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I was thinking about reading some new short stories and novels. If you've got something that's a mixed-genre or really visionary work for its time (progressive/eccentric/surreal), with a connection to contemporary issues, that would be ideal. Any recommendations are appreciated though.

Older writers/stories are preferred, so that if I come across something interesting, I could possibly write an adaptation or a continuation. In the US, literary works can be restricted up to 75 years after the writer's death. That rules out a lot of content from the 1920s-1950s. I think I'm going to start with The Night Land (1912) and The House on the Borderland (1908) by William Hope Hodgson.

Ludvig Holberg - "Niels Klim's Underground Travels (1741)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_K ... nd_Travels

It's actually really good.

For horror, ETA Hoffmann (1776- 1822) is always recommended.

Thanks, UC. I think I read about Holberg years ago, but never got my hands on a copy of this work.

I may check out this anthology for some Hoffmann and other 19th-century horror writers, that I haven't previously read.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1933747226/sr ... 587&sr=1-7

Looks like a good compilation! Nathaniel Hawthorne is an obvious author to check out as well.

Trying to find a copy of the body snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson which is a short story they say....there's a film made with boris karloff that's really good that's a take on it, about medical study and the grave robbing ghouls that provides the bodies for student research...idk that's all I got, 1884...just been reading alot of sci lately...Philip k dick has a short story book called the preserving machine which the short recalls a machine which turns music into living creatures that end up being put back into the machine for their too much to handle, though the musical score is not the same after its been aloud to "evolve" on its own...plenty of good ones in that book like ROOG...anyways not 100 yrs old but R.L.S short is...fuckin drunk night.

A little outside the time but try to hunt down that hideous strength by CS Lewis (yeah the Narnia guy)

HG Wells stuff on socialist utopian societies.

"True Stories" by Lucian?

D.o.S. wrote:A little outside the time but try to hunt down that hideous strength by CS Lewis (yeah the Narnia guy)

Plus the previous novels of that series, "Out of the Silent Planet" and "Perelandra". It's also called the "Perelandra trilogy". I already loved these books as a young teenager. Since my father only had an English copy of "Out of the Silent Planet", this was the first book that I read in English.

And I think for me it's about time to finally read a Jules Verne novel.

William Hope Hodgson is excellent - The House on the Borderland was a huge influence on H.P. Lovecraft's The Rats in the Walls. Other old horror you might enjoy - Arthur Machen's Great God Pan. Also Dracula by Bram Stoker is really impressive if you haven;t read it - I enjoyed it far more than Frankenstein. Some of Edgar Allan Poe's stories are worth a read, but they can be really rambling in my opinion. Guy de Maupassant was another great 19th century writer. If you read H.P. Lovecraft's essay Supernatural Horror in Literature, a large part of that concerns forgotten writers of the 19th century and is a goldmine for decent work of the period, most of it short stories.

The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster (1909) is the inspiration for much of the dystopian subgenre of sci-fi. Definitely ahead of it's time.

http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html


The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892) is also a good, quick read. I wouldn't call it horror, but it is fairly unsettling, psychologically.

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/thel ... -Paper.pdf


The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers (1895) was a huge inspiration to Lovecraft, along with the works of Lord Dunsany, but I haven't gotten around to reading them myself yet.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8492/8492-h/8492-h.htm

If you want to read a more theoretical work that dives deep into the darkness 19th century literature, I'd recommend Mario Praz's "The Romantic Agony" (1930). Although I didn't find myself agreeing with him too often while reading it, I found his take on many classics to be extremely inspiring for coming up with new ideas for my own writing. It is very disturbing at times though...

Alistair Crowley's short storied are early 1900's

not necessarily horror, but there's some good unsettling and off center stuff you can take from what he did into the realms of horror

Crowley as stated above (I used to own a limited edition novel from Centipede Press by Crowley), HP Lovecraft (almost 100 years old), Mary Shelly (duh), Oscar Wilde (Dorian Gray), Richard Matheson (almost 100 as well).

Really your'e more looking into the Gothic literature realm in 100 plus years old. Unless you're talking the earlier 1900's.

If you're just looking for good horror that is more than 30-50 years old, there's a fuck ton. I think the best horror ever has been written in the last century. Though there's some amazing stuff out now, it's just different.

Also, worth noting, I glazed over the second part in my hast. LOL!!

You can do a ton of HP stuff. People do it all the time with no issues. Lots of mythos based on his stuff. Or Crowley's stuff would be really interesting.