Horror Genre History

The “horror” genre was first introduced when the author, Horace Walpole, first wrote the book, The Castle of Otranto, in 1764. His book was full of shocks and mysterious melodrama. Imitators began to view this as the gothic mode for writing. Many writers later began to write better books than Horace Walpole and they included more mystery and suspense. The first and greatest horror classic to be written was, Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. Edgar Allen Poe is also a famous writer that created short horror stories. Later on, came the Great War, and I quote, “And then came the Great War, and with it horrors that not one of these literary minds could have conceived.”

The horror genre is the most interesting when it comes to the relationship of literature. Horror holds the most dispersion upon it out of all the other genres. Some people find it hard to take the horror genre seriously. America and England take over control when it comes to buying horror books. However, horror has been proven to be a very poplar genre specifically in the US and England. Stephen King has an eye for dialogue, the plot of the story, and the personality of his characters when writing a book. Due to this, horror has become a legitimate literary field for the people who have been generous enough to read Stephen King’s books. From increasingly popularity in the horror genre, horror has moved towards literary respectability.

The horror genre has the capability to frighten and scare its readers. Horror can be classified as either supernatural or non-supernatural. The beginnings of the horror genre began with folklore, religious traditions, the afterlife, evil, death, and the demonic creatures that have been created throughout the years since this genre has been created. These ideas came from stories that were based off of witches, vampires, werewolves, and even ghosts. The author, Edgar Allen Poe, was able to create short stories that made the horror genre become far more than just entertainment for the reader due to this genres eerie atmosphere and everyday reality. In some books from this genre, haunted houses are used as psychological symbolism to give the books their haunting credibility.