Welcome to the book series 7 best short stories specials, selection dedicated to a special subject, featuring works by noteworthy authors. The texts were chosen based on their relevance, renown and interest. This edition is dedicated to Weird Fiction.
Weird Fiction fiction utilises elements of horror, science fiction and fantasy to showcase the impotence and insignificance of human beings within a much larger universe populated by often malign powers and forces that greatly exceed the human capacities to understand or control them. The critic August Nemo has selected seven classic tales of the genre, especially for readers who want (and have courage!) to face the abyss:
– The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft.
– Hell Screen by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa.
– An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce.
– The White People by Arthur Machen.
– Number 13 by M. R. James.
– The Derelict by William Hope Hodgson.
– The Repairer of Reputations by Robert W. Chambers.
About the author
H.P. Lovecraft was born on August 20, 1890, in Providence, Rhode Island. The horror magazine Weird Tales bought some of his stories in 1923. His story ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ came out in 1928 in Weird Tales. Elements of this story would reappear in other related tales. In his final years, he took editing and ghostwriting work to try to make ends meet. He died on March 15, 1937, in Providence, Rhode Island.
Rynosuke Akutagawa (1 March 1892 24 July 1927), art name Chkd Shujin, was a Japanese writer active in the Taish period in Japan. He is regarded as the ‘Father of the Japanese short story’ and Japan’s premier literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, is named after him. He committed suicide at the age of 35 through an overdose of barbital.
Ambrose Bierce was born on June 24, 1842 in Meigs county, Ohio. He worked as a printer’s apprentice and enlisted to fight in the Civil War. After the war he worked as an editor, journalist, and short story writer; capturing his war experiences in vivid detail. In 1913 he went to Mexico, then in the midst of a revolution led by Pancho Villa. He disappeared sometime in 1914.
Arthur Machen was a welsh author, translator and actor, born Arthur Llewellyn Jones, his parents adding Machen apparently in an attempt to please a rich relative. Machen was an isolated, lonely child, and was from a very early age deeply devoted both to romantic literature and to the Welsh landscape that visually dominated his writings all his life. He also imaginatively applied his extensive if somewhat random readings in the occult and metaphysics to his Welsh background.
Montague Rhodes James(1 August 1862 12 June 1936), who published under the name M. R. James, was an English author, medievalist scholar and provost of King’s College, Cambridge, and of Eton College. He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.
William Hope Hodgson (15 November 1877 19 April 1918) was an English author. He produced a large body of work, consisting of essays, short fiction, and novels, spanning several overlapping genres including horror, fantastic fiction, and science fiction.
Robert William Chambers (May 26, 1865 December 16, 1933) was an American artist and fiction writer, best known for his book of short stories titled The King in Yellow, published in 1895.
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