blogis librorum. A blog about books. Rare books.

Grown organically from the Gothic genre, horror fiction has terrified and captivated readers since its beginnings in the late nineteenth century. It has its roots in novels like The Mysteries of Udolpho, which was itself famously referenced in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. Often dismissed as “penny dreadful”, the horror genre has grown to encompass books, television, and film in the modern age and is one of the most popular genres in each of those mediums. Authors like Anne Rice and Stephen King would not be so popular today without early horror writers paving the way before them. Here are five important early horror writers.

As book collectors and rare book enthusiasts, we understand your need for clear content and simplified resources. In an effort to continue to provide you, our fabulous readership, with the best possible book buying, collecting, and reading experience, we thought we’d take some time to update you on the latest happenings here at Books Tell You Why.

Few thinkers have managed to make philosophy look cool. But within this rare breed, the photogenic, soccer-loving, provocative, and concise Albert Camus may be most eminent. With short and mystifying novels like The Stranger, and profound explorations like The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus’s philosophy was like a rallying cry for a generation of writers confused and traumatized by the Second World War. It was an elevated position that would win Camus the Nobel Prize in 1957, just two and a half years before his untimely death in a car accident at the age of 46.

In his Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1917) which would prove to be one of his most popular works in translation, Sigmund Freud says, “I can promise you this: that by listening to [these lectures] you will not have learned how to set about a psycho-analytic investigation or how to carry a treatment through.” 500 pages later, it turns out that he has kept his promise, but not before warning his listeners that they should not attend a second lecture of his and that they should avoid studying psychoanalysis, lest they risk meeting with “distrust and hostility” from members of the scholarly, medical, and scientific communities. At the risk of playing armchair psychologist, the man may have had a persecution complex.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (1893-1930) has long been a poet of interest not only in Russia, but in many different regions of the world. Mayakovsky was born in what is now Georgia and moved to Moscow during his childhood. He quickly joined the Bolsheviks and the Russian Social Democratic Party, which ultimately resulted in his arrest and imprisonment. Upon his release, he began studying art and writing poetry at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, and he published his first poems in 1912. He soon became tied to the Futurists and, ultimately, to the Russian Revolution. Mayakovsky’s poetry and later his works of drama made him famous in the Soviet Union, and following his death, Triumphal Square in Moscow was renamed in his honor. First editions of his books in the original Russian language are highly collectible, but so are a number of interesting translations.

Throughout the history of literature there have been books that were challenged and even banned due to their depiction of incendiary topics. From race to religion to sexuality to violence, all manner of morally suspect topics have forced books to the forefront of philosophical debate. Whether challenged by protective parents or forbidden by an outraged government, the following books scandalized enough people that the debate surrounding them grew to epic proportions. In fact, many of these so-called scandalous books are still challenged today.

Stephen Crane accomplished much in his short life. Dead from tuberculosis at 28, the author left behind a body of work that captivated readers and significantly influenced writers like Ernest Hemingway. His first novel, Maggie, narrated the titular character’s fall from grace with a frank moral ambiguity that is now ubiquitous in contemporary fiction, film, and TV, but at the time was essentially unseen. Yet not only did Crane help pioneer modern narrative style, of course his most famous book, The Red Badge of Courage, remains well-read and enjoyed to this very day.

If dressing up in costume seems immature or silly to you, well, you may be right. But to cast off foolish fun as unwise would be to ignore that many great minds, from Mark Twain to Virginia Woolf to F. Scott Fitzgerald, have adorned themselves in costume. In doing so, they placed themselves in part of a long tradition, from primitive masquerades to Greek theater to the Globe, in which storytelling is inextricable from costumes and play.

English writer Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh, better known as Evelyn Waugh was an expert satirist as well as an accomplished novelist, short story writer, biographer, and travel writer. He was born in London in 1903 though he preferred the country lifestyle and was a schoolteacher before he moved on to writing full time. He often worked as a special corespondent reporting on conflicts, and he served in World War II. Known for his ability to transform the tragedies of life and his brutal war experiences, his work is often satirical, humorous, and deeply moving. After his conversion to Catholicism, his work took on more religions and Catholic subjects and themes. Though his reputation was that of being self-important, mean tempered, and misanthropic, he was also said to exhibit great kindness among his wide circle of friends.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o is a Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at UC Irvine, and he is a world-renowned playwright, novelist, essayist, and short story writer. Similar to many authors from the African continent, Ngũgĩ began writing in English, or the language of colonization in Kenya and throughout many regions of the continent. Yet throughout his career, Ngũgĩ has rejected the notion that African novelists must write in the language of the colonizer and has begun writing in his native Gĩkũyũ, a language spoken in Kenya and in parts of Tanzania and Uganda. Ngũgĩ translates his own work into English, and has become what he describes as “a language warrior,” or someone who wants “to join all those others in the world who are fighting for marginalized languages.” If you haven’t read the works of Ngũgĩ, we’d like to take this opportunity to make an introduction.