"You must be mad to enjoy this, am I?"

Nugget about the author:

What else can be said about Edgar Allan Poe? (Other than the fact that finding him smiling in a picture would be creepy as hell!) So instead of the usual short bio, here are a few strange things about the Godfather of Gothic.

• He intentionally got himself court- martialed to get out of West Point Military Academy.
• In his overlooked sci-fi writings, he proposed the Big Bang Theory about 80 years before it was called the Big Bang Theory.
• It is said that he invented the word "tintinnabulation". A word describing the sound emitted by the ringing of bells.
• He is credited to be the first writer to use the term "short story", and to popularize the detective genre. Poe is also known as America's first-ever successful writer, that is, the first to make a living from just writing prose and poetry. (for those days, it still means he struggled financially and personally)
• He got a license to marry his 13 year old cousin, Virginia Clemm. Apparently this was something they did back in the day, that is, get a license to marry... and marry underaged cousins. She died about 11 years later of tuberculosis. Her death, it is said, affected much of his darker work. As did his alcoholism.
• The night before his death, he was found to be wearing another person's clothes and shouting the name "Reynolds! Reynolds! Reynolds!" No one knows to whom he was referring to.
• No one knows for sure how (or if) he died that night. All medical records have disappeared.
• Poe's Death Certificate too had been lost. To be found, never more.

Look for more Edgar Allan Poe wherever great books are found.

Narrator's Note:

What is more frightening? That ghosts are real? Or being laughed at for believing that ghosts are real?

A nugget about Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards:

Novelist. Journalist. Illustrator. Poet. Traveller. Egyptologist. This section might be too small for the life that was Amelia Edwards. She wrote about her travels across Europe and the Nile, often accompanied by a female companion. It is said that she was more emotionally attached to women more than men, though there are no documents that firmly affirms the intimate nature of those relationships. She authored and illustrated works which spanned fiction and non-fiction, and was even honored with the title of "Godmother of Egyptology" for her contributions to the field. But as her gothic horror stories (which are rich in human insight) are almost always included in compilations, it'd be safe to call her one of the many Godmothers of Gothic Horror.

Let's not forget the life and works of one of the most remarkable women writers in history.

Look for the works, fiction and non-fiction, of Amelia B. Edwards wherever great books are available.

Narrator's Note:

We make our own horrors. Don't we?

A nugget about the author:

"Gadzooks! BM Croker is a Woman?! Impossible!" was probably what people said in them olden days where women authors had to hide the fact that they were women. Which is a horror story unto itself, and one that the present world is still perpetuating in one form of another.

But, Bithia Mary Croker was one of the most eclectic and prolific writers of the late 1800's and well into the turn of the century with a career spanning 37 years, writing around 42 novels and 7 volumes of short stories-- and it wasn't all horror.

A keen observer of human nature and social interactions, Bithia's writings included topics which challenged the conventions of her time while being open-minded and understanding enough to the male perspective.

Let us not forget the works of one of the most prolific and pioneering female writers in history, who lived in a time dominated by male authors.

Look for B.M. Croker's works wherever great books are available.

Narrator's Note:

What chance does young, overly romantic idealism have when its infatuation is the very embodiment of evil?

A nugget about John William Polidori.

Stoker wasn't the first to drop a remix on vampires. 78 years before Dracula, John William Polidori published The Vampyre in 1819 -- born out of a challenge to write ghost stories by his social circle, namely, Lord Byron, and Percy & Mary Shelley.

The Vampyre was wrongly credited to Lord Byron at the time of publication, much to the dismay of Byron and Polidori. Byron later finished and published his own vampire story ("Fragment of a Novel") to rectify the false accreditation. Though it should be mentioned that Polidori took inspiration from the vampire story that Byron discarded earlier.

Another nugget:

Polidori was also Byron's personal physician.

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Let us not forget the stories and poems of writing innovator's like John William Polidori. Look for his works wherever great works are available.

DEFINITELY NOT FAMILY FRIENDLY CONTENT!

A nugget about the authors:

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were no strangers to the real-life horrors of death and poverty. Three of their siblings died in infancy. Their father died before the brothers were 12 and their grandfather died two years later. Being the oldest surviving children in the family, they had to assume the role of grown-ups -- no easy feat in the 17 and 1800s.

While they had some support from their Aunt, they were still extremely impoverished. They learned to become industrious and worked hard to earn excellent marks. But being poor would haunt them for a significant portion of their lives. At school and university they were deemed as "inferior" and of "low social status", and were denied the academic privileges that richer students enjoyed purely because of their social standing. This, however, forced them to bolster their work ethic -- which earned them the attention of professors, who in turn encouraged them to pursue medieval German literature and along with it, folklore.

While their studies were hindered by illness and a dire need for jobs to feed the family, their occupations offered them some time to pursue their keen interest in languages, literature and story-telling. After much hardship, they published several academic works which were lauded (and helped put more food on the table) and of course the work they are known for today, Grimm's Fairy Tales. Known otherwise as Children's and Household Tales, they were deemed too violent and sexual. Not exactly family friendly content, as those folk tales were taken from the stories passed down from generation to generation through oral story-telling from times when life was more unforgiving. Nevertheless, they rewrote, edited and re-published them several times to cater to a wider audience.

There are those who say that the Grimm Brothers published those ancient folk-tales to preserve them, but others believe that working on those stories were helping them come to terms with the harsh fate they grew up with.

Perhaps, almost for the same reasons why we love horror stories.

If you dare, seek out more of Grimm's Fairy Tales... in all their gory... wherever great tales are sold.

Narrator's Note:

Vox populi, vox Dei. (The Voice of the People, is the Voice of God)

A nugget about Shirley Hardie Jackson:

Many of today's renowned horror novelists cite Shirley Jackson as a major influence. You may have heard of Netflix's adaptation of "The Haunting of Hill House", but her book -- the original source -- is considered to be one of the greatest supernatural ghost stories of the 20th century, and of all time. Yet her most famous story is "The Lottery".

When first published in 1948, it caused an uproar, prompting hundreds of abusive letters to be sent by outraged readers. During a time when men declared that "a woman's place is in the home", Shirley Jackson was the bread-winner, raising four kids and making a name for herself in the literary world, though her unfaithful husband tightly controlled the finances she earned from her growing success. She died in 1965 due to a heart condition. She was 48.

Let's not forget one of the 20th century's greatest writers, and what we can continue to learn from her mind.

Look for Shirley Jackson's works wherever great novels are available.

Narrator's Note:

Take care when entering a haunted house, for you hunt a past that to you is unknown.

A nugget about Algernon Blackwood.

Not a name you think of when you think of a private secretary, dairy farmer, model or bartender, but Blackwood was all those things at one time or another. Safe to say his real interests lay in the mysteries of the occult and the supernatural, such that H.P. Lovecraft named him one of the "Modern Masters of Supernatural Horror", and H.P. was pretty spooky. And being a spook-master himself, Blackwood was a member of The Ghost Club as well as a faction of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which only seems like places to join if your name is Blackwood.

Look out for the works of Algernon Blackwood wherever great books are available, if you dare.