Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) was born in Ohio and served in
the Civil War. A lifelong journalist, he disappeared mysteriously
in Mexico in 1913 while on his way to meet Pancho Villa’s army.
Among his works are two collections of stories, Tales of Soldiers
and Civilians and Can Such Things Be?, and a brilliant satire, The
Devil’s Dictionary.
Algernon Blackwood (1869–1951) was born into an upper-class
British family. He emigrated to America at the age of twenty and
stayed there some ten years, during which time he worked as a
reporter for The New York Evening Sun and The New York Times. When
he returned to England he turned to writing fiction and soon made a
name for himself with the John Silence stories, which relate the
exploits of a psychic detective. Blackwood became famous in later
years for playing “the Ghost Man” on BBC radio.
R.W. Chambers (1865–1933) was born in Brooklyn and studied
at the Art Students League and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, exhibiting
in the Salon in 1889. He sold illustrations to fashion magazines in
New York City before taking up writing and finding success with his
collection of stories The King in Yellow, which includes “The
Repairer of Reputations.” In later life Chambers published a number
of highly successful popular novels, including The Restless Sex and
Police!!!, the proceeds from which allowed him to settle in a
mansion in upstate New York, where he devoted himself to hunting
and fishing.
Walter de la Mare (1876–1956) was one of seven children of
an official at the Bank of England. He did not attend university,
but worked as a bookkeeper for an oil company for some eighteen
years, in the course of which he published the poems and stories
that secured his literary reputation. In 1908 a grant from the
Civil List allowed him to write full time. De la Mare’s fiction
includes the novels The Return and The Memoirs of a Midget, as well
as many stories. His poems for children and adults and his
brilliantly inventive anthologies were much admired by T.S. Eliot,
who became his publisher, and by W.H. Auden.
Henry James (1843–1916) was born in New York City. His
father was a distinguished theologian and a follower of Emanuel
Swedenborg; his older brother William James became one of America’s
finest philosophers. James attended Harvard Law School and, with
the encouragement of William Dean Howells, took to writing
criticism and fiction. After 1866 he lived largely in Europe. His
many works include the novels A Portrait of a Lady, The Wings of
the Dove, The Ambassadors, and The Golden Bowl, as well as many
short stories.
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) was born and died in Providence,
Rhode Island. His father died of syphilis when he was eight years
old; his mother was later institutionalized for mental illness; and
Lovecraft himself was a sickly child. In 1913 he joined the
United Amateur Press Association, beginning a career as a writer in
the course of which he published poems, journalism, and stories.
Increasingly drawn to horror fiction, Lovecraft was a regular
contributor to the Chicago pulp magazine Weird Tales. His first
book-length collection of stories, The Outsider, did not appear
until 1939, two years after his death.
Arthur Machen (1863–1947) was born in Wales. After failing to
gain admission to the Royal College of Surgeons, he worked, not
very successfully, as a journalist and translator (most famously of
Casanova’s memoirs). A friend of the mystic A.E. Waite and a member
of the Order of Golden Dawn, Machen was deeply interested in
the occult. His fiction includes The Great God Pan, The Three
Impostors, and The Hill of Dreams.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) was the son of two traveling
actors. Born in Boston, he was orphaned early and adopted by a
tobacco exporter in Richmond, Virginia. Poe attended the University
of Virginia, which he left because of gambling debts, and West
Point, from which he was dishonorably discharged. “MS. Found in a
Bottle” was Poe’s first significant success, and it helped him to
obtain an editorial position on The Southern Literary Messenger in
Baltimore, though he was soon fired for drinking. Poe married his
thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia, and moved north, where he lived
in New York City and Philadelphia while continuing to produce
poems, criticism, and stories at a prodigious rate. After his
wife’s death from tuberculosis, Poe’s behavior became increasingly
erratic. In 1849 he was found drunk and delirious in a bar in
Baltimore, the apparent victim of a political gang that had kept
him inebriated while escorting him from ballot station to ballot
station to cast repeat votes. He died four days later.
M.P. Shiel (1865–1947) was born in the West Indies, the son of
a Methodist minister of Irish and African descent. Shiel studied
classics at King’s College London, flirted with medicine, then took
up journalism. His most popular work in his lifetime was his novel
The Yellow Danger, and Shiel, who became increasingly xenophobic
over the course of his life, is said to have invented the term “the
yellow peril.” His best-known work today is the remarkable
apocalyptic fantasy The Purple Cloud. Described by contemporaries
as “gorgeously mad,” Shiel had become a reclusive religious maniac
by the time of his death. His last book, Jesus, remains
unpublished.
Bram Stoker (1847–1912) was born in Dublin and studied
mathematics at Trinity College, by which time he was already
composing horror stories. He published Dracula in 1897. Among
Stoker’s other books are The Jewel of Seven Stars and The Lair of
the White Worm.
D. Thin was born in Grand Island, Nebraska, and studied in
Paris.
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