Guilty pleasure. Supernatural schlock. Adolescent indulgence. It’s true to say that writing of the scary variety often gets a bad rap on the bony knuckles for having little literary worth. Much maligned by genre gatekeepers, it’s rare to see horror fiction (i.e. fiction that’s designed to scare or repulse readers) reviewed in so-called “highbrow” publications, and rare to see it win awards, other than on genre-specific stages, such as the Bram Stoker Awards.

This was recently brought home by the introduction to a fabulous new anthology of tales from the darkside. Namely, The Repeater Book of the Occult in which the editors make a convincing case for the value of the horror genre. They point out that “Fear is rarely treated with the same respect as other more prestigious or edifying emotions and, in the horror genre particularly, fear is often dismissed as a technical contrivance or mere gimmick.”

The following reasons to read, relish, and be enlightened by horror fiction aim to put the record straight.

1. Fear is fundamental, so embrace it and use it

Master of horror H.P. Lovecraft hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”. This explains why horror literature stretches back to the days of Ancient Greece and Rome. For example, Plutarch and Pliny the Younger respectively wrote about ghosts and a haunted house.

Put simply, fear keeps us safe. The physical and psychological reactions sparked by fear (and, by extension, reading horror fiction) alerts us to danger, stops us in our tracks, and makes us consider the consequences of stepping into that cave, crossing that murky river, or inviting that stranger into our home.

2. Horror stimulates empathy

When horror fiction works its magic and converts deep-rooted psychological fears into something that feels real, we get to experience the internal states of others to the nth degree, whether that’s a fear of snakes, spiders, or crazed wolves, or a fear of losing your mind, your family, your place of shelter, or the world as we know it.

3. Plenty of universally-decreed classics are, in fact, horror

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart. Arthur Machen’s The Great God Pan. Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and The Birds.

Nuff said - that’s just a handful of examples.

4. Horror has the power to expose social wrongs

Given that horror fiction is often characterised by scenarios that serve as metaphors for wider societal fears — think brainless zombie masses infiltrating communities, or vampire-esque governments sucking citizens dry — the genre is often used to explore and expose scary real-world subjects.

Lots of pertinent examples of this come courtesy of novels and stories with feminist themes, among them Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, and a few of our recently-published favourites — The Cherry Robbers by Sarai Walker and When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill.

If that’s aroused your appetite for tales from the darker side, delve into our Collections of spine-chilling fiction, witch-themed novels, and books that dare you to walk on the darkside, with more tantalising treasures in our horror and supernatural fiction category.