In “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” Lovecraft seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of the horror genre from its very beginnings to the modern masters. After acknowledging horror’s roots in folklore, Lovecraft spends a section on the early Gothic novel, highlighting such authors as Horace Walpole, Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, and Charles Brockden Brown. He follows that up with a discussion of Matthew Lewis’s The Monk and Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer as the “apex of Gothic Romance.” In a section titled “The Aftermath of the Gothic,” he covers authors that are today usually lumped in with the Gothic, including William Beckford, Mary Shelley, and Emily Brontë. From there, he devotes a section each to the continuation of literary tradition on the European continent, in the British Isles, and in America—though Edgar Allan Poe gets a whole section to himself. Lovecraft ends his essay with an in-depth discussion of his recent contemporaries, including Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Lord Dunsany, and M. R. James.

This annotated edition comes with an introduction by Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi, an extensive bibliography, and plenty of explanatory footnotes. Reading Lovecraft’s essay combined with this supplemental material was a truly informative experience.

See my full review at: https://www.thegothiclibrary.com/lovecrafts-supernatural-horror-in-literature/