Habsburg Horror. Austro-Hungarian Tales of Terror and Fear.

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

The Austro-Hungarian Empire of the Habsburgs once dominated Central Europe before its collapse after the Great War. It produced great writers like Robert Musil, Joseph Roth, Stefan Zweig, and the marvellous Rainer Maria Rilke.
Please list horror/ghost fiction with this setting. Many of its cities are perfect for the supernatural and the terrible.
The Habsburgs were not immune from the monstrous either, they suffered inbreeding and were known for the Habsburg jaw. 

[Swampirella]

I've searched and searched but so far have come up with nothing. Hopefully others can find something.

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Jul 1, 2021 14:30:32 GMT Swampirella said:

I've searched and searched but so far have come up with nothing. Hopefully others can find something.

This is going to be a successful thread then. 

Gustav Meyrink was born in the empire.

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Stefan Zweig wrote a biography of Marie Antoinette called Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman. Not even bothering to damn with faint praise here.

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Isn't literature wonderful.

[Swampirella]

At least you know your stuff; I've heard of "The Golem" (at least, the movie) & even have a mini clay (?) Golem statuette bought in Prague, but didn't know anything about the author. He's also written some other weird/horror fiction (published posthumously in Weird Tales) but I don't know where it's set or if it was written during the Habsburg era.

There is this, make of it what you will:

[andydecker]

Jul 1, 2021 14:50:13 GMT Swampirella said:

At least you know your stuff; I've heard of "The Golem" (at least, the movie) & even have a mini clay (?) golem statuette bought in Prague, but didn't know anything about the author. He's also written some other weird/horror fiction (published posthumously in Weird Tales) but I don't know where it's set or if it was written during the Habsburg

I don't want to bore you with Wikipedia stuff :-) Meyrink was Austrian and published before and after WWI. The background of most of his novels is Munich or Prague. The Golem for instance is a novel of the Jewish ghetto before the war. Here is another novel.

Walpurgis Night (1917)

Meyrink is more known for his satirical work and is no real genre-writer as we understand them today. He was interested in theosophy and spiritism. Which got him a lot of problems. In 1901 he was working in a bank and writing for the satirical paper Simplicissimus. This made him a lot of enemies, who accused him of influencing female customers spiritistically for his own gain. He was actually arrested, but got acquitted in court. But in the meantime the bank went bancrupt and he was without a job. At the end of his life he left the protestant church and became Buddhist, due to his interest in mysticism.

I have this novel and a copy of The Golem, but frankly I never finished it. The movie has not much - or even nothing - to do with the novel.

[Dr Strange]

You beat me to it Andy, I was about to say much the same - I tried reading The Golem a few years back and gave up on it (which is pretty rare for me). It's full of "occult symbolism" and references to things like alchemy, kabbalah, and the Tarot that just made it too much of a slog to get through - and it seemed to have little if anything to do with the old black and white silent films I vaguely remember seeing on TV as a kid.

[cauldronbrewer]

Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla is set in Styria, part of the Austrian Empire at the time the story takes place.

[cauldronbrewer]

Also, Algernon Blackwood's "The Willows" is set on the Danube, between Vienna and Budapest.

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

I can't think of any either. It seemed a good idea at the time.

Help.

Edited to say I've just realised how obscure this is. Oops.

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Karl Hans Strobl (1877-1946) was born in Jihlava, which is now part of the Czech Republic. His stories were influenced by Edgar Allan Poe and the German writer Hanns Heinz Ewers.
Wikipedia says, in relation to him: The Fantasy historian Franz Rottensteiner states that regarding his shorter fiction, Strobl "showed himself an able writer" and anthologist Mike Mitchell describes Strobl's short story "The Head" as "a masterpiece of the macabre genre".
Strobl wrote horror fiction, and was a monster himself, being a supporter of the Nazi regime and propagandist for it.
Has anyone read The Head? Or indeed anything by him?

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Hugo von Hofmannsthal ( 1874 – 1929) was a prodigy gifted in many fields. He became religious and was buried in a habit.

Among his works is A Tale of the Cavalry. Which seems to be a Freudian "uncanny" psychic narrative. As it follows the five characteristics Freud ascribes to uncanny fiction in his essay on "The Uncanny." This information is taken from the following lecture notes on this tale:

courses.washington.edu/freudlit/Hofmannsthal.Notes.html

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

The Witch of Prague by F. Marion Crawford. Published 1890.

[Middoth]

I'm missed you Vault people

To me "The Head" looks like a prequel to "Hellraiser"

1) quick reading

 

anarchistbanjo.medium.com/the-head-by-karl-hans-strobl-and-translated-by-joe-bandel-221e851b6f2e

2) pleasure reading

www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?322610