begins to think that "our other states o ...
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Weird Tales
''Weird Tales'' is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, printed early work by H. P. Lovecraft, Seabury Quinn, and Clark Ashton Smith, all of whom went on to be popular writers, but within a year, the magazine was in financial trouble. Henneberger sold his interest in the publisher, Rural Publishing Corporation, to Lansinger, and refinanced ''Weird Tales'', with Farnsworth Wright as the new editor. The first issue under Wright's control was dated November 1924. The magazine was more successful under Wright, and despite occasional financial setbacks, it prospered over the next 15 years. Under Wright's control, the magazine lived up to its subtitle, "The Unique Magazine", and published a wide range of unusual fiction. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos stories first appeared in ''Weird Tales'', starti ...
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