The Horror Of Christmas
By Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, M. R. James, Thomas Hardy, Saki, Sabine Baring-Gould, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens, Fergus Hume, John Kendrick Bangs, Jerome K. Jerome, Leonard Kip, Catherine Crowe, Lucie E. Jackson, William Douglas O'Connor, Frank R. Stockton, James Bowker, Grant Allen, Louisa M. Alcott, Florence Marryat, Katherine Rickford, James Matthew Barrie, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, George MacDonald, Bithia Mary Croker, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Catherine L. Pirkis, E. F. Benson & Algernon Blackwood
- Release Date: 2020-12-17
- Genre: Horror
Description
'The Horror of Christmas' captures the chilling paradox between festive joy and the haunting depths of human psyche, making it a riveting addition to the genre of horror literature. This collection draws together an exceptional array of narratives from gothic to ghostly, curated from the pens of the finest Victorian and early Edwardian authors. Sprinkled among these tales are seminal pieces influenced profoundly by folk traditions and the eerie silences of winter nights during the Yuletide season, capturing a broad spectrum of literary styles from the melancholic to the macabre. Every story adds a unique undertone to the overarching theme of spectral dread blended with the warmth of the holiday season, thus painting a diverse yet unified picture of historical and personal anxieties shadowed by Christmas lights. Assembled with keen insight by esteemed literary figures such as Arthur Conan Doyle and Nathaniel Hawthorne, the authors in this collection bring to the anthology variegated backdrops of cultural and psychological landscapes. Their collective works reflect varied facets of terror intertwined with cultural festivities, echoing movements from Romanticism to the early stirrings of Modernism. Each narrative enriches the central theme by exploring the contraposition of Christmas cheer with the ghostly and ghastly, examining how tradition intertwines with fear in the collective consciousness of society. 'The Horror of Christmas' invites readers to delve into a panorama of festive dread and supernatural intrigue. Offering more than mere entertainment, this anthology serves as a cultural artifact, illuminating the darker corners of seasonal lore across different epochs and societies. It's an essential collection for those who cherish both the joy and eeriness of Christmas, providing rich insights and raising intriguing questions about why this season of light might also be a time of shadows. This anthology is a compelling invitation to reevaluate the familiar, through a lens tinted with the spectral and the uncanny.
