Horror Literature through History

by Matt Cardin

  Mohanraj, Mary Anne. 2002. “Power Dynamics in the Novels of Tananarive Due.” Strange Horizons 20. http://www.strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/power-dynamics-in-the-novels-of-tananarive-due.

  Morris, S. M. 2012. “Black Girls Are from the Future: Afrofuturist Feminism in Octavia E. Butler’s ‘Fledgling’.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 40, no. 3: 148–168.

  Pough, Gwendolyn D., and Yolanda Hood. 2005. “Speculative Black Women: Magic, Fantasy, and the Supernatural.” Femspec 6, no. 1: ix–xvi.

  Thomas, Sheree, ed. 2000. Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora. New York: Warner Books.

  “THE DUNWICH HORROR”

  First published in Weird Tales for April 1929, “The Dunwich Horror” has long been one of the most popular and influential of H. P. Lovecraft’s works. It was influenced in turn by a number of writers and stories that Lovecraft admired, including Ambrose Bierce’s “The Damned Thing” and Arthur Machen’s “The Novel of the Black Seal” and “The Great God Pan,” the latter of which is directly mentioned by a character in “The Dunwich Horror.”

  The story is set in the farm country near the imaginary town of Dunwich, Massachusetts, where a child named Wilbur Whateley is born to an albino woman, Lavinia Whateley, and no known father. Lavinia’s sinister father, “Wizard Whateley,” makes the prophetic utterance to the startled townspeople that “some day yew folks’ll her a child o’ Lavinny’s a-callin’ its father’s name on the top o’ Sentinel Hill!” (Lovecraft 2001, 211). By age thirteen young Wilbur is hideous and nearly seven feet tall. Lavinia Whateley disappears, never to be seen again. Some time later, Wizard Whateley likewise disappears, but not before people note that the walls and floors of the Whateley barn have been torn out, as if to contain something immense. Intellectually precocious, Wilbur begins corresponding with scholars on esoteric matters. He tries to borrow the dreaded Necronomicon from the Miskatonic University library, then attempts to steal it, but is killed by the watchdog. Meanwhile, whatever has been kept in the barn breaks out and terrorizes the countryside. Professor Armitage, the head librarian at Miskatonic, has figured out what is going on: the Whateleys have effected a mating between the horrific other-dimensional being Yog-Sothoth and Lavinia, so that “outside” creatures might gain a foothold in our dimension, destroying all humanity as they transform the world into a realm of unimaginable strangeness, in which Wilbur hoped to find a place. Armitage and two colleagues master enough of the spells from the Necronomicon to put an end to the monster, which, sure enough, calls out to Yog-Sothoth in extremis. It was Wilbur’s nonidentical twin brother, which took after its father more than Wilbur did.

  The description of Wilbur Whateley’s corpse after he is killed by the watchdog at Miskatonic University is among the high points in Lovecraft’s career of envisioning hideously malformed (by human standards) monsters in the category of “things that should not be.” Wilbur’s top half is deformed, but “below the waist” anatomy turns to sheer nightmare:

  The skin was thickly covered with coarse black fur, and from the abdomen a score of long greenish-grey tentacles with red sucking mouths protruded limply. Their arrangement was odd, and seemed to follow the symmetries of some cosmic geometry unknown to earth or the solar system. On each of the hips, deep set in a kind of pinkish, ciliated orbit, was what seemed to be a rudimentary eye; whilst in lieu of a tail there depended a kind of trunk or feeler with purple annular markings, and with many evidences of being an undeveloped mouth or throat. The limbs, save for their black fur, roughly resembled the hind legs of prehistoric earth’s giant saurians; and terminated in ridgy-veined pads that were neither hooves nor claws. When the thing breathed, its tail and tentacles rhythmically changed colour, as if from some circulatory cause normal to the non-human side of its ancestry. In the tentacles this was observable as a deepening of the greenish tinge, whilst in the tail it was manifest as a yellowish appearance which alternated with a sickly greyish-white in the spaces between the purple rings. Of genuine blood there was none; only the foetid greenish-yellow ichor which trickled along the painted floor beyond the radius of the stickiness, and left a curious discolouration behind it. (Lovecraft 2001, 223–224)

  Matt Cardin

  Source: Lovecraft, H. P. 2001. “The Dunwich Horror.” In The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories, 206–245. New York: Penguin.

  Here, in this story, is the basis for most of what followed from other writers as the “Cthulhu Mythos.” August Derleth in particular latched onto the idea that Lovecraft’s monsters could be defeated by sufficiently brave and knowledgeable humans. This led Derleth into the very un-Lovecraftian notion of “good gods” vs. “evil gods” and an implied moral order in a dualistic universe, something Lovecraft himself completely rejected. In Lovecraft’s view, if humans survive such encounters, it is entirely a coincidence and likely only for a short time. A close reading of “The Dunwich Horror” suggests that the only reason Armitage succeeded was that, with Wilbur dead, proper rites had not been performed, and the opportunity to open the way to Yog-Sothoth had already passed, so the monster was already “useless” for the grand design.

  In mythic terms, if Wilbur and his brother are taken as the “hero,” then this story becomes a blasphemous caricature of Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth, or even of the story of Jesus: virgin birth, mysterious childhood, and finally a “savior” crying out to its father at the moment of its “crucifixion” atop a hill. Regardless, as a rip-roaring occult melodrama, “The Dunwich Horror” has never lacked readers. It was included in the landmark anthology Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural in 1944 and has been anthologized many times since. In 1970 it was adapted as a campy low-budget horror movie starring Sandra Dee and Dean Stockwell, produced by Roger Corman for his American International Pictures.

  Darrell Schweitzer

  See also: Cthulhu Mythos; Derleth, August; “The Great God Pan”; Lovecraft, H. P.; Lovecraftian Horror; “The Novel of the Black Seal.”

  Further Reading

  Burleson, Donald. 1981. “The Mythic Hero Archetype in ‘The Dunwich Horror.’” Lovecraft Studies 4: 3–9.

  Joshi, S. T. 2010. I Am Providence, The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft, 716–721. New York: Hippocampus Press.

  Joshi, S. T., and David E. Schultz. 2001. An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia, 79–81. Westport, CT: Greenwood.

  Lovecraft, H. P. 2001. “The Dunwich Horror.” In The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories, 206–245. New York: Penguin.

  E

  ELLISON, HARLAN (1934–)

  Extremely prolific, frequently controversial, and consistently brilliant, the acerbic American speculative fiction author and editor Harlan Ellison is known as much for his confrontational personality as for his hundreds of short, sharp stories. His first publication in 1956, and the early work that followed, established Ellison’s distinctly angry narrative voice, even if it was expressed in derivative stories that were otherwise indistinguishable from other magazine fodder. By the early 1960s, however, Ellison began to hit his imaginative stride with important contributions to genre fiction in various outlets not limited to genre publications and including television (he wrote the screenplay for the 1967 Star Trek episode “The City on the Edge of Forever”) and comics (with short but memorable 1–2 issue stints on Detective Comics, The Avengers, Daredevil, and The Hulk). He is considered to be one of the giants in the field of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. His influence has been widespread and his impact, if problematic, no less profound.

  Now in his sixth decade as a published writer, Ellison has never stopped writing. As recently as 2011 he was awarded a Nebula Award by the Science Fiction Writers of America for his story “How Interesting: A Tiny Man” (2010). But the stories he is best known for were produced during an especially fertile period that ran from the mid-1960s to the late-1970s. Such stories as “Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman” (1965); “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” (1967); “The Beast That
Shouted Love at the Heart of the World” (1968); “A Boy and His Dog” (1969); “The Deathbird” (1973); “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs” (1973); “Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54’ N, Longitude 77° 00’ 13” W” (1974); and “Jeffty Is Five” (1977) showcase Ellison’s remarkable strengths as a writer during this time: his efficient and creative use of language, his inventiveness, his sheer readability—remarkable given his often brutal subject matter and often grisly approach. He moves effortlessly between fictional and nonfictional genres, and while much of his output is categorized as science fiction, his work can be read just as easily as horror or dark fantasy—all the more so, perhaps, given that science fiction’s concern with understanding the world is secondary to Ellison, who is more invested in highlighting the world’s continued failings and the psychic fallout that results.

  Many of the stories collected in Deathbird Stories (1975) and Strange Wine (1978) are significant for readers interested in horror fiction. In Deathbird Stories these include “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs,” “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes,” “Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54’ N, Longitude 77° 00’ 13” W,” “Paingod,” and “The Deathbird.” In Strange Wine these include “Croatoan,” “Hitler Painted Roses,” “From A to Z, in the Chocolate Alphabet,” “Lonely Women are the Vessels of Time,” “Emissary from Hamelin,” “The Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” and “Strange Wine.” (Stephen King, in his nonfiction study of the horror genre, Danse Macabre [1981], refers to “Strange Wine” as one of the finest horror fiction collections since 1950.) A sampling of other stories of interest include “Jeffty Is Five” and “All the Lies That Are My Life” in Shatterday (1980); “Djinn, No Chaser” in Stalking the Nightmare (1982); “Paladin of the Lost Hour” in Angry Candy (1988); and “Chatting with Anubis” and “Mefisto in Onyx” in Slippage (1997).

  Ellison’s best stories are often fueled by anger at what he perceives to be, and very often is, injustice and ignorance. When this anger subsumes the narrative it may come across as didactic or judgmental. But that same anger, channeled effectively, lends great weight and power to Ellison’s stories. Even when his work presents problematic characterizations of women and nonwhite characters, there remains nonetheless an abiding authorial concern for the individual. Despite this empathy on his part, Ellison might also be accused of introducing into the world the very same pain to which, as the speculative literature critic John Clute has observed, he also serves as an eloquent witness. Ellison has been notoriously difficult to work with, as evidenced by the many lawsuits he has brought against companies and individuals, especially those associated with the film and television industries. He has also infuriated female writers and critics in and outside genre fiction with stories like “A Boy and His Dog,” where the male protagonist chooses to cook and eat his love interest rather than sacrifice the dog he shares a psychic connection with. Though not necessarily negative, there is a quality to Ellison’s oeuvre and to the author himself that seeks controversy, or at the very least attention. Some of the stories in Strange Wine, for example, were written in a bookshop window, allowing crowds a view of the artist at work, and the vignettes that were written in response to Jacek Yerka’s art and collected in Mind Fields: The Art of Jacek Yerka/The Fiction of Harlan Ellison (1994) can also be considered performances of a sort. Ultimately, Ellison’s polarizing personality and the contradictions found in both him and his stories point to the complexity and importance of the artist and his work.

  Ellison has also been active as an editor, with his best and most important work being Dangerous Visions (1967) and, to a lesser degree, its companion Again, Dangerous Visions (1972). Compiled as in dialogue with the (mostly British) New Wave movement in science fiction, these anthologies focused perhaps too much on some aspects of the New Wave (its emphasis on sexuality and breaking of taboos) and not enough on others (its genuine concerns for injecting into science fiction literary elements modeled in part after literary Modernism). Still, there are some stories of interest to horror genre readers, especially Ellison’s “The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World” which appears in the first volume. Medea: Harlan’s World (1985) is more formally an experiment, and a successful one, in science fiction world building (and self-mythologizing). Ellison’s nonfiction includes autobiographical essays, reflection pieces on his work, and commentary, usually scathing, on the media industry, The Glass Teat (1970) being perhaps the best known of these.

  Ellison has received numerous accolades for his work over the years, including eight Hugo Awards, four Nebula Awards, five Bram Stoker Awards, two Edgar Awards, two World Fantasy Awards (including one for lifetime achievement), the Eaton Award, and an unprecedented three Writers’ Guild of America Awards. In 2011 he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

  Javier A. Martinez

  See also: Bram Stoker Award; “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”; “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs”; World Fantasy Award.

  Further Reading

  Francavilla, Joseph, ed. 2012. Critical Insights: Harlan Ellison. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press.

  Weil, Ellen R., and Gary K. Wolfe. 2002. Harlan Ellison: The Edge of Forever. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.

  ETCHISON, DENNIS (1945–)

  Dennis William Etchison is arguably the best American author of horror short fiction since Ray Bradbury. Starting in the 1960s, Etchison began publishing brilliant stories that won him a devoted following among horror connoisseurs—especially in Great Britain, where his savagely bleak “The Dark Country” won the 1981 British Fantasy Award—and led eventually to a series of beautifully wrought collections published by Scream Press: The Dark Country (1982), Red Dreams (1984), and The Blood Kiss (1987). These collections, along with The Death Artist (2000) and Talking in the Dark (2001), contain what are considered some of the finest works of horror literature published in English during the last four decades.

  Etchison’s short fiction explores the ambiguous landscapes of Southern California with a corrosive precision that recalls Raymond Chandler and Nathanael West. The characteristic scenes of his stories—half-empty multiplex cinemas, all-night laundromats and convenience stores, bleak highway rest-stops, neon-lit beachside motels—evoke the aimlessness and weary boredom of contemporary suburban experience, a spiritual wasteland in which sinister forces incubate. Stylistically, the tales are models of concision, stark montages of hallucinatory details pregnant with psychological nuance. “It Only Comes Out at Night” (1976) captures the accumulating dread of a driver who realizes he is being tracked by a killer, while “The Nighthawk” (1978) offers a subtle study of a young girl who suspects that her brother is a shape-shifting monster. Only a few of the tales—such as “The Late Shift” (1980), in which dead-end service jobs are staffed by reanimated corpses—are overtly supernatural, most conveying mere glimpses of the numinous that remain inscrutable, hauntingly elusive. Filled with grim hints and nervous portents, his stories amount to a collection of cryptic snapshots of contemporary suburbia and the lost souls who inhabit it.

  Etchison’s novels have failed to capitalize on the brilliance of his short fiction, upon which his considerable reputation rests—although he has shown skills as an editor, with award-winning anthologies such as Meta-Horror (1992) to his credit. His novels—Darkside (1986), Shadowman (1993), California Gothic (1995), and Double Edge (1997)—feature the author’s shrewd eye for telling social detail, especially regarding California lifestyles, but they are all flawed in significant ways, informed by a retrograde nostalgia altogether lacking in his more hard-edged short stories. While his portraits of middle-class characters struggling in the ruins of their shattered ideals have at times a genuine poignancy, they also tend to degenerate into polemical disquisitions on cultural malaise. Ultimately, Etchison will be remembered for his muted, haunting, and ferociously downbeat short stories, which are among the best that modern horror has produced.

  Rob Latham

  See also: Brad
bury, Ray; Novels versus Short Fiction; Psychological Horror.

  Further Reading

  Joshi, S. T. 1994. “Dennis Etchison: Spanning the Genres.” Studies in Weird Fiction 15 (Summer): 30–36.

  Mathews, David. 1998. “Arterial Motives: Dennis Etchison Interviewed.” Interzone 133 (July): 23–26.

  Schweitzer, Darrell. 1985. “The Dark Side of the American Dream: Dennis Etchison.” In Discovering Modern Horror Fiction I, 48–55. Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House.

  EWERS, HANNS HEINZ (1871–1943)

  Few literary figures blurred the boundary between their fiction and their biography as thoroughly as Hanns Heinz Ewers. The fascination with blood, eroticism, and the occult exhibited by many of his characters was apparently shared by the author himself. His horror stories and novels have been admired by everyone from H. P. Lovecraft to Dashiell Hammett to Adolf Hitler. During his lifetime Ewers was among the most popular authors in his native Germany.

  Born Hans Heinrich Ewers in Dusseldorf in 1871, he came by his artistic inclinations honestly; his mother Maria was a raconteur and his father Heinz was court painter for the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. As a boy Ewers would often serve as the model for the grand duke’s court children. Forced to stand still for hours while wearing regal finery, young Hans learned the power of storytelling from his mother’s telling of fairy tales and German folklore, which she did to keep Hans entertained while he modeled for his father’s canvases. Along with literary leanings, Ewers also shared with his mother a hunger for diablerie (demonic sorcery); in girlhood Maria Ewers spoke of her earnest desire to meet the Devil in the flesh. Her son would eventually tour Europe giving a lecture entitled Die Religion des Satan (The Religion of Satan).