| Early Modern Fantasy |
| • Lewis Carroll • Fathers of Modern Fantasy • Early 20th Century Fantasy • Popular Authors of Fantasy • |
Genre fantasy as we think of it today has its roots in the Gothic strain
of the Romantic movement as embodied by Horace Walpole, Mary Shelley, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe.
Fantasy as a separate literary genre is generally dated from the works of Lewis, Carroll, George MacDonald, and William Morris in the mid-19th century |
| Lewis Carroll |
Lewis Carroll (1832-98)
was the pen name of the Victorian mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.
His most famous works:
- Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
- Through
the Looking Glass (1871)
take place in the fantasy world of Wonderland.
Though both books contain elements of parody and satire, they were written primarily for children. |
| Fathers of Modern Fantasy |
| Modern literary fantasy is generally considered to begin with George MacDonald and William Morris who, unlike Lewis Carroll, intended their fantasies for an adult audience. |
| MacDonald (1924-1905), a Scottish novelist and poet, is noted for Phantastes (1858). Morris, who was a designer, printer, and poet as well as a novelist, wrote The Well at World's End (1892). |
| Early 20th Century Fantasy |
Fantasy in the period between
1890 and 1930 is marked by the urge to escape from urban culture. A popular topic was the Lost World story. Some fantasy in this period takes a darker turn and exhibits aspects of horror fiction.
Major authors in this period include:
- Edgar Rice Burroughs
- H. Rider Haggard
- Robert E. Howard
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) is the inspiration
for vampire novels such as the work of Anne Rice. |
| In 1923 Weird Tales, the first magazine devoted solely to fantasy, began publication. |
Popular authors whose works are sometimes difficult to quantify as science fiction or fantasy or something in between include
- Ray Bradbury
- Fritz Leiber
- H.P. Lovecraft
- Kurt Vonnegut
|
| Popular Authors of Fantasy |
During this time period many authors of more mainstream, i.e., more realistic works, also become well-known for their fantasy. These include:
- James Barrie
- James Hilton
Other literary authors whose works feature elements of the fantastic include Jorge Luis Borges and Franz Kafka. |
