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Synopsis

Horror fiction is a special and enduring pleasure, invoking fear and wonder. For centuries, writers have struggled to achieve the sublime through these tales, at times creating works of enduring interest. Horror novels have become one of the major bestselling forms of fiction in recent years, and Hollywood has given us a huge and varied supply of popular films, which has created an audience in the millions for horror. But throughout history, many of the finest achievements in horror have been in short fiction. From these masterpieces have been selected the contents of Foundations of Fear.

This anthology presents an international selection of the strongest work by writers such as Clive Barker, H.P. Lovecraft, and Arthur Machen, who have been identified as category horror writers, and by writers such as Carlos Fuentes, Gerald Durrell, and Daphne Du Maurier, whose literary reputations transcend category. For horror in literature cuts across all category boundaries. Thus the reader will find in this volume domestic horror stories by Thomas Hardy, Violet Hunt and Mary Wilkins Freeman; and stories by Robert A. Heinlein and Philip K. Dick, masters of science fiction.

The Introduction to Foundations of Fear takes particular note of women writers, who have made important contributions to the development of the horrific in literature; in addition to those already mentioned the collection includes works by Madeline Yale Wynne, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Gertrude Atherton, and others. Foundations of Fear challenges the notion that the supernatural in fiction has in modern times been supplanted by the psychological, the idea that horror is dead. Horror is one of the dominant literary modes of our time, a vigorous and living body of literature that continues to thrill us with the mystery and wonder of the unknown.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1992) - essay by David G. Hartwell
• Don't Look Now - (1971) - novella by Daphne du Maurier
• They - (1941) - shortstory by Robert A. Heinlein
• At the Mountains of Madness - (1936) - novel by H. P. Lovecraft
• The Little Room - (1895) - shortstory by Madeline Yale Wynne
• The Shadowy Street - (1965) - novelette by Jean Ray (trans. of La ruelle ténébreuse 1932)
• Passengers - (1968) - shortstory by Robert Silverberg
• The Moonstone Mass - (1868) - shortstory by Harriet Prescott Spofford
• The Blue Rose - (1985) - novella by Peter Straub
• Sandkings - (1979) - novelette by George R. R. Martin
• The Great God Pan - (1894) - novella by Arthur Machen
• Aura - (1965) - novelette by Carlos Fuentes (trans. of Aura 1962)
• Barbara, of the House of Grebe - (1890) - novelette by Thomas Hardy
• Torturing Mr. Amberwell - (1985) - novelette by Thomas M. Disch
• The Prayer - (1895) - novelette by Violet Hunt
• Who Goes There? - (1938) - novella by John W. Campbell, Jr.
• ... and my fear is great - (1953) - novella by Theodore Sturgeon
• When Darkness Loves Us - (1985) - novelette by Elizabeth Engstrom
• We Purchased People - (1974) - shortstory by Frederik Pohl
• The Striding Place - (1896) - shortstory by Gertrude Atherton
• In the Hills, the Cities - (1984) - novelette by Clive Barker
• Faith of Our Fathers - (1967) - novelette by Philip K. Dick
• The Bell in the Fog - (1905) - novelette by Gertrude Atherton
• The Sand-Man - (1885) - novelette by E. T. A. Hoffmann (trans. of Der Sandmann 1816)
• Bloodchild - (1984) - novelette by Octavia E. Butler
• Duel - (1971) - novelette by Richard Matheson
• Longtooth - (1970) - novelette by Edgar Pangborn
• Luella Miller - (1902) - shortstory by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
• The Entrance - (1979) - novelette by Gerald Durrell
• The Lurking Duck - (1983) - novella by Scott Baker
• Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story - (1985) - novelette by Thomas Ligotti

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