American Fantastic Tales: from Poe to Now

[monker]

Apr 12, 2011 8:07:12 GMT julieh said:

Is it just me, or are there a disproportionate representation of female authors, at least in the early volume - not that there weren't female horror writers, but that they are generally poorly represented (at least under female names) in anthologies?

I' mean, I love it - it's very cool to know they dug out a bunch - but it actually surprised me.

I'm impressed - now let's hope they aren't included ONLY for their gender. That would suck.

I must admit, I get a bit chuffed when I read something from a female author that I like as I see them as sort of an untapped source, in a sense. It's not so much that I think they are unrepresented in general, though they very well may be, but more so that the type of supernatural fiction written by women that you most often find seems to be of a certain type. Some that have gained reputations don't do a lot for me. Maybe it has something to do with the social situations in place over much of what people call the golden age of the ghost story, mixed with the influence from whatever the publishers encouraged them to write about.

Mind you, all this comes from the perspective of someone who basically restricts their reading to the old stuff for practical purposes. Its just that If you were to restrict yourself to the 'big names' from those years, I think you would largely have to look fairly far down before you struck a women author. The fruits start to appear once you do a bit of hard work or research.

[julieh]

I don't think it's necessarily because women only write one style of story, but more that women who wrote outside the expected story type often wrote under a pseudonym (same as in the sci fi and detective arenas), since it wasn't as acceptable from a female. Doesn't mean they're not out there, just harder to find.

Like I said, hoping they're not just included because they're ladies....

[monker]

I must have missed that part of your last post.

Knowing that some women writers were discouraged from writing certain styles of stories, I'm sure the male pseudonym tactic was used from time to time but the art of uncovering these pseudonyms and so forth, improves over time and we/they usually know at least a little bit about each writer and just what kind of fundamentals greeted their loved ones and acquaintances each day. To attempt to answer the unanswerable, short of bluntly asking Straub himself, we can only judge for ourselves whether we think the stories are worthy or not.

[andydecker]

Peter Straub (ed.) - American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps (The Library of America, 2009, #196, 746 pages)

Peter Straub (ed.) - American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940s to Now (The Library of America, 2009, #197, 713 pages)

Covers found on the net. Thanks to the original scanner.