Before 1000 , 1900|An illustration of
Andrew Lang's "
Athenodorus confronts the Spectre" The horror genre has ancient origins, with roots in folklore and religious traditions focusing on death, the afterlife, evil, the demonic, and the principle of the thing embodied in the person. These manifested in stories of beings such as demons, witches, vampires, werewolves, and ghosts. Some early European horror-fiction were the
Ancient Greeks and
Ancient Romans.
Mary Shelley's well-known 1818 novel about
Frankenstein was greatly influenced by the story of
Hippolytus, whom
Asclepius revives from death.
Euripides wrote plays based on the story,
Hippolytos Kalyptomenos and
Hippolytus. In
Plutarch's
Parallel Lives in the account of
Cimon, the author describes the spirit of a
murderer, Damon, who himself was murdered in a
bathhouse in
Chaeronea.
Pliny the Younger (61 to 113) tells the tale of
Athenodorus Cananites, who bought a haunted house in
Athens. Athenodorus was cautious since the house seemed inexpensive. While writing a book on philosophy, he was visited by a ghostly figure bound in chains. The figure disappeared in the courtyard; the following day, the magistrates dug in the courtyard and found an unmarked grave. Elements of the horror genre also occur in
Biblical texts, notably in the
Book of Revelation.
After 1000 The
Witch of Berkeley by
William of Malmesbury has been viewed as an early horror story.
Werewolf stories were popular in medieval
French literature. One of
Marie de France's twelve
lais is a werewolf story titled "
Bisclavret". , the inspiration for
Count Dracula. The Countess Yolande commissioned a werewolf story titled "
Guillaume de Palerme". Anonymous writers penned two werewolf stories, "Biclarel" and "
Melion". Much horror fiction derives from the cruellest personages of the 15th century.
Dracula can be traced to the Prince of
Wallachia Vlad III, whose alleged
war crimes were published in
German pamphlets. A 1499 pamphlet was published by Markus Ayrer, which is most notable for its
woodcut imagery. The alleged serial-killer sprees of
Gilles de Rais have been seen as the presumed inspiration for "
Bluebeard". The motif of the vampiress is most notably derived from the real-life noblewoman and murderer,
Elizabeth Bathory, and helped usher in the emergence of horror fiction in the 18th century, such as through László Turóczi's 1729 book
Tragica Historia.
18th century wrote the first
Gothic novel,
The Castle of Otranto (1764), initiating a new literary genre.
Otranto inspired
Vathek (1786) by
William Beckford,
A Sicilian Romance (1790),
The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794),
The Italian (1796) by
Ann Radcliffe, and
The Monk (1797) by
Matthew Lewis.
19th century by
Richard Rothwell (1840–41) The
Gothic tradition blossomed into the genre that modern readers today call horror literature in the 19th century. Influential works and characters that continue resonating in fiction and film today saw their genesis in the
Brothers Grimm's "
Hänsel und Gretel" (1812),
Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818),
John Polidori's "
The Vampyre" (1819),
Charles Maturin's
Melmoth the Wanderer (1820),
Washington Irving's "
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820),
Jane C. Loudon's
The Mummy!: Or a Tale of the Twenty-Second Century (1827),
Victor Hugo's
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831),
Thomas Peckett Prest's
Varney the Vampire (1847), the works of
Edgar Allan Poe, the works of
Sheridan Le Fanu,
Robert Louis Stevenson's
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886),
Oscar Wilde's
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890),
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "
Lot No. 249" (1892),
H. G. Wells'
The Invisible Man (1897), and
Bram Stoker's
Dracula (1897). Each of these works created an enduring icon of horror seen in later re-imaginings on the page, stage, and screen.
20th century A proliferation of cheap periodicals around the turn of the century led to a boom in horror writing. For example,
Gaston Leroux serialized his ''
Le Fantôme de l'Opéra before it became a novel in 1910. One writer who specialized in horror fiction for mainstream pulps, such as All-Story Magazine,
was Tod Robbins, whose fiction deals with themes of madness and cruelty. In Russia, the writer Alexander Belyaev popularized these themes in his story Professor Dowell's Head (1925), in which a mad doctor performs experimental head transplants and reanimations on bodies stolen from the morgue and which was first published as a magazine serial before being turned into a novel. Later, specialist publications emerged to give horror writers an outlet, prominent among them was Weird Tales and Unknown Worlds''. in 1915 Influential horror writers of the early 20th century made inroads in these mediums. Particularly, the venerated horror author
H. P. Lovecraft, and his enduring
Cthulhu Mythos transformed and popularized the genre of
cosmic horror, and
M. R. James is credited with redefining the
ghost story in that era. The
serial murderer became a recurring theme.
Yellow journalism and
sensationalism of various murderers, such as
Jack the Ripper, and lesser so,
Carl Panzram,
Fritz Haarman, and
Albert Fish, all perpetuated this phenomenon. The trend continued in the postwar era, partly renewed after the murders committed by
Ed Gein. In 1959,
Robert Bloch, inspired by the murders, wrote
Psycho. The crimes committed in 1969 by the
Manson Family influenced the slasher theme in horror fiction of the 1970s. In 1981,
Thomas Harris wrote
Red Dragon, introducing
Dr. Hannibal Lecter. In 1988, the sequel to that novel,
The Silence of the Lambs, was published. Early cinema was inspired by many aspects of horror literature, and started a strong tradition of
horror films and subgenres that continues to this day. Up until the graphic depictions of violence and gore on the screen commonly associated with 1960s and 1970s
slasher films and
splatter films,
comic books such as those published by
EC Comics (most notably
Tales From The Crypt) in the 1950s satisfied readers' quests for horror imagery that the
silver screen could not provide. This imagery made these comics controversial, and as a consequence, they were frequently censored. The modern
zombie tale dealing with the motif of the living dead harks back to works including H. P. Lovecraft's stories "
Cool Air" (1925), "In The Vault" (1926), and "
The Outsider" (1926), and
Dennis Wheatley's "Strange Conflict" (1941).
Richard Matheson's novel
I Am Legend (1954) influenced an entire genre of apocalyptic zombie fiction emblematized by the films of
George A. Romero. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the enormous commercial success of three books – ''
Rosemary's Baby (1967) by Ira Levin, The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, and The Other'' by
Thomas Tryon – encouraged publishers to begin releasing numerous other horror novels, thus creating a "horror boom". in 2007 One of the best-known late-20th century horror writers is
Stephen King, known for
Carrie,
The Shining,
It,
Misery, and several dozen other novels and about
200 short stories. Beginning in the 1970s, King's stories have attracted a large audience, for which he was awarded by the U.S. National Book Foundation in 2003. Other popular horror authors of the period included
Anne Rice,
Shaun Hutson,
Brian Lumley,
Graham Masterton,
James Herbert,
Dean Koontz,
Richard Laymon,
Clive Barker,
Ramsey Campbell, and
Peter Straub.
21st century Best-selling book series of contemporary times exist in genres related to horror fiction, such as the
Kitty Norville books by
Carrie Vaughn that contain blend
werewolf fiction and
urban fantasy (2005 onward). Horror elements continue to expand outside the genre. The
alternate history of more traditional historical horror in
Dan Simmons's 2007 novel
The Terror sits on bookstore shelves next to genre
mash ups such as
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009), and
historical fantasy and
horror comics such as
Hellblazer (1993 onward) and
Mike Mignola's
Hellboy (1993 onward). Horror also serves as one of the central genres in more complex modern works such as
Mark Z. Danielewski's
House of Leaves (2000), a finalist for the
National Book Award. Like Danielewski, many authors have opted to publish their works online, with notable examples including
Ben Drowned by
Alex Hall and
Candle Cove by
Kris Straub. There are many horror novels for children and teens, such as
R. L. Stine's
Goosebumps series or
The Monstrumologist by
Rick Yancey. Additionally, many movies for young audiences, particularly animated ones, use horror aesthetics and conventions (for example,
ParaNorman). These are what can be collectively referred to as "children's horror". Although it is unknown for sure why children enjoy these movies (as it seems counter-intuitive), it is theorized that it is, in part, grotesque monsters that fascinate kids. ==Characteristics==