1932, The Year of Conan: Sword and Sorcery and Historical Pessimism

Although Robert E. Howard had previously worked out the conventions of sword and sorcery in his earlier Solomon Kane and Kull tales, the publication of “The Phoenix on the Sword” marks an important event in the history of the genre: Conan, the most famous sword and sorcery barbarian, had arrived.

Read More

Testaments of Horror

It appears again and again in horror fiction: The lost journal detailing the events of the story. While there are plenty of good horror stories that are written in third person, many of the best are written in the first person. More interesting is when such novels use multiple forms of media with multiple narrators to tell the story. The media might be journal entries, letters, or even newspaper reports. I will look at three examples: Bram Stoker’s Dracula, H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu,” and Jean Ray’s Malpertuis.

Read More