Behind the Couch

The Newport Art Gallery and Library - the only place in the UK to house a rare collection of books, letters and papers belonging to the first author of modern horror, Arthur Machen (1863-1947) - could close if proposed cuts to its funding are implemented. Machen, often referred to as the ‘Apostle of Wonder’, is perhaps best known as a pioneer of supernatural, fantasy and horror fiction. He has had an immense influence over contemporary horror literature (including writers such as HP Lovecraft, Stephen King, Peter Straub and Ramsey Campbell) and cinema - perhaps most obviously on the work of Guillermo del Toro, whose films Pan’s Labyrinth and Don’t be Afraid of the Dark (which he produced) tap into the very same themes and imagery of Machen’s work: the intrusion of the ancient, the mystic and the incomprehensible upon a modern society. The Friends of Arthur Machen literary society has asked for assurance that the collection will remain open to the public even if closure takes pla...

'The Father of the English Ghost Story', Dublin-born Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, is best known to admirers of Gothic fiction as the influential author of such chilling tales as Uncle Silas , The House by the Churchyard , The Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter , and, perhaps most famously, the short story collection In A Glass Darkly , which contains Green Tea, The Room in the Dragon Volant, The Familiar, and, of course, Carmilla . Carmilla  (1872) was groundbreaking for its time, not least because of its subtle love affair between the two main female characters. Taking his cue from John Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819), Le Fanu’s darkly sensual tale, detailing the delicate yet increasingly sinister courtship of a young woman by a female vampire, further entwined the figure of the vampire with notions of forbidden sexuality. Le Fanu was deeply influenced by the historical figure of Elizabeth Báthory, a Hungarian countess who reputedly bathed in the blood of young...

British horror author James Herbert, whose blood-curdling novels include The Rats and The Fog , passed away last night at the age of 69. The writer died at his home in Sussex, and is survived by is wife and three daughters. The cause of death has yet to be disclosed. Herbert exploded onto the horror scene in 1974 with his debut novel The Rats - the nightmarish tale of mutant, flesh-eating rats and the bloody havoc they wreck throughout a squalidly depicted London. It sold 100,000 copies in the two weeks after it was published. His follow up, The Fog (completely unrelated to the John Carpenter film) told of a mysterious fog that spreads across Britain mutating those who encounter it into homicidal maniacs. Often bleak and downbeat, Herbert’s stories were uncompromising in their depiction of the violent demise of humankind in the face of unspeakable evil - often of an environmentally created bent. Born in London in 1943, Herbert studied graphic design at college before going on...

Born on January 19th in 1809, Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most recognised and revered names in gothic literature. Part of the American Romantic movement, Poe is best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre. Not only an author and a poet, he was also a literary critic and editor, and one of the earliest practitioners of the short story. Now widely regarded as inventing detective fiction, Poe was also a popular crime and horror author, his influence spreads far and wide, and amongst the writers who owe a tremendous dept to his work are Herman Melville, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Charles Dickens, Walt Whitman, HP Lovecraft and Jules Verne, to name but a few. A true visionary, Poe was one of the first well-known American writers to attempt to irk out a living through writing alone, leading him down a path of financial instability and uncertainty. His gruesome stories reflected his inner turmoil. Haunted by the death of his mother, Poe wrestled with fears of aban...

If the motorcycle-straddling residents of Zombie Town ring your bell, and the prospect of revisiting Camp Crystal Lake or watching those killer klowns from outer space do their thing for the umpteenth time fills you with unarticulated glee, then chances are, you’re probably something of a connoisseur of bad movies. If you prefer Alan Smithee to Avant-garde, I think you’ll know where I’m coming from. And its fine! You’re in good company. Let’s face it, sometimes having a good ole’ rummage through the bargain bin in your local discount shop and withdrawing your hand to find it clammily clutching some truly abhorrent title involving ‘atomic zombie moms’ is, lets be honest, truly sublime. But what is it that draws us time and time again to these cheap, tacky and downright bad movies? What’s more – what makes us reserve a special place in our heart for them? These are but a few of the burning questions author Nathan Shumate addresses in his brand new book The Golden Age of Crap . No s...

Bram Stoker In light of the fact that Dracula is this year's Dublin: One City, One Book's selected text, I thought it appropriate to delve into the background of the novel's author: Bram Stoker. Born in Dublin in November 1847, Stoker was a sickly child and bedridden for much of his formative years. As a young man he attended Trinity College in Dublin and excelled in athletics as well as academic studies and was friends with Oscar Wilde. He graduated in 1868 with a degree in mathematics and began working as a civil servant in Dublin Castle. This experience inspired him to write his first book, the rather riveting sounding Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland . This thrilling epic took the form of a handbook of legal administration and was published in 1878. At this stage, Dracula was but a mere twinkle in Stoker’s eye, and the budding writer busied himself with some freelance journalism and theatre criticism. Stoker eventually met and married Florence Bal...