📕 S.T. Joshi, The Development of the Weird Tale

28 Sep, 2026

This volume is unlike the books i would normally settle down to read, but i had different expectations from it at the outset; i'd expected a scholarly work which would map the development of the weird tale, as the title implied, but the book itself is a collection of essays, introductions, and journal articles, sourced from other publications and arranged in something like chronological order. Thus, all the information i've gleaned about weird fiction has been acquired indirectly from the historical and (largely un-)critical writing the volume contains.

First and foremost, i've learned that the weird tale has its origins in literary continuities and ruptures forged between the gothic and fantasy literatures of the 17th and 18th centuries and the supernatural pulp, and occasionally mainstream, publications of the late 19th and early 20th. The very first writer of weird fiction cited is Mary Shelley, a figure who is also hailed as an early practitioner of science fiction. Her contribution to weird fiction spans further than her novels, extending into the realm of the short story, which, owing to the notoriety of H.P. Lovecraft within the genre, has come to be more closely associated with the weird tale, at least, until the emergence of the so called new weird.

The account of Mary Shelley is followed by accounts of lesser known writers of weird fiction, many of whom are only occasional contributors to the genre, with large and otherwise varied bodies of work. Most interesting to me, however, was the revelation that poetry played a rather central role in the weird¹. Weird fiction appears to have had a very peculiar relationship to poetry in the 20th century. In the early decades of the 1900s, poetry was oriented away from its classical paradigm, towards what we now recognise as Modernism, i.e., a conscious departure from the rhyme and meter of Romanticism, to a freer verse and avant-garde expression. Against this, the practitioners of the poetic weird insisted on adhering to more traditional forms to express their views of the horrible and fantastic. As a result, their work was generally viewed as out of step with the times by the literary mainstream, but viewed favourably by practitioners and connaisseurs of the weird.

Joshi's disquisitions on poetry are followed by a few words on the cinema of Guillermo del Toro, the collection continues on to essays which attempt to closely read a few weird novels, and closes by meditating on a series of novels that were read and appreciated by H.P. Lovecraft, often influencing his work. The author's approach is squarely that of a literary critic, and something of a historian of the weird, with each essay containing meticulous quotes and citations from novels, reviews, correspondence etc. In many ways, it is an extensive and descriptive bibliography of weird fiction, useful to those seeking similar reading material along the same lines. I, however, having picked up the book for a more critical historical perspective, found myself wishing for a wider worldview than the scant mention of world wars, and the pointed avoidance or hand-waving of political matters, even when politics were the focal point of a discussion, the case of del Toro's films, for example.

Furthermore, Joshi seems to skirt the issue of racism in Lovecraft's work and world-view altogether, though Lovecraft haunts every single page of this book. Joshi mentions Lovecraft's anti-Semitism in passing, and briefly acknowledges misogyny here and there, but the acknowledgement of white supremacist underpinnings in Lovecraft's work, as well as in the work of his contemporaries is almost completely absent. Besides these conspicuous omissions, there is a certain warm regard paid to the work of the New Atheists, a group of thinkers who have, in the past two decades, moved closer and closer to the right wing. This, combined with the association of Fascism with Christianity, citing del Toro's cinema, appears incredibly reductive, a feeble attempt to identify one's own special interest with political radicalism². Fascism can be theistic or atheistic, and if one were to cite the Nazi's interest in pre-Christian religion, filtered through their deeply Orientalist lens, and dubious archeological claims, on would find the same well-spring from which much of Lovecraft's mythologies were drawn. In this regard, i do find the book lacking a great deal, though it makes me wonder if there are any serious studies which explore the intersections of early weird fiction and white supremacy and fascism...

#book review #essay collection #literature #weird fiction