Most notable horror story writer?

I collected a few names, although not all of these were primarily horror writers, but all have produced horror stories at some time :)
It pains me to say that the vast majority is english-speaking. Not sure why this is the case, but it appears that at least horror literature in english is by far more wide-spread, or at least it is the one which i have mostly come to contact with.

Anyway, here are the nominations:

E.A.Poe

H.P.Lovecraft

Guy De Maupassant

Arthur Machen

H.G.Wells

Henry James

R.L.Stevenson

Or you can name others :)

Bram Stoker
MR James
WW Jacobs
Mary Shelley
Ray Bradbury
Franz Kafka

Since many of those you refer to in your poll are best known for their short stories, I'd have to say you missed one - Ramsey Campbell, whose short stories are just about the best in that genre.

better than Edgar Allan Poe? You have to be kidding.

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Originally Posted by dfloyd

better than Edgar Allan Poe? You have to be kidding.

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On what grounds are you challenging his statement exactly?

You're openly admitting you've never heard of Ramsey Campbell, which would therefore imply you haven't read any of the man's work to judge one way or the other.

And you can't be that knowledgeable about the horror genre since you haven't ever heard of Ramsey Campbell since he is in fact a big name in the horror genre today. You know, you could always read his wikipedia page.

I voted for H.G. Wells in the poll, simply because he is a brilliant author. In fact, he is my favorite science fiction writer! I have no idea why you categorize him as a horror author...it seems pretty degrading to such a brilliant man. ;)

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Originally Posted by Aragorn Elessar

I voted for H.G. Wells in the poll, simply because he is a brilliant author. In fact, he is my favorite science fiction writer! I have no idea why you categorize him as a horror author...it seems pretty degrading to such a brilliant man. ;)

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Genre fiction writers have always mixed genres though. The Island of Doctor Moreau and The Invisible Man stand out as H.G. Wells novels with distinctive elements of horror stories. Likewise, there are elements of science fiction clearly present in Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Do I even have to say it? I think everyone knows my vote, and if in doubt, just check out my sig :D

H.P. Lovecraft gets my vote, although I also have an affection for Arthur Machen.

Lovecraft took horror away from the 19th century tropes and opened it up to cosmic, almost infinite possibilities. His imagination operated on a scale that Poe and Maupassant, with their little ghosts and vampires, couldn't even comprehend. He created mythologies and a parallel, secret history of Mankind and the world. That's a remarkable feat of the imagination.

Poe followed trends from Europe, mainly Germany and the English Gothic. Lovecraft created his own tradition.

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Originally Posted by Heteronym

H.P. Lovecraft gets my vote, although I also have an affection for Arthur Machen.

Lovecraft took horror away from the 19th century tropes and opened it up to cosmic, almost infinite possibilities. His imagination operated on a scale that Poe and Maupassant, with their little ghosts and vampires, couldn't even comprehend. He created mythologies and a parallel, secret history of Mankind and the world. That's a remarkable feat of the imagination.

Poe followed trends from Europe, mainly Germany and the English Gothic. Lovecraft created his own tradition.

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Ghosts and Vampires in De Maupassant? I think you haven't read him at all :)

In fact he mentions several times that he does not believe in ghosts. All his horrors are apparitions, psychological manifestations of some great fear in his protagonists's life, which takes a form as if it had an actual body.
To me he is certaintly miles ahead of Lovecraft, who was always an imitator of Poe and Dunsany, with little achievement of his own in regards to style. That said i enjoy a number of Lovecraft's works, but he was nowhere near as important for literature as De Maupassant and Poe.
Who did Poe influence? Among others genre-defining authors like Jules Verne and Arthur Conan Doyle, De Maupassant, Baudelaire, to name just a few great names.
De Maupassant is the most celebrated french writer of short stories, and one of the main european ones as well. Machen, who you said you like, precicely refers to De Maupassant's ideas in several of his stories, such as in The White People :)

And Lovecraft, well, he influenced Stephen King ( :lol: ) Ok, that was a bit malignant, but you see what i mean :)

Ps I hope this didnt sound too much like a polemic ;) In reality i appreciate Lovecraft's work, with all its disadvantages, which Lovecraft himself was very much aware of. And some of his stories i find indeed poetic (such as the music of Erich Zahn). But he seems to have been the less encephalic writer, the less conscious of symbolism (although he was in part trying to use it to cause horror, as is shown in his letters).
Also let's not forget that Lovecraft was a recluse, virtually a loner until his early thirties. He had far less experience of life than Poe or De Maupassant, and that shows in his writing as well, which is more monotone than the ones of those two.

Poe, closely followed by Lovecraft.

Is Stephen King not qualified? ;)

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Originally Posted by dfloyd

better than Edgar Allan Poe? You have to be kidding.

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Not better, perhaps, since Poe essentially created the modern horror story (that's who I voted for, by the way).

But pick up Dark Companions - every single story is creepy and frightening - like Night Stalker was when you were a kid. :D He's a genius.

His novels, on the other hand, can be difficult to get the mood Campbell intended, as his English is VERY English, and he uses colloquialisms that an American may not quite understand. For whatever reason, that seems to be a bigger problem in his novels than his short stories.

I admit to never having read Campbell, but his birthdate of post WWII tells a lot when comparing him to an author of Poe's stature. Poe's sentence structure is as good as Henry James, and his word choice is such that William F. Buckley would be forced to peruse a dictionary. Read the first paragraph of 'The Fall of the House of Usher', and you'll see how Poe has managed to maintain his stature among writers for more than 150 years.

I'm certain people here will vehemently disagree with what I'm about to say, but here goes. I think Poe was a border-line bad writer, on purpose. Allow me to explain.

I don't know much about his personal life, but I do know that he didn't achieve a high level of education. I'm just speculating here, but my theory is that given his lack of education, Poe developed an inferiority complex, reflected in his writing style. Let me just say that, diploma or no diploma, he certainly was a genius. That being said, he felt a need to show it in almost every sentence of his short stories. From obscure references and allusions (which he undoubtedly inserted to show the reader how well read he was) to his use of unnecessarily "big" words (which, although i know what many of them mean, still ruined the fluidity of many of his sentences) Poe could have done without them and perhaps became an even more timeless voice in literature. Although, many feel he still is timeless and I wont argue with that.

He certainly had a great imagination and could have easily been a much better writer had he not developed such a clunky, unnecessarily dense writing style. I love challenging reads, however, Poe's writing style is not challenging in a rewarding sense, a la Joyce or Faulkner. Having read many of his works, I could easily sense a struggle he had within himself about how he wanted to be perceived. Yes, we all do on some level, but with him it was too noticeable. I'm not saying he was an awful writer by any stretch of the imagination. His ideas were brilliant and his sense of how to create an atmosphere of fear and mystery are almost unrivaled. It's just his presentation that I have a minor problem with.

probably be more than equivalent to those with a PhD in literature today. A classical education was required in the early 1800s. If you read Poe, you'll see his many allusions to the classics. I'm certain he was well versed in the Iliad and Odyssey. I know several PhDs in American literature, none of whom have ever cracked Homer, and most of whom have not read Joyce.

Poe could construct sentences and paragraphs which to the lover of the written English word, has a flow that is beauteous. As I've suggested, read the first paragraph of 'The Fall of the House of Usher." This one paragraph should convince doubters as to Poe's abilities.

Many people on this forum do not like Henry James, as well as Poe. These are generally younger people who have not attained the level of reading ability to match their minds to the vocabulary and structure of Poe's prose.His poetry has been attacked for it's alliteration, but here we are only commenting on his writing of the horrorific. And he wrote much prose, his tales of mystery and ratiocination, which were not of the horrorific genre. For example, The Purloined Letter and the Gold Bug.

With Poe's addictions to alcohol and drugs, he lived a very short life. Who knows what he might have achieved if he had lived another ten or twenty years.