Must be slow at work since I'm resurrecting an old thread. More likely, I'm just slow at work. But in looking at past threads, this one struck me as the one I was sorry I missed since it started and ended before I joined the forum.
It seems like a Horror Masterworks is hard to nail down and I think I know one reason why: Horror by itself seems to rarely work. Few works that attempt to be mainly frightening or disturbing achieve it. Horror seems to work best when one element in an alloy: s.f./horror, I am Legend & Hell House, The Island of Dr. Moreau, "At the Mountains of Madness" ; fantasy/horror, The Land of Laughs, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, Vathek; historical fiction/horror, The Werewolf of Paris, Perfume, Blood Meridian; crime/horror, Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs.
You can probably break that down further; for instance, Stephen King combines his horror with stories of family life and communities (The Shining, Pet Semetary); Peter Straub looks at communities, too (Ghost Story; Koko); King and Ray Bradbury deal with coming of age (“The Body”; Something Wicked This Way Comes). And there’s the always popular character study (Psycho, The Turn of the Screw, The Face that Must Die, Finishing Touches, etc., etc. …)
I’m certain, given time, we could think of further classification break downs, but what I think that means is a lot of works we might add to a Masterworks list would already be in other Masterworks lists.
Anyway, if I were a publisher with the means to create such a series, there would be titles I'd point readers to but not include in my series because they are readily available elsewhere: Dracula, Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Grey, The Turn of the Screw, Something Wicked This Way Comes, several novels by Stephen King and Peter Straub; add in representative volumes of stories by Poe, Hawthorne, Lovecraft, M. R. James, Richard Matheson, King and Barker.
What’s left would make an interesting list, most of which are only reissued sporadically. The following are in no particular order and I would in no way call the list definitive, just titles I’d strongly suggest a publisher consider weighing when creating such a series. I’ll repeat some titles already mentioned, I’m sure, but I’m surprised by a couple that I haven’t noticed mentioned.
1. In a Lonely Place by Karl Edward Wagner (story col.; the contents of this can also be found in a recent collection, Where the Summer Ends)
2. Night’s Black Agents by Fritz Leiber (story col.; preferably a latter edition including “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes”)
3. Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber (fantasy/horror of a high caliber)
4. Finishing Touches by Thomas Tessier (I really need to read more by him; first read this a few years ago and it remains one of the most disturbing novels I’ve read in this new century)
5. The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson (as a novel, it’s a train wreck, characterization and plot very, very thin; but the imagination behind it is extraordinarily absorbing)
6. The Early Fears by Robert Bloch (story col.; combines contents of his earliest collection with the contents of one of his best collections – the punster is there, but when Bloch wanted to write without the puns, he was very, very effective at short form horror.)
7. Best Ghost Stories by Algernon Blackwood (story col.; I believe I remember Blackwood chose the stories for this collection)
8. Tales of Horror and the Supernatural by Arthur Machen (story col., some of these veer closer to fantasy than horror, and that’s all right; Machen had some range as a story teller)
9. Perfume by Patrick Susskind (one of the creepiest novels I’ve ever read)
10. The Grin of the Dark by Ramsey Campbell (probably too early to call this one a masterwork, and yet it had a deeper effect on me than most horror novels I’ve read and was written with a subtlety that I don’t often expect from horror novels)
11. The Other by Thomas Tryon (recently reissued by NYRB, but out of print for several years before that; one of the tent poles of modern horror along with Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist)
12. Zothique by Clark Ashton Smith (story col.; probably any representative collection would suffice, but this one, compiled and ordered by Lin Carter, made me a fan after years
13. The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore (again, recently reissued but only after 30+ years out of print; if not the definitive werewolf novel, pretty close)
14. Night Has a Thousand Eyes by Cornell Woolrich (his only supernatural novel and one of the best from that time period, the 1940s, that I’ve read)
15. Twilight by William Gay (this is an out-of-left-field suggestion; Gay was a mainstream writer who flirted with fairy tale if not fantasy, as in this novel, and his story “The Paperhanger” is definitely a horror story, and extremely unsettling)
16. Voice of Our Shadow by Jonathan Carroll (that I’m aware of, the only novel by Carroll that is truly a horror novel; oblique and insinuating, it would make an interesting pairing read with the Woolrich)
17. Anno Dracula by Kim Newman (fantasy/horror; recently reissued after many years out of print; I hope this is a good sign for it’s future)
18. The Throne of Bones by Brian MacNaughton (story col.; the title story is worth the price of admission by itself; would pair nicely with the C. A. Smith collection since Smith was an influence; MacNaughton isn’t as polished a writer but his use of ghouls is imaginative and sometimes funny as well as creepy)
19. Extremities by Kathe Koja (story col.; pared, direct prose in the service of powers of observation that cut through social facades and personal dissimulation like a scalpel)
20. The Two Sams by Glen Hirshberg (story col.; five stories, four of them among the strongest ghost stories I’ve read in years)
There are probably other titles if I thought longer, but I'll leave it at this.
Randy M.
It seems like a Horror Masterworks is hard to nail down and I think I know one reason why: Horror by itself seems to rarely work. Few works that attempt to be mainly frightening or disturbing achieve it. Horror seems to work best when one element in an alloy: s.f./horror, I am Legend & Hell House, The Island of Dr. Moreau, "At the Mountains of Madness" ; fantasy/horror, The Land of Laughs, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, Vathek; historical fiction/horror, The Werewolf of Paris, Perfume, Blood Meridian; crime/horror, Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs.
You can probably break that down further; for instance, Stephen King combines his horror with stories of family life and communities (The Shining, Pet Semetary); Peter Straub looks at communities, too (Ghost Story; Koko); King and Ray Bradbury deal with coming of age (“The Body”; Something Wicked This Way Comes). And there’s the always popular character study (Psycho, The Turn of the Screw, The Face that Must Die, Finishing Touches, etc., etc. …)
I’m certain, given time, we could think of further classification break downs, but what I think that means is a lot of works we might add to a Masterworks list would already be in other Masterworks lists.
Anyway, if I were a publisher with the means to create such a series, there would be titles I'd point readers to but not include in my series because they are readily available elsewhere: Dracula, Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Grey, The Turn of the Screw, Something Wicked This Way Comes, several novels by Stephen King and Peter Straub; add in representative volumes of stories by Poe, Hawthorne, Lovecraft, M. R. James, Richard Matheson, King and Barker.
What’s left would make an interesting list, most of which are only reissued sporadically. The following are in no particular order and I would in no way call the list definitive, just titles I’d strongly suggest a publisher consider weighing when creating such a series. I’ll repeat some titles already mentioned, I’m sure, but I’m surprised by a couple that I haven’t noticed mentioned.
1. In a Lonely Place by Karl Edward Wagner (story col.; the contents of this can also be found in a recent collection, Where the Summer Ends)
2. Night’s Black Agents by Fritz Leiber (story col.; preferably a latter edition including “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes”)
3. Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber (fantasy/horror of a high caliber)
4. Finishing Touches by Thomas Tessier (I really need to read more by him; first read this a few years ago and it remains one of the most disturbing novels I’ve read in this new century)
5. The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson (as a novel, it’s a train wreck, characterization and plot very, very thin; but the imagination behind it is extraordinarily absorbing)
6. The Early Fears by Robert Bloch (story col.; combines contents of his earliest collection with the contents of one of his best collections – the punster is there, but when Bloch wanted to write without the puns, he was very, very effective at short form horror.)
7. Best Ghost Stories by Algernon Blackwood (story col.; I believe I remember Blackwood chose the stories for this collection)
8. Tales of Horror and the Supernatural by Arthur Machen (story col., some of these veer closer to fantasy than horror, and that’s all right; Machen had some range as a story teller)
9. Perfume by Patrick Susskind (one of the creepiest novels I’ve ever read)
10. The Grin of the Dark by Ramsey Campbell (probably too early to call this one a masterwork, and yet it had a deeper effect on me than most horror novels I’ve read and was written with a subtlety that I don’t often expect from horror novels)
11. The Other by Thomas Tryon (recently reissued by NYRB, but out of print for several years before that; one of the tent poles of modern horror along with Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist)
12. Zothique by Clark Ashton Smith (story col.; probably any representative collection would suffice, but this one, compiled and ordered by Lin Carter, made me a fan after years
13. The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore (again, recently reissued but only after 30+ years out of print; if not the definitive werewolf novel, pretty close)
14. Night Has a Thousand Eyes by Cornell Woolrich (his only supernatural novel and one of the best from that time period, the 1940s, that I’ve read)
15. Twilight by William Gay (this is an out-of-left-field suggestion; Gay was a mainstream writer who flirted with fairy tale if not fantasy, as in this novel, and his story “The Paperhanger” is definitely a horror story, and extremely unsettling)
16. Voice of Our Shadow by Jonathan Carroll (that I’m aware of, the only novel by Carroll that is truly a horror novel; oblique and insinuating, it would make an interesting pairing read with the Woolrich)
17. Anno Dracula by Kim Newman (fantasy/horror; recently reissued after many years out of print; I hope this is a good sign for it’s future)
18. The Throne of Bones by Brian MacNaughton (story col.; the title story is worth the price of admission by itself; would pair nicely with the C. A. Smith collection since Smith was an influence; MacNaughton isn’t as polished a writer but his use of ghouls is imaginative and sometimes funny as well as creepy)
19. Extremities by Kathe Koja (story col.; pared, direct prose in the service of powers of observation that cut through social facades and personal dissimulation like a scalpel)
20. The Two Sams by Glen Hirshberg (story col.; five stories, four of them among the strongest ghost stories I’ve read in years)
There are probably other titles if I thought longer, but I'll leave it at this.
Randy M.
