Cthulhu MythosThe Cthulhu Mythos is a mythopoeia and a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term was coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent and protégé of Lovecraft, to identify the settings, tropes, and lore that were employed by Lovecraft and his literary successors. The name "Cthulhu" derives from the central creature in Lovecraft's seminal short story "The Call of Cthulhu", first published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. Richard L.
FantasyFantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and usually inspired by mythology or folklore. The term "fantasy" can also be used to describe a "work of this genre", usually literary. Its roots are in oral traditions, which became fantasy literature and drama. From the twentieth century, it has expanded further into various media, including film, television, graphic novels, manga, animations and video games.
FrankensteinFrankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared in the second edition, which was published in Paris in 1821.
Lovecraftian horrorLovecraftian horror, sometimes used interchangeably with "cosmic horror", is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named after American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937). His work emphasizes themes of cosmic dread, forbidden and dangerous knowledge, madness, non-human influences on humanity, religion and superstition, fate and inevitability, and the risks associated with scientific discoveries, which are now associated with Lovecraftian horror as a subgenre.
Decadent movementThe Decadent movement (Fr. décadence, "decay") was a late-19th-century artistic and literary movement, centered in Western Europe, that followed an aesthetic ideology of excess and artificiality. The Decadent movement first flourished in France and then spread throughout Europe and to the United States. The movement was characterized by a belief in the superiority of human fantasy and aesthetic hedonism over logic and the natural world.
Wuthering HeightsWuthering Heights is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name "Ellis Bell". It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their turbulent relationships with the Earnshaws' foster son, Heathcliff. The novel was influenced by Romanticism and Gothic fiction. Wuthering Heights is now widely considered to be one of the greatest novels ever written in English, but contemporaneous reviews were polarised.
Pulp magazinePulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine had 128 pages; it was wide by high, and thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges. Pulps were the successors to the penny dreadfuls, dime novels, and short-fiction magazines of the 19th century.
Romantic poetryRomantic poetry is the poetry of the Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. It involved a reaction against prevailing Enlightenment ideas of the 18th century, and lasted approximately from 1800 to 1850. Romantic poets rebelled against the style of poetry from the eighteenth century which was based around epics, odes, satires, elegies, epistles and songs.
Jane AustenJane Austen (ˈɒstᵻn,_ˈɔːs-; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage for the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security. Her works are an implicit critique of the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism.
Fin de siècleFin de siècle (fɛ̃ də sjɛkl) is a French term meaning "end of century,” a phrase which typically encompasses both the meaning of the similar English idiom "turn of the century" and also makes reference to the closing of one era and onset of another. Without context, the term is typically used to refer to the end of the 19th century. This period was widely thought to be a period of social degeneracy, but at the same time a period of hope for a new beginning.
