Weird Fiction

Book excerpt: Penguin Weird Fiction: a celebration of the very best of the weird, a store of novels and tales that for generations have delighted and horrified. Sometime around the turn of the twentieth century, something happened, something... weird. In the dark halls of ivy-clad manors, in the ancient woodland escapes of New England, a generation of authors were inspired to radically reinterpret the horror and fantasy writing of the past. From the terrible plagues of Edgar Allan Poe to the religious terror of May Sinclair and on to the awful, tentacle-faced mythos of H.P. Lovecraft, this anthology celebrates the very best of this writing, a collection of brilliant tales that for generations have delighted and horrified. ‘Escape from the prison-house of the known and the real into those enchanted lands of incredible adventure and infinite possibilities which dreams open up to us, and which things like deep woods, fantastic urban towers, and flaming sunsets momentarily suggest . . .’ H.P. Lovecraft