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"It Came From the 1950s" is an eclectic, witty and insightful
collection of essays predicated on the hypothesis that popular
cultural documents provide unique insights into the concerns,
anxieties and desires of their times. The essays explore the
emergence of "Hammer Horror" and the company's groundbreaking 1958
adaptation of "Dracula"; the work of popular authors such as
Shirley Jackson and Robert Bloch, and the effect that 50s food
advertisements had upon the poetry of Sylvia Plath; the place of
special effects in the decade's science fiction films; and 1950s
Anglo-American relations as refracted through the prism of the 1957
film "Night of the Demon."
Horror and Gothic in all of their various forms have penetrated the
cultural mainstream in a manner unseen since the last horror boom
in mid/late 1970s; even people who would never before have
entertained an interest in such dark genres are now happily
settling down to watch zombie- and serial killer-related TV shows
after the family dinner. This unique collection of 54 short
biographical essays, by scholars and experts, brings together a
vast array of figures who have played a role in the ever-expanding
world of Gothic and Horror. However, you won't find the usual
suspects here. Names such as Bram Stoker, Vincent Price, and
Stephen King are notably absent. Such titans of terror have
received and continue to receive prominent attention in all manner
of publications. This collection, instead, focuses on those
underrated or overlooked people whom our contributors persuasively
argue are deserving of acknowledgement or reappraisal.
Stimulatingly eclectic, the essays muse and enthuse on figures as
diverse as American singer-songwriter, Tom Waits; British occultist
and author, Dion Fortune; American author and scriptwriter, Charles
Beaumont; Gallo-Roman historian and Bishop, Gregory of Tours;
British gothic novelist and playwright, Francis Lathom; Japanese
video game designer, Shinji Mikami; English stage and film actor,
Skelton Knaggs; 19th-century Irish novelist, Charlotte Riddell; and
Russian-born American experimental filmmaker, Maya Deren.
Informative and entertaining, these essays expand, enrich (and, at
times, challenge) the boundaries of what we actually define as
Gothic and Horror. They celebrate the wide variety of talented
individuals whose participation in Gothic and Horror's ongoing
evolution has been unjustly overlooked...until now.
An eclectic and insightful collection of essays predicated on the
hypothesis that popular cultural documents provide unique insights
into the concerns, anxieties and desires of their times. 1950s
popular culture is analysed by leading scholars and critics such as
Christopher Frayling, Mark Jancovich, Kim Newman and David J. Skal.
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