The Darkening Garden: A Short Lexicon of Horror

Author, critic, and scholar John Clute has assembled exclusively for Payseur & Schmidt a collection of thirty interlinked essays illuminating the evolution of horror and the horrific. The hidden meanings and dark secrets of horror literature are unraveled with explorations of vastation, affect horror, holocaust fiction, cloaca, and the bound fantastic, to name a few. This complex, chthonic journey cross-references to Clute's Encyclopedia of Fantasy and acts as a set of arguments about the nature of horror that would underpin Clute's future encyclopedic work on the subject of the fantastic.An addition, each entry is accompanied by a brand new illustration by one of thirty hand-picked artists, including Jay Ryan, Tara McPherson, and Steven Weissman. Cover and endpapers illustrated by Jason Van Hollander.165 pages. Signed and numbered limited hardback first edition of 500. Deluxe stamped cover with screen-printed sash illustrated by Adam Grano.