Previously published in 2009.
The Rise of the Supernatural
Michael S. Collins
I - A Welcome to the Supernatural
II - The Foreshadowing of Mr Dickens
II.2 - The Signalman
III - Le Fanu's Haunting
IV - Lost Hearts: Creeping Horror
IV.2 - Lost Hearts
IV.3 - A Warning to the Curious
V - Conclusions
I
A Welcome to the Supernatural
If you look at the history of the supernatural fiction, from recorded
beginning to the current day, it becomes clear that there was a peak of some
magnitude during the Victorian era. This stretches from A Christmas
Carol in the 1840s, until beyond the death of Edward VIII. In this
eighty-year time period, supernatural fiction sold like hot cakes. The people
lapped them up. Every writer known to the language tried their hand at one:
some, like Dickens, tried often, and some, like Le Fanu, were genre
specialists. And they sold, and they were highly regarded for their craft, and
the subject was frequently a best seller. All of the greatest writers of the
supernatural all come from within this time period of 1840-1920.
