Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Weird fiction either eschews or radically reinterprets traditional antagonists of supernatural horror fiction, such as ghosts, vampires, and werewolves.
Weird fiction often attempts to inspire awe as well as fear in response to its fictional creations, causing commentators like Miéville to paraphrase Goethe in saying that weird fiction evokes a sense of the numinous.
Definitions
John Clute defines weird fiction as a term "used loosely to describe
fantasy, supernatural fiction and horror tales embodying transgressive material".
[John Clute, " Weird Fiction ", in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, 1997. Retrieved 29 September 2018.] China Miéville defines it as "usually, roughly, conceived of as a rather breathless and generically slippery macabre fiction, a dark fantastic ('horror' plus 'fantasy') often featuring nontraditional alien monsters (thus plus 'science fiction')".
[China Miéville, "Weird Fiction", in Bould, Mark et al., The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction. New York: Routledge, 2009, p. 510–516. ] Discussing the "Old Weird Fiction" published in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock says, "Old Weird fiction utilises elements of horror, science fiction and fantasy to showcase the impotence and insignificance of human beings within a much larger universe populated by often malign powers and forces that greatly exceed the human capacities to understand or control them."
[Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, "The New Weird", in Ken Gelder, New Directions in Popular Fiction: genre, reproduction, distribution. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 177–200. ]
Jeff VanderMeer and Ann VanderMeer describe weird fiction not as a genre of fiction, but rather as a mode of literature (i.e. a style or mood) usually appearing within the horror fiction genre.[James Machin, Weird Fiction in Britain, 1880-1939, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, p. 4, 12-14. ]
History
Although the term "weird fiction" did not appear until the 20th century, Edgar Allan Poe is often regarded as the pioneering author of weird fiction. Poe was identified by Lovecraft as the first author of a distinct type of supernatural fiction different from traditional Gothic literature, and later commentators on the term have also suggested Poe was the first "weird fiction" writer.
Sheridan Le Fanu is also seen as an early writer working in the sub-genre.
Literary critics in the nineteenth century would sometimes use the term "weird" to describe supernatural fiction. For instance, the Scottish Review in an 1859 article praised Poe, E. T. A. Hoffmann and Walter Scott by saying the three writers had the "power of weird imagination".[Machin, p. 22] The Irish magazine The Freeman's Journal, in an 1898 review of Dracula by Bram Stoker, described the novel as "wild and weird" and not Gothic.[Machin, p. 14] Weinstock has suggested there was a period of "Old Weird Fiction" that lasted from the late 19th to early 20th centuries.
In the late nineteenth century, a number of British writers associated with the Decadent movement wrote what was later described as weird fiction. These writers included Machen, M. P. Shiel, Eric Stenbock, and R. Murray Gilchrist.[Machin, p. 78] Other pioneering British weird fiction writers included Algernon Blackwood,[Joshi 1990, p. 42] Arthur Machen,[Joshi 1990, p. 12] and M. R. James.[Joshi 1990, p. 133]
The American pulp magazine Weird Tales published many such stories in the United States from March 1923 to September 1954. The magazine's editor Farnsworth Wright often used the term "weird fiction" to describe the type of material that the magazine published.[Machin, p. 222-5] The writers who wrote for the magazine Weird Tales are thus closely identified with the weird fiction subgenre, especially H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Leiber and Robert Bloch.["Bates had an affinity for weird fiction, but Strange Tales didn't go in for Lovecraft's brooding, wordy atmospherics." Ed Hulse, The Blood 'n' Thunder Guide to Pulp Fiction. Murania Press, Morris Plains, New Jersey, 2018, pp. 130–131. ] and Unknown Worlds (edited by John W. Campbell).["Without a doubt, the major event in weird fiction in 1939 was the premiere of Unknown (later retitled Unknown Worlds)".Robert E. Weinberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, Martin Harry Greenberg, Rivals of Weird Tales: 30 great fantasy & horror stories from the weird fiction pulps Bonanza Books, 1990, p. xvii. ]
H. P. Lovecraft popularised the term "weird fiction" in his essays.
The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain—a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.
S. T. Joshi describes several subdivisions of the weird tale: supernatural horror (or fantastique), the ghost story, quasi science fiction, fantasy, and ambiguous horror fiction and argues that "the weird tale" is primarily the result of the philosophical and aesthetic predispositions of the authors associated with this type of fiction.[Joshi 1990, pp. 7–10]
Although Lovecraft was one of the few early 20th-century writers to describe his work as "weird fiction",[ the term has enjoyed a contemporary revival in New Weird fiction. Many horror writers have also situated themselves within the weird tradition, including Clive Barker, who describes his fiction as fantastique,][, pp. 217-18] and Ramsey Campbell,[ whose early work was influenced by Lovecraft.][Campbell, Ramsey. "Chasing the Unknown", introduction to Cold Print (1993), pp. 11–13. ]
Notable authors
The following notable authors have been described as writers of weird fiction. They are listed alphabetically by last name, and organised by the time period when they began to publish weird fiction.
Before 1940
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Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
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Roberto Arlt
-
R. H. Barlow
-
E. F. Benson
[
]
-
Ambrose Bierce
[Joshi 1990, p. 143]
-
Algernon Blackwood
[Joshi 1990, p. 87]
-
Robert Bloch
-
Marjorie Bowen
[""Marjorie Bowen" was the pseudonym of Gabrielle M.V. Campbell Long, and she wrote extensively, using from six to ten pen names throughout her career, primarily in mainstream fiction. Yet her weird fiction ranks favorably with such distaff portrayers of the supernatural as Mary Wilkins-Freeman, Edith Wharton and Lady Cynthia Asquith." Sheldon Jaffery, The Arkham House Companion, San Bernardino, Calif.: Borgo Press, 1990, p. 117. ]
-
John Buchan
[Machin 2018, pp. 163–219]
-
Mikhail Bulgakov
-
Leonora Carrington
-
Robert W. Chambers
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Leonard Cline
-
Mary Elizabeth Counselman
-
Walter de la Mare
[
]
-
August Derleth
-
Lord Dunsany
-
E. R. Eddison
[
]
-
Guy Endore
[Jerry L. Ball, "Guy Endore's The Werewolf of Paris: The Definitive Werewolf Novel?" Studies in Weird Fiction, no. 17, summer 1995, pp. 2–12]
-
Robert Murray Gilchrist
[Machin 2018, pp. 99–101]
-
Stefan Grabiński
[Timothy Jarvis, 101 Weird Writers #45 — Stefan Grabiński , Weird Fiction Review, December 20, 2016. Retrieved September 1 2018.]
-
Alexander Grin
-
Nikolai Gogol
-
Sakutarō Hagiwara
-
L. P. Hartley
[
]
-
W. F. Harvey
-
Nathaniel Hawthorne
[" Twice-Told Tales...and Mosses From an Old Manse (1846; 23s) include most of Hawthorne's weird fiction. " Michael Ashley, Who's Who in Horror and Fantasy Fiction.
]
Taplinger Publishing Company, 1978, p. 90.
-
Lafcadio Hearn
-
Georg Heym
-
William Hope Hodgson
[Joshi 1990, p. 231]
-
E. T. A. Hoffmann
["13 Supreme Masters of Weird Fiction" by R.S Hadji. Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine,
]
May–June 1983, p. 84
-
Robert E. Howard
[
]
-
Carl Jacobi
-
Henry James
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M. R. James
-
Franz Kafka
-
C. F. Keary
["C. F. Keary, "Twixt Dog and Wolf"... is a collection of two novellas, one short story, and ten "phantasies," all of which are literary weird fiction of a high order". Douglas A. Anderson, Late Reviews. Nodens Books, Marcellus, MI, 2018, p. 89. ]
-
Alfred Kubin
-
Henry Kuttner
-
Vernon Lee
["Vernon Lee (1856-1935) was the pseudonym of lesbian Violet Paget, who was well known for her literary output, a substantial portion of which was considered either "weird fiction" or ghost stories." Eric Garber, & Lyn Paleo Uranian worlds: a guide to alternative sexuality in science fiction, fantasy, and horror G.K. Hall, 1990, p. 125. ]
-
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
-
Fritz Leiber
-
David Lindsay
-
Frank Belknap Long
-
H. P. Lovecraft
-
Arthur Machen
-
Daphne du Maurier
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Abraham Merrit
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Gustav Meyrink
-
C. L. Moore
-
Fitz James O'Brien
-
Oliver Onions
[
]
-
Thomas Owen
-
Edgar Allan Poe
-
Horacio Quiroga
-
Edogawa Ranpo
-
Jean Ray
-
Tod Robbins
["Tod Robbins (Clarence Aaron Robbins, 1888-1949) specialized in weird fiction throughout his lengthy writing career." Christie, Gene. The People of the Pit, and other early horrors from the Munsey Pulps.
]
Normal, IL : Black Dog Books, 2010. (p. 201).
-
Eric Frank Russell
["Although Eric Frank Russell wrote a relatively small number of novels, he published several major collections...More recently, Midnight House collected much of his best horror and weird fiction in Darker Tides in 2006". O'Neill, John. Vintage Treasures: Sentinels of Space by Eric Frank Russell / The Ultimate Invader edited by Donald Wollheim Black Gate, 13 April 2020. Retrieved 14 October 2020.]
-
Bruno Schulz
-
Marcel Schwob
-
Walter Scott
-
Mary Shelley
-
M. P. Shiel
[
]
-
William Milligan Sloane III
-
Clark Ashton Smith
[
]
-
Eric Stenbock
[Machin 2018, pp. 101–114]
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Francis Stevens
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Robert Louis Stevenson
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Bram Stoker
-
Theodore Sturgeon
-
Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy
-
E. H. Visiak
-
H. Russell Wakefield
-
Hugh Walpole
-
Evangeline Walton
-
Donald Wandrei
-
Howard Wandrei
-
H. G. Wells
-
Edward Lucas White
-
Henry S. Whitehead
["The sudden and unexpected death on June 11 (1936) of Robert Ervin Howard, author of fantastic tales of incomparable vividness, forms weird fiction's worst loss since the passing of Henry S. Whitehead four years ago". H. P. Lovecraft, "Robert Ervin Howard: A Memorial" (1936). Reprinted in Leon Nielsen, Robert E. Howard: A Collector’s Descriptive Bibliography of American and British Hardcover, Paperback, Magazine, Special and Amateur Editions, with a Biography. McFarland, 2010, p. 39. ]
1940–1980
1980–present
New Weird
Ann VanderMeer and
Jeff VanderMeer and China Miéville have suggested that weird fiction has seen a recent resurgence, a phenomenon they term the
New Weird. Tales which fit this category, as well as extensive discussion of the phenomenon, appear in the anthology
The New Weird.
See also
Notes
External links
