As readers and writers, there are many immediate images that we conjure when imagining the weird tale.
Jeff and Ann VanderMeer from their site Weird Fiction Review give an excellent overview and definition of the Weird and by association the weird tale:
“As a twentieth and twenty-first-century art form, the story of The Weird is the story of the refinement (and destabilization) of supernatural fiction within an established framework but also of the welcome contamination of that fiction by the influence of other traditions, some only peripherally connected to the fantastic.”
For further reading, the full essay text can be found here at the Weird Fiction Review.
While Lovecraft was writing tales of the tentacled horror and cosmic bestial dreams, there was much in terms of weird phantasmagoria already whirling about in the literary ether well before Lovecraft or Cthulhu took the stage.
The beauty that lies within the cracks of supernatural horror and weird fiction, is not only its structure, but the intersectionality of genres.
Here are five classic weird fiction authors to include on your bookshelves or drive you mad, with splendor, strangeness, and grotesque visions.
The King in Yellow
A book that heavily influenced many classic and modern authors, Chambers’ seminal work series of interconnected stories around a mysterious play that drives whoever reads it, utterly mad.
Each story is crafted with feverish characters, spectral images, and distorted visions brought to life by the characters’ own obsession with the dreaded King in Yellow lurking inside the esoteric pages.
Zothique: The Final Cycle
Clark Ashton Smith’s collection of stories which is composed of polytheistic cultures, bestial gods, necromancer civilizations, vast explored continents, and wild terrains, Zothique is beautiful and dark tapestry for the eager concessioner of fantasy, magic, and world-building.
The Great God Pan
In his unique narrative style, syrupy prose, and distinct voice, Machen’s novella has been hailed as a classic in horror fiction. Exploring themes from religion, sexuality, and occultism, The Great God Pan has influenced authors from Bram Stoker to H.P. Lovecraft to Stephen King.
Lovecraft said of Machen’s work in his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature," “no one could begin to describe the cumulative suspense and ultimate horror with which every paragraph abounds.”
The House on the Borderland
Hope’s novel is a hallucinatory account of a recluse's stay at an isolated house, and his strange and wild experiences with bizarre creatures, spectral happenings, and otherworldly dimensions.
William Hope Hodgson’s style also influenced many weird fiction authors in the early 20th century including H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and more.
The Horla and Others
Guy de Maupassant wrote within the naturalist and realism schools and was the master of the short story.
De Maupassant wrote one several decades before many names on this list were in print (or alive), though de Maupassant’s ability to craft a short story became a valuable tool and his words were studied by Ambrose Bierce and Mark Twain.
