January 2026 Group Read: Unutterable Horror > Likes and Comments

It's the first of December and you know what that means…

Time to nominate our next group read, this one to be read in January. We'll have until Monday the 15th to nominate books, then the poll will go up to end on the 31st.

This time, let's try something a little different. Let's read a book on the history of SF/F/H publishing or the genre(s) in general.

I'll lead us off with…

Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction

Now I’m wondering how I can take a photo of my publishing history bookshelf to make a mass suggestion (or just show off some cool books)….

Steven wrote: "Now I’m wondering how I can take a photo of my publishing history bookshelf to make a mass suggestion (or just show off some cool books)…."

Close your eyes, run your hand along the shelf, and stop at random--then nominate that one!

Or let dice decide.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

Been a few years since I read this one and it’s good to remember that Carter’s nonfiction was a lot better than his fiction

Steven wrote: "https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

Been a few years since I read this one and it’s good to remember that Carter’s nonfiction was a lot better than his fiction"

So nominated!

Imaginary Worlds

Five days left to add another nominee!

What say you all?

Okay, the 15th is here--look for the poll!

Who will cast the tie-breaking vote…?

Vote, y'all!

Okay then, this month we read Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction, Volume 1: From Gilgamesh to the End of the Nineteenth Century by Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi.

Looking forward to diving into this one for sure!

First: at times I am confused how this Goodreads platform for groups even works. And now I get a note that there won’t be personal correspondence. Oh well.

Now. Why is there a preface to this Unutterable Horror? I want to read the guts of the story, not some author explaining (whining) about how he decided to write his rendition. I would rather read that at the end. When I have finished and feel like I want more. Then I read about the author and their opinions.
That being said. This is the first words I have felt helped me.

The intersection of science fiction and supernatural horror would seem to be paradoxical, since science fiction (like mystery fiction) is a mode manifestly based upon the use of reason, whereas the essence of supernatural horror is the incursion of the irrational into an objectively real setting.

Perhaps he should have begun this with his circles of how the genres connected with each other. That intrigued me.

Maybe I’m just too critical or slow on the uptake.

I love that quote and just started reading it this morning. Ditto from me on the unnecessary preface, but I'm strapped in for the rest of the ride!

And, like you, I'll leave quotes I especially like or especially disagree with here for discussion.

Joshi references Lovecraft's "Supernatural Horror in Fiction" as one of his primary sources. That can be found in its entirety here:

https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/...

And other good HPL essays:

"Notes on Writing Weird Fiction"
https://fantasyhandbook.wordpress.com...

And more from me on HPL's "Five Definite Elements":

https://fantasyhandbook.wordpress.com...

"I will maintain that the establishment of Weird Tales itself was the definitive beginning of “supernatural horror” as a distinct genre, just as the establishment of Amazing Stories in 1926 canonically introduced the genre of science fiction."

I agree--the various genres as we know them today were codified in the era of the American pulp magazines, about the first four decades of the 20th century.

Not wanting to start fights, but here I am disagreeing...

This is my problem whenever I read Joshi--he likes to make broad sweeping statements within the scope of the immediate work he's writing but it doesn't hold up under scrutiny beyond that single work. I'm sure his premise works so long as we focus on Weird Tales and after that, but we shall see.

Claiming Weird Tales definitively starts "supernatural horror" ignores the existence of a LOT of material that fits that bill--the majority of Algernon Blackwood's novels (most of which predate 1926) and all of JS LeFanu. Also, the summary text on the book says it covers supernatural fiction as far back as Gilgamesh, so it's an odd position for Joshi to make.

I'm sure he'll have reasons to define things that way or make it specifically regarding genre identification, but I'm leery of what he's going to try and sell me as facts based on a (to my mind) flawed taxonomy

The first chapter does get into the fact that supernatural fiction--though maybe not "horror," per se--makes up the oldest known extant writing. So he covers "supernatural" going back as far back as we go.

The question of what constitutes "horror" is the sticking point. Though there are characters in Homer who are afraid of the monsters (etc.) that they run across, on balance I tend to agree that the Odyssey (etc.) are more in line with "epic fantasy" and not "horror."

But yeah, Joshi pretty much admits in the preface that his bias is toward Lovecraft, while still recognizing that Lovecraft himself talked in letters and essays about the authors and stories that inspired him, including an awful lot of supernatural (though not necessarily "cosmic") horror.

We can certainly see supernatural horror way before Weird Tales (1925). For instance: Dracula (1897). And that's only the one most obvious example.

Through Part I, Chapter III, he's jumping quickly forward in time, and touching on the appearance of various supernatural things (mainly ghosts) appearing in literature from Ancient Greece up through Shakespeare… but there's still no sense that these are horror stories, per se--more like fantasy stories with some gory or unsettling bits, but not meant primarily to scare you. It seems as though at least through the Elizabethan period, horror as a genre is yet to have been invented.

I feel confident that this a safe place wherein I can admit that, several years ago I hard DNFed The Castle of Otranto.

But in any case, I call The Gloomth of Abbeys as a goth band name.

Gloomth is a helluva word, I’ll grant you.

Failing to get a hold of a library copy of this book and the kindle sample only goes up to chapter 3. Unsure if I want to spend $6 on a book that’s been a struggle for me to read and unlikely to be reread

Might have to instead reread Jess Nevins’ Chilling Age of Horror from 2018 as I already have that in my collection

Also add me to the choir of those who tried and DNF Ontranto.

Matthew Lewis’The Monk had more going for it; I’m still amazed I’d picked up Monk on a layover somewhere on a whim (& finding the book I had packed for a trip far too dull). Didn’t know or remember the book’s significance until later but it made for good inflight reading

I read The Castle of Otranto years ago and thought it was okay. I think I appreciate it as a early work of Gothic horror much more than I enjoyed it, but there are certain moments that have stuck with me over time.

Steven wrote: "Gloomth is a helluva word, I’ll grant you.

Failing to get a hold of a library copy of this book and the kindle sample only goes up to chapter 3. Unsure if I want to spend $6 on a book that’s been..."


I added the Nevins book to my wishlist!

Steven wrote: "Also add me to the choir of those who tried and DNF Ontranto.

Matthew Lewis’The Monk had more going for it; I’m still amazed I’d picked up Monk on a layover somewhere on a whim (& finding the boo..."

i read The Monk several years ago and was amazed at how explicit it was--like Quentin Tarrantino does "gothic." Joshi glosses over it, of course, because there really aren't any supernatural elements but it definitey succeeds as a coherent narrative in ways Ontranto does not.

Seth wrote: "I read The Castle of Otranto years ago and thought it was okay. I think I appreciate it as a early work of Gothic horror much more than I enjoyed it, but there are certain moments that have stuck w..."

There were elements that were weirdly over the top, for sure. I could be talked into a second attempt but, I don't know… There are so many other fish in the sea.

The book finally starts to pick up steam when Joshi gets to Frankenstein, a book he obviously actually likes!

Philip wrote: "Seth wrote: "I read The Castle of Otranto years ago and thought it was okay. I think I appreciate it as a early work of Gothic horror much more than I enjoyed it, but there are certain moments that..."

Totally understandable and that's in line with my rereading theory too.

If nothing else, this book is a treasure trove of reading recommendations.

So farI have a folder with a dozen PDFs of single pems, short stories, and essays, and have added at least half a dozen books to my Amazon wishlist.

Some very old horror ahead for me!

I think I’ll just skip to the gothics, in part 3.

Alice wrote: "I think I’ll just skip to the gothics, in part 3."

It wouldn't hurt!

Interesting question here:

"…how do you establish an atmosphere of medieval superstition in a nation that did not have a Middle Ages?"

I’m still unable to find a copy to read so I’ll assuage my guilt by trying to read a massive Weird Tales archive from its first issues through most of the 30s and 40s

Philip wrote: "Interesting question here:

"…how do you establish an atmosphere of medieval superstition in a nation that did not have a Middle Ages?""

For good or ill, the Middle Ages hardly has a monopoly on superstition.

Steven wrote: "I’m still unable to find a copy to read so I’ll assuage my guilt by trying to read a massive Weird Tales archive from its first issues through most of the 30s and 40s"

That will be more entertaining≤/i> at least!

Seth wrote: "Philip wrote: "Interesting question here:

"…how do you establish an atmosphere of medieval superstition in a nation that did not have a Middle Ages?""

For good or ill, the Middle Ages hardly has ..."


Ooh, boy… that's for sure!

Philip wrote: "Seth wrote: "Philip wrote: "Interesting question here:

"…how do you establish an atmosphere of medieval superstition in a nation that did not have a Middle Ages?""

For good or ill, the Middle Age..."

I think what he was getting at is that American authors struggled to conjure the precise sort of superstition or folklore tradition that originated in Europe and the UK. We had to build our own from pieces of all the cultures that mashed together here.

The great drawback of most Gothic novels—The Castle of Otranto, Frankenstein, and a very few others excluded—is their appalling length; even the greatest of them, Melmoth the Wanderer, is nearly crippled by this failing.


And so it is. Proof? That along novel does get boring and isn’t finished. I have never finished Steven King’s FAIRY TALE.

I tend to gravitate to shorter books myself. No novel has ever been made better by having been made longer.

That said, there are long books that stand among my favorites: House of Leaves, Dune, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, The Stand, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell…

But yeah--that time period, even outside the "gothic" genre, seemed to reward books that used 100 words where 1 would suffice: anything by Henry James, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky… and the gothics, for sure.

I'm in such an absurd deadline crunch that finding time to read Joshi--or anything else--is a struggle, but I remain committed to finishing this by the end of the month!

I've found this to be true:

"…it can be noted that Poe reinvigorated the already stale motif of supernatural (and non-supernatural) revenge by infusing it with moral subtleties whereby the perpetrator of the revenge became its unwitting victim."

Poe is interesting on his own terms, but is monumental in his effect on genre fiction from then on.

Poe is so vastly underrated in terms of how he took numerous different genres and showed people how to look at them with fresh eyes (or at least with lenses better fitted for another genre which made an old stale one look new).

I'm continuing to press ahead with this, and gathering essays and book recommendations along the way--which alone is worth it. But my struggle with this finally crystallized last night:

This book reads like a review of supernatural horror, focusing on Joshi's opinion of various works, but with essentially no historical context. He almost never puts these authors in a historical/cultural context. It's just "this is/isn't supernatural" then "I did/didn't think this was a good read."

The first part of that is pretty basic and would have been dealt with simply by skipping non-supernatural horror stories. The latter is of only passing interest. So then… what do we have left here?

I agree. I just feel like this is about books he’s read. And I find the whole report a bore. I actually bought this ebook. I think I’m putting it on my DNF list.

I sat down to read more this morning, starting part VI; Mid-Victorian Horrors, and lo and behold, some historical context!

What is significant is the degree to which scientific advance was requiring supernatural writers to become ever more subtle and indirect in their display of"apparitions" and other weird phenomena, and to imbue those phenomena with symbolic significance in order to justify their appearance in a tale that claimed aesthetic value.

Okay… so I'm pressing on. Thanks to my current torrent of work deadlines I will not be able to finish this in the next 48 hours, but what the hell… who's counting?

Well, a mind-bogglingly busy January is over and I've made it to page 203 of 358.

I will finish this in the weeks ahead, but some semi-final thoughts…?

It starts off pointless, gets kinda irritating, then he seems to get his feet under him once he arrives at Edgar Allen Poe. Now that he's in the Victorian period there's more historical context, and more examples of novels and short stories that definitely fall into the supernatural horror genre. This gives me reason to press on.

I like it, but mostly as an annotated list of things I need to read for myself.

I don't know… this book is not getting more interesting or useful than slightly more interesting and useful than the first half or so. It's fallen back into cynical and overwhelmingly negative capsule reviews that just make me feel bad for all the authors mentioned. And it's a spoiler rich environment, too.

Yeah, sometimes it almost seems like Joshi has just enough reputation to get away with petty shit-talking vs others in print. I’ve not had much respect for his own work because of that petty highschool crap