The tradition of Weird art and literature has, for millennia, invoked within its audience feelings of horror and wonder, drawn from the unknowable frontiers of worlds beyond our own; cities of myth and legend, underworlds; speculative planets and dreamscapes.

These brief character sketches are intended to provide context for some of the notable figures mentioned in HP Lovecraft’s seminal essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature (1924). Aspects of these authors’ works influenced the rise of 19th century Gothic literature, hich would in turn serve as the focal point for the burgeoning institution of Weird Fantasy and Horror in the early 20th century.