Top 15 Horror Authors

[GOLLUM]

Well, slightly off-topic and not intentionally gratuitous on my part but here is a list I posted on another interesting thread we had earlier in the year on the first 20 books we would like to nominate in a Horror Masterworks series, so by extension probably a "top list" by one method of ranking for me as far as Horror Writers writers go.....interesting to compare to the list Goodreads came up with I thought anyway....

In no particular order.... *apologies in particular to R. Matheson, Oliver Onions and N. Hawthorne.

Dracula – Bram Stoker
Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
Medusa – E.H. Visiak
In A Lonely Place (Collection) – Karl Edward Wagner
Dark Domain (collection) – Stefan Grabinski
Island Of Dr. Moreau – H.G. Wells
Haunting Of Hill House – Shirley Jackson
Nightmare Factory (collection) – Thomas Ligotti
Human Chair (collection) – Edogawa Rampo
Dark Feasts (collection) – Ramsey Campbell
At The Mountains of Madness – H.P. Lovecraft
Tales of Mystery and Imagination – Edgar Allan Poe
Land of Laughs – Jonathon Carroll
Ghost story – Peter Straub
House Of Souls (collection) – Arthur Machen
Collected Ghost Stories – MR James
The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories - Horacio Quiroga
Uncle Silas – Sheridan Le Fanu
King In Yellow (collection) – Robert W Chambers
Sub Rosa (collection) – Robert Aickman

 

[nomadman]

Having now read quite a bit of work, I'd nominate Jean Ray as a prospective candidate on that list. His works have a unique, incredibly unsettling feel that I've rarely come across in any other writer with such intensity before. Malpertuis (which I'm currently reading) is fast becoming one of my favorite weird novels, a sort of super-condensed Gormenghast meets William Hope Hodgson and David Lindsay; whilst The Shadowy Street and The Mainz Psalter, two of his most acclaimed short stories, can rank quite comfortably alongside the best in the genre.

 

[j d worthington]

Having now read quite a bit of work, I'd nominate Jean Ray as a prospective candidate on that list. His works have a unique, incredibly unsettling feel that I've rarely come across in any other writer with such intensity before. Malpertuis (which I'm currently reading) is fast becoming one of my favorite weird novels, a sort of super-condensed Gormenghast meets William Hope Hodgson and David Lindsay; whilst The Shadowy Street and The Mainz Psalter, two of his most acclaimed short stories, can rank quite comfortably alongside the best in the genre.

It really is a pity that his work is so hard to come by. I hope that someone finally puts out a truly representative collection, such as those done of James, the Bensons, Oliver Onions, and the like... preferably at an affordable price (it doesn't really help promote a writer who is this hard to find when the the amount for the book is out of the ability of most readers to reach....)

In general it is a good list, although Ligotti should be near the top, King should be near the bottom, and Bradbury shouldn't be on there at all.

Query: Are you saying Bradbury shouldn't be listed as a horror writer, or simply on a list of the "top 15"? I'm not sure I'd agree in either case, though I might perhaps concede the latter. "The Next in Line", "The Jar", "The Maiden", "The Emissary", "Interim", "The Wind", "The Night", "The Man Upstairs", "The Small Assassin", or even "The Night Sets" from Dark Carnival are all excellent -- if often quiet -- horror pieces (in fact, I would argue that this is one of the landmark collections of weird or horror fiction of the twentieth century; while Something Wicked This Way Comes, "Pillar of Fire", "The Pedestrian", "The Black Ferris", Dandelion Wine (at least notable sections of it) and countless other stories throughout his career, remain classics of the genre, and often quite unique in their approach and effect.

 

[nomadman]

It really is a pity that his work is so hard to come by. I hope that someone finally puts out a truly representative collection, such as those done of James, the Bensons, Oliver Onions, and the like... preferably at an affordable price (it doesn't really help promote a writer who is this hard to find when the the amount for the book is out of the ability of most readers to reach....)

True, although Malpertuis is fairly easy to buy, having been recently released under the Atlas Anti-Classics range. If you haven't yet done so, I recommend you pick it up.

 

[nixie]

I think James Herbert deserves a place on the list. I prefer him to King and Barker. Not in the class of some the older horror writers but The Rats, Lair and Domain sent a shiver up my spine. Also loved Magic Cottage, Haunted and Once. Even Fluke my personal favourite has a bit of a horror flavour.

 

[GOLLUM]

Adds Jean Ray to the "watch list"....

 

[J Riff]

Just looked at 'Thrawn Janet" which I'd never seen before. The 1887 English could be very challenging to modern readers.

He had a feck o' books wi' him -- mair than had ever been seen before in a' that presbytery; and a sair wark the carrier had wi' them, for they were a' like to have smoored in the De'il's Hag between this and Kilmackerlie

 

[j d worthington]

Just looked at 'Thrawn Janet" which I'd never seen before. The 1887 English could be very challenging to modern readers.

He had a feck o' books wi' him -- mair than had ever been seen before in a' that presbytery; and a sair wark the carrier had wi' them, for they were a' like to have smoored in the De'il's Hag between this and Kilmackerlie

It isn't the English of that period, per se, which is likely to be a challenge to modern readers, but the extensive use of Scots dialect, something which has fallen out of fashion (more's the pity, in my view, as such dialect can add a great deal to a tale -- see Buchan's Witch Wood, for example). And in the case of "Thrawn Janet", it most decidedly increases the aura of strangeness and the unearthly by the very poeticism of the language....

 

[Fried Egg]

It isn't the English of that period, per se, which is likely to be a challenge to modern readers, but the extensive use of Scots dialect, something which has fallen out of fashion (more's the pity, in my view, as such dialect can add a great deal to a tale -- see Buchan's Witch Wood, for example).

When you talk about the Scots dialect, are you talking about something different than, say, the type that Irvin Welsh employs?

 

[J Riff]

My Grandad's speech was like this, but I still have trouble reading small bits of this story - though overall it is a great creepy story! Man, Janet's head... ghastly...animated lich...the legendary 'black man'. Weird and wonderful.

 

[j d worthington]

When you talk about the Scots dialect, are you talking about something different than, say, the type that Irvin Welsh employs?

In the instances I mention, certainly something less modern....

 

[dlsevern]

In no particular order: H. P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Peter Straub, Edgar Allen Poe, Arthur Machen, Dean Koontz, Brian Keene, Clive Barker, Gord Rollo, Richard Matheson, John Skipp & Craig Spector, Joe R. Lansdale, August Derleth, Ambrose Bierce, Ray Bradbury, Bentley Little, Charles L. Grant, John Farris, F. Paul Wilson, Robert Bloch, Dennis Etchison, Ramsey Campbell, Ray Garton, Shirley Jackson, David J. Schow, Jack Ketchum, Brian Lumley, Richard Laymon, Graham Masterton, Robert McCammon, Anne Rice, and Dan Simmons. I've enjoyed all of these writers, I have been looking for some M.R. James, Algernon Blackwood, or Robert Aickman but just can't seem to find them anywhere.

 

[dlsevern]

I want to thank all of you who included some of the classics of the field due to the fact that I haven't read many of them and some I've never heard of. I'm a huge horror fan and feel that I need to read these to truly be able to appreciate horror in literature. Thank you.

 

[dlsevern]

What about Amyas Northcote's "In Ghostly Company"? It was the only book of ghost stories that he wrote but they are some great ones. I'd like to think that if he wouldn't have passed away shortly after writing the stories in this collection, he would a have been mentioned right along with James, Onions, and Lovecraft.

 

[sloweye]

Opening up an old thread i know but i'm with Nixie, I was shocked James Herbert wasn't on the list. Although for me he falls firmly between King and Barker of three.

 

[nomadman]

Plenty of very good writers being mentioned here.

I think one of the problems with any "best of" list regarding horror writers is that for a long time horror wasn't really seen as a separate genre, or rather it was a genre which many famous writers of the day occasionally dipped into (often with great success) in between their more mainstream works. This makes compiling any list on the criterion of best writer quite difficult. To ignore such illustrious names as Dickens and Collins would be to ignore a very good sample of the best horror writing, but to include them would make a list so large and diffuse as to become meaningless. In the case of someone like Kipling it becomes especially difficult. Whilst known primarily for The Jungle Book and the Just So Stories, he also wrote a large body of work that falls squarely in the supernatural horror category, many stories of which were recently compiled in a 500 page Fantasy Masterworks collection. Should he be ignored in favor of someone like Barker or Herbert who made their name writing horror and have arguably had a greater impact on the modern genre? Not really an easy question to answer, I think.

 

[Fried Egg]

I don't see why one can't simply strip away from consideration all non-horror works that an author may have written and then judge them as a horror writer on that basis, ignoring anything else they might have done. Judging them as if those were the only works they had ever written.

 

[dask]

A distinction may be justifiable. THE LUCIFER SOCIETY edited by Peter Haining is full of horror stories written by people not usually associated with the horror genre, most notably Winston Churchill. I'm not advocating anything but perhaps "best horror writers" should concentrate on authors who are basically known for horror and "best horror stories" open to anyone who has written any horror at all, no matter how little or great.