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H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft (Howard Phillips Lovecraft), 1890-1937, American writer, b. Providence, R.I. A master of Gothic horror, fantasy, and science fiction of a most rococo variety, he is particularly noted for his many nightmarish short stories. Most of these are set in his native New England and many or...
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Paul Celan
Paul Celan , pseud. of Paul Antschel , 1920-70, Romanian-French poet. Although he spent his early years in Romania and his later years in France, Celan wrote in German and is widely considered the greatest postwar poet in Europe. A Jew, who lost both parents in a Nazi camp, he composed works that...
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Lon Chaney
Lon Chaney , 1883-1930, American film actor, b. Colorado Springs, Colo. Chaney was the son of deaf-mute parents. He made more than 150 silent films. A master of the use of grotesque, distorting makeup, he is best remembered for his work in horror films such as The Phantom of the Opera (1925). His ...
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Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 1922-2007, American novelist, b. Indianapolis. After serving in a World War II combat unit, he worked as a police reporter. Marked by wry black humor, Vonnegut's satirical, pessimistic, and morally urgent novels frequently protest the horrors of the 20th cent., as in the best-sel...
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Djuna Barnes
Djuna Barnes , 1892-1982, American author, b. Cornwall, N.Y. She is best known for her modernist novel Nightwood (1936), which, in its sense of horror and decay, was likened by T. S. Eliot, who edited the book, to an Elizabethan tragedy. Barnes also wrote several one-act plays produced by the Pro...
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William Wymark Jacobs
William Wymark Jacobs 1863-1943, English author. His humorous sea stories were first collected in Many Cargoes (1896). Of his several horror stories, the most famous is "The Monkey's Paw."
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Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann
Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann , 1776-1822, German romantic novelist and composer, a lawyer. At one time an opera composer and musical director at Bamberg and a gifted music critic, he is most famous as a master of the gothic tale. His stories of madness, grotesquerie, horror, and the supernatural i...
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Gothic romance
Gothic romance type of novel that flourished in the late 18th and early 19th cent. in England. Gothic romances were mysteries, often involving the supernatural and heavily tinged with horror, and they were usually set against dark backgrounds of medieval ruins and haunted castles. The Castle of Ot...
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Pol Pot
Pol Pot 1925-98, Cambodian political leader, originally named Saloth Sar. Paris-educated, and a Khmer Communist leader from 1960, he led Khmer Rouge guerrillas against the government of Lon Nol after 1970. In 1975 he proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea and served as its premier (197...
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Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff , 1887-1969, Anglo-American actor, b. Dulwich, England; his original name was William Henry Pratt. A distinguished character actor with a superb speaking voice, Karloff was famous for his monster roles in Hollywood horror films, notably Frankenstein (1931). His other movies include ...
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