The horror “novel” was relatively rare up until about the 1970s. For most of the history of horror the field has been the province of short story writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, M. R. James, H. P. Lovecraft, Oliver Onions, Ambrose Bierce, and many others. But some longer works were around, and after the publication of Stephen King’s Carrie in 1974 the novel became the dominant mode for horror fiction. Can you match the horror authors below with their classic books below that? The answers are at the bottom but I’ll know if you cheat. Zero to five correct could mean that horror is not for you. Six to ten correct is...well, horrible in the best sense of the word. More than ten correct and you’ll have people wondering what kind of childhood YOU had.
1. Bram Stoker
2. Anne Rice
3. Dean Koontz
4. Ramsey Campbell
5. William Peter Blatty
6. Thomas Harris
7. Mary Shelley
8. Robert Louis Stevenson
9. Peter Straub
10. William Hope Hodgson
11. Shirley Jackson
12. James Herbert
13. Ira Levin
14. Anne Rivers Siddons
15. Peter Benchley
a. The Rats
b. The Exorcist
c. The Silence of the Lambs
d. The House on the Borderland
e. Ghost Story
f. Dracula
g. The Doll Who Ate His Mother
h. Rosemary’s Baby
i. The House Next Door
j. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
k. Interview with the Vampire
l. Jaws
m. Frankenstein
n. The Haunting of Hill House
o. Phantoms
Answers: 1. Dracula, 2. Interview with the Vampire, 3. Phantoms, 4. Doll Who Ate His Mother, 5. The Exorcist, 6. Silence of the Lambs, 7. Frankenstein, 8. Jekyll and Hyde, 9. Ghost Story, 10. House on the Borderland, 11. Haunting of Hill House, 12. The Rats, 13. Rosemary’s Baby, 14. House Next Door, 15. Jaws.
