Patrick Murtha
Reader
Too much politics today, so let me talk about sensation fiction, which was a “thing” in the mid and late 19th Century.
As the fat boy says in The Pickwick Papers, “I want to make your flesh creep.” That was the impetus of sensation fiction, as of Gothic fiction earlier and horror fiction later.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensation_novel
Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White is the masterpiece of the form, but as I have often said, Wilkie had it ALL going on; he was extravagantly gifted in every aspect of fiction. Sometimes I just want to give him a standing ovation.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula draws heavily (and profitably) on Collins’ example.
Sheridan Le Fanu was a duck in this pond. I am reading Uncle Silas right now.
A completely bizarre specimen is Richard Marsh’s The Beetle, I don’t know even know where to begin, but my flesh crept and how.
As the fat boy says in The Pickwick Papers, “I want to make your flesh creep.” That was the impetus of sensation fiction, as of Gothic fiction earlier and horror fiction later.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensation_novel
Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White is the masterpiece of the form, but as I have often said, Wilkie had it ALL going on; he was extravagantly gifted in every aspect of fiction. Sometimes I just want to give him a standing ovation.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula draws heavily (and profitably) on Collins’ example.
Sheridan Le Fanu was a duck in this pond. I am reading Uncle Silas right now.
A completely bizarre specimen is Richard Marsh’s The Beetle, I don’t know even know where to begin, but my flesh crept and how.
