Weird fiction is a subgenre ofspeculative fiction originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Weird fiction either eschews or radically reinterprets traditional antagonists ofsupernaturalhorror fiction, such asghosts,vampires, andwerewolves.[1][2][3] Writers on the subject of weird fiction, such asChina Miéville, sometimes use "thetentacle" to represent this type of writing. The tentacle is a limb-type absent from most of the monsters of EuropeanGothic fiction, but often attached to the monstrous creatures created by weird fiction writers, such asWilliam Hope Hodgson,M. R. James,Clark Ashton Smith, andH. P. Lovecraft.[1][3]
Weird fiction often attempts to inspireawe as well as fear in response to its fictional creations, causing commentators like Miéville to paraphraseGoethe in saying that weird fiction evokes a sense of thenuminous.[1] Although "weird fiction" has been chiefly used as a historical description for works through the 1930s, it experienced a resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s, under the label ofNew Weird, which continues into the 21st century.[4]
John Clute defines weird fiction as a term "used loosely to describefantasy,supernatural fiction andhorror tales embodying transgressive material".[5] China Miéville defines it as "usually, roughly, conceived of as a rather breathless and generically slippery macabre fiction, a dark fantastic ('horror' plus 'fantasy') often featuring nontraditional alien monsters (thus plus 'science fiction')".[1] Discussing the "Old Weird Fiction" published in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock says, "Old Weird 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."[2]
Jeff andAnn VanderMeer describe weird fiction not as a genre of fiction, but rather as amode of literature (i.e. a style or mood) usually appearing within the horror fiction genre.[6]
Although the term "weird fiction" did not appear until the 20th century,Edgar Allan Poe is often regarded as the pioneering author of weird fiction. Poe was identified by Lovecraft as the first author of a distinct type ofsupernatural fiction different from traditional Gothic literature, and later commentators on the term have also suggested Poe was the first "weird fiction" writer.[1][2]Sheridan Le Fanu is also seen as an early writer working in the sub-genre.[1]
Literary critics in the nineteenth century would sometimes use the term "weird" to describe supernatural fiction. For instance, theScottish Review in an 1859 article praised Poe,E. T. A. Hoffmann andWalter Scott by saying the three writers had the "power of weird imagination".[7] The Irish magazineThe Freeman's Journal, in an 1898 review ofDracula byBram Stoker, described the novel as "wild and weird" and not Gothic.[8] Weinstock has suggested there was a period of "Old Weird Fiction" that lasted from the late 19th to early 20th centuries.[2]S. T. Joshi and Miéville have both argued that there was a period of "Haute Weird" between 1880 and 1940, when authors important to Weird Fiction, such asArthur Machen andClark Ashton Smith were publishing their work.[1][2]
In the late nineteenth century, a number of British writers associated with theDecadent movement wrote what was later described as weird fiction. These writers included Machen,M. P. Shiel,Count Eric Stenbock, andR. Murray Gilchrist.[9] Other pioneering British weird fiction writers includedAlgernon Blackwood,[10]William Hope Hodgson,Lord Dunsany,[11] Arthur Machen,[12] andM. R. James.[13]
The Americanpulp magazineWeird Tales published many such stories in the United States from March 1923 to September 1954. The magazine's editorFarnsworth Wright often used the term "weird fiction" to describe the type of material that the magazine published.[14] The writers who wrote for the magazineWeird Tales are thus closely identified with the weird fiction subgenre, especiallyH. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith,Fritz Leiber andRobert Bloch.[1] Other pulp magazines that published weird fiction includedStrange Tales (edited byHarry Bates),[15] andUnknown Worlds (edited byJohn W. Campbell).[16]
H. P. Lovecraft popularised the term "weird fiction" in his essays.[1] In "Supernatural Horror in Literature", Lovecraft gives his definition of weird fiction:
The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain—a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.
S. T. Joshi describes several subdivisions of the weird tale: supernatural horror (orfantastique), theghost story, quasiscience fiction,fantasy, and ambiguoushorror fiction and argues that "the weird tale" is primarily the result of the philosophical and aesthetic predispositions of the authors associated with this type of fiction.[17][18]
Although Lovecraft was one of the few early 20th-century writers to describe his work as "weird fiction",[10] the term has enjoyed a contemporary revival inNew Weird fiction. Many horror writers have also situated themselves within the weird tradition, includingClive Barker, who describes his fiction asfantastique,[19] andRamsey Campbell,[20] whose early work was influenced by Lovecraft.[21]
The following notable authors have been described as writers of weird fiction. They are listed alphabetically by last name, and organised by the time period when they began to publish weird fiction.
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Ann andJeff VanderMeer andChina Miéville have suggested that weird fiction has seen a recent resurgence, a phenomenon they term theNew Weird. Tales which fit this category, as well as extensive discussion of the phenomenon, appear in the anthologyThe New Weird.[41]
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