Monday, January 27, 2020

Horror Writer Dorothy Scarborough on This Day in History


This Day in History: Dorothy Scarborough was born on this day in 1878. She is best known for her 1917 dissertation "The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction" which "was so widely acclaimed by her professors and colleagues that it was published and it has become a basic reference work." ~Sylvia Ann Grider
This work is certainly valuable in finding old ghost stories that many may have forgotten about. This, alongside HP Lovecraft's "Supernatural Horror in Literature" are some of the best early works dealing with this topic.


Read The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction

As stated in the Introduction: "There is scarcely any great author in European literature, old or new, who has not distinguished himself in his treatment of the supernatural. In English literature I believe there is no exception from the time of the Anglo-Saxon poets to Shakespeare, and from Shakespeare to our own day. And this introduces us to the consideration of a general and remarkable fact, a fact that I do not remember to have seen in any books, but which is of very great philosophical importance: there is something ghostly in all great art, whether of literature, music, sculpture, or architecture. It touches something within us that relates to infinity."






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