[Ads-l] horror novel

[Jonathan Lighter]

Not in OED

1892  Times-Picayune (N.O.)  (Apr. 10) 15:  THE PEER AND THE WOMAN, by E.
Phillips Oppenheim. One of the horror novels this, that tries to heap
horror on horror, suicides, mysteries, secrets, but somehow one's hair
refuses to stand on end,...the frightened chill won't crawl down his back,
and he puts it down in disappointed disgust.

Evidently the genre was already full-blown, but this is the earliest
"horror novel" I've seen.

JL


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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