Colonial Horrors

by Graeme Davis

Overview

This stunning anthology of classic colonial suspense fiction plunges deep into the native soil from which American horror literature first sprang. While European writers of the Gothic and bizarre evoked ruined castles and crumbling abbeys, their American counterparts looked back to the Colonial era’s stifling religion and its dark and threatening woods.Today the best-known tale of Colonial horror is Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” although Irving’s story is probably best-known today from various movie versions it has inspired. Colonial horror tales of other prominent American authors—Nathaniel Hawthorne and James Fenimore Cooper among them—are overshadowed by their bestsellers and are difficult to find in modern libraries. Many other pioneers of American horror fiction are presented afresh in this breathtaking volume for today’s reading public. By highlighting these writers for contemporary readers, the book helps bring their names—and their work—back from the dead.Featuring stories by: Cotton Mather, Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, H. P. Lovecraft, and many more.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681775906
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	10/03/2017
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Graeme Davis began writing for tabletop role-playing games in the early 1980s and went on to work for almost all of the major publishers in that industry as a writer and editor. Among many other credits, he helped develop Games Workshop’s blockbuster Warhammer dark-fantasy franchise and the 90s Gothic hit Vampire: The Masquerade. Davis moved into the video games industry in the early 1990s and has created more than forty titles as a writer and game designer. His recent work includes the top-grossing 2012 mobile game Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North and two hit games based on Peter Jackson’s movie version of The Hobbit. From 2009 to 2015, Davis was line editor for Colonial Gothic, Rogue Games’ conspiracy-horror game set in early America. He worked on eleven titles which earned 4- and 5-star reviews on Amazon.com and elsewhere. This is his first book. He lives in Lafayette, Colorado.
Graeme Davis has been fascinated by horror fiction since his teens, devouring late-night reruns of the classic Universal and Hammer movies on his parents’ black-and-white TV and stripping local thrift-stores of horror titles. He began writing for tabletop role-playing games in the early 1980s, and among many other credits he helped develop Games Workshop’s blockbuster Warhammer dark-fantasy franchise and the 90s Gothic hit Vampire: The Masquerade, as well as more than 40 electronic games. This is his second anthology for Pegasus, following on from the 2017 collection Colonial Horrors. He lives in Lafayette, Colorado.

Table of Contents

Introduction Graeme Davis ix

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Washington Irving 1

An Essay for the Recording of Remarkable Providences by Increase Mather 31

Wonders of the Invisible World Cotton Mather 49

Lithobolia R.C. 61

Wieland Charles Brockden Brown 79

The Money-Diggers Washington Irving 93

Rachel Dyer John Neal 161

Moll Pitcher John Greenleaf Whittier 173

The Birth-Mark Nathaniel Hawthorne 197

A Tale of the Ragged Mountains Edgar Allan Poe 215

The Lake Gun James Fenimore Cooper 227

In the Pines W. F. Mayer 239

The Romance of Certain Old Clothes Henry James 255

An Authenticated History of the Bell Witch Martin van Buren Ingram 275

Myths and Legends of Our Own Land Charles M. Skinner 319

The Salem Wolf Howard Pyle 335

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward H. P. Lovecraft 349

Acknowledgments 381

Editorial Reviews

"Rather than the gothic castles of Europe, these feature witch trials and dark and foreboding forests. The colonial period was truly the birthplace of American horror, as these stories point out."

IL) The News-Gazette (Champaign

"A well-curated collection of creepy, spooky, and downright weird pieces by a core group of American authors. As the nights grow cooler and the shadows longer, stoke the fire and curl up with this excellent example of true American horror."

Booklist

Rather than the gothic castles of Europe, these feature witch trials and dark and foreboding forests. The colonial period was truly the birthplace of American horror, as these stories point out.

The News-Gazette (Champaign

A well-curated collection of creepy, spooky, and downright weird pieces by a core group of American authors. As the nights grow cooler and the shadows longer, stoke the fire and curl up with this excellent example of true American horror.

Booklist

★ 09/15/2017
The literature of the uncanny and weird, despite periodic critical disregard, is deeply rooted in American history and culture. Popular novelists such as Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, and Peter Straub are on record citing the influence of the pioneers of American supernatural fiction. Editor Davis, who was the line editor for Colonial Gothic, Rogue Games's conspiracy-horror game set in early America, has gathered 17 selections, published between 1684 and 1927 and featuring authors (from both the colonial era and later) of widely disparate visions—among them Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Henry James, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, and even Cotton Mather, supporter of the 1692 Salem witch trials. Unsurprisingly, much short fiction and novels of the colonial period bear indelible traces of Puritanism. What distinguishes this anthology from others is the historical contextualization given to each tale. European settlers, confronted by vast forests and indigeneous peoples, viewed anything remotely unknown or "spiritual" as pagan—hence evil. This mind-set and its demonization of wild nature resulted in horrors, both historical and literary. VERDICT For lovers of American literature and horror fiction fans, this important anthology reveals how the religious beliefs, historical events, and folktales of the colonial period influenced the writerly imaginations that led to the evolution of the modern horror genre.—William Grabowski, McMechen, WV

Library Journal