SOURCE: "Fear in Literature," in New York Literary Forum, 1980, pp. 247-51.

In the following essay which was originally published in La Revue Mondiale in 1927, de Lorde broadly surveys fear in literature from the Gothic novels of the eighteenth century to dystopian visions in science fiction of the early twentieth century.

An entire literature of Fear exists.

Why should this be astonishing? Each one of us has in his innermost being a secret longing for violent emotions. At all times, in all parts of the globe, horror shows have drawn large audiences. The huge amphitheaters in Rome were too small to hold the citizens eager to see the gladiators slaughter one another and the Christians thrown to the lions. If the Inquisition had made public its interrogations conducted on the rack, they would have had to turn people away. To witness the hideous torture of Damiens, the crowd surged...