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I would say the three you listed are definitely canonical, with Mieville and Vandermeer being considered part of the "New Weird" revival. I think really Jeff and Anne VanderMeer's anthology has most of what would be canonical, along with some more obscure stuff that is important but not widely known.

You can view the authors in that anthology here at this Amazon preview and it's well worth having on your book shelf.

There are certainly important writers who were omitted either by necessity or for other reasons, but it's a great starting point for such a discussion. I for one was surprised William Hope Hodgson, Ambrose Bierce, and Walter De La Mare were not included amongst the older authors in that anthology, and I was a little surprised also that it did not go a little further back, historically, with something like a Poe short story or an excerpt from Melmoth the Wanderer. I would think of Hodgson, Bierce, and de la Mare as canonical, but they were omitted. Oh well, it's impossible to do something like that perfectly.

For what it's worth, my favorite, and in my opinion, those that should be considered modern canon, of the newer weird authors are: K.J. Bishop, Kelly Link, M. John Harrison, and Michael Cisco, in addition to Mieville and Vandermeer. My favorite older ones are De La Mare, Franz Kafka (my favorite author of all time right here), and Jean Ray. I think Kelly Link probably has the most staying power of the more recent authors, while Bishop and Cisco are less recognizable even if they are important. I'd also throw in Ligotti as important to the field, though that's more based on impression and word of mouth than direct experience as I've only read one of his stories. People seem to love that elusive fellow.

Some authors from the middling period (I'd estimate 1940s-1970s) that I would say are most canonical are Daphne du Maurier, Charles Beaumont (wrote for Twilight Zone), Richard Matheson, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury. I was also surprised that Matheson was not included in that anthology. I think that in a lot of cases, stories by those authors are well-known and have become important cultural markers, even if the author's names are sometimes forgotten. Almost everybody is familiar with Jackson's "The Lottery," even if they don't read weird lit. Almost everybody is familiar with one of du Maurier's stories, even if they don't know it (The Birds, Don't Look Now). I think that's an important marker of considering if something is important to a genre because it acts in a kind of ambassadorial fashion. Likewise with someone like Kafka: he wrote very weird stories, and he was so talented at it that a new word was coined to describe something with that particular weird quality that his stories had.

Most of the authors that Centipede Press chooses for its fancy editions should probably also be considered part of the canon, though they do also put out hard-boiled crime fiction and straight-up horror sometimes. S.T. Joshi, who is an important editor in the field, puts out his Library of Weird Fiction series through Centipede, so you can look through those authors as important staples which are in some cases not included in the anthology I linked above.

EDIT - Expanded a bit

Hi WeirdLit,

I'm new to reddit, new to this group and new any online group actually. Not sure I've enough time to contribute very often, but here goes!

I've recently been reading 'Eyes of Horus' by Joan Grant, which is interesting because years after it's publication Joan Grant admitted that it was actually the record of her past life memories and not a work of fiction about ancient Egypt. Strangely it feels quite authentic (or extremely well researched!) - not that I would know, only ever having experienced life in the latter quarter of the twentieth/early twenty-first centuries in the western world!

I've also been reading 'Mycelia' - a new magazine which describes itself as " a new print magazine based in Glasgow dedicated to weird fiction, experimental literature and visual art that explore the weird and the eerie". It's interesting, I have written a short semi-review of the first issue on my blog, here. Anyone else come across this magazine? I think it's worth a look...

I've also recently published a small book of weird fiction on the Amazon Kindle Store (ebook and paperback versions available) called 'The Cenotaph of Dreams' (from Amazon.co.uk), or here for the Amazon.com link. It consists of twenty-eight shots of the surreal, each one limited to exactly on hundred and fifty words - and so far it's only been bought by family members, so any advise on attracting more interested parties would be greatly appreciated!

That's about it from me for now - it would be good to hear from people!

"The Willows" and "The Yellow Wallpaper" are among my favorite horror short stories of all time. I have mixed feelings about "Summer People." I really liked the story up until the end. I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending. I'll probably reread it though.

Regarding Annihilation, my judgement is probably clouded because I'm a huge VanderMeer fan but I loved it. I read it in like 3 hours. I feel like it may not appeal much to fans of his Ambergris stuff though. I don't want to say to much about it because that would spoil it but don't go in with high expectations and you won't be disappointed. Just enjoy it. I'm definitely planning on reading the rest of the series. Also, he and his wife have another anthology out this month which I am excited for.

Just to add to u/autophobe2e 's excellent description. Check out the Ass Goblins of Auschwitz by Cameron Pierce, even the title gives you a rough idea of what the genre is like, it's not for the faint of heart but if you have a peculiar (some may say sick) sense of humour you will love bizarro fiction.

https://www.amazon.com/Ass-Goblins-Auschwitz-Cameron-Pierce/dp/1933929936

I started The Devil Rides Out by Wheatley and was so underwhelmed by the way he does dialogue that I had to put it down. The way his characters speak to each other doesn't seem real or authentic at all. It's like I'm reading a real bad theatric action flick from the seventies or something. I looked at 3 or 4 other points in the story to see if the writing changes and it doesn't. I cannot recommend this, even though I've seen it mentioned by many others on this subreddit.

I tried Alectryomancer and Other Weird Tales and was also underwhelmed, though not for the same reasons. Slatsky is a great writer in that he knows how to use his prose and create some very beautiful passages, but the plots of the first four stories in the compilation, including his No One is Sleeping in this World, a story he's known for I guess, just fell flat, unfortunately. They didn't carry through and I felt it more tragic than irritating, to be honest. It's got only 5-star reviews on amazon as of now, so I bought it, thinking it would be one of the better things I'd read all year. One of the reviewers states that it's a "thinking man's weird tales", yet either I am not a thinking person or this book has been padded by some dishonest reviews. It really is a good attempt at a debut of stories but the plots just did not have the weight behind them, unfortunately. It felt more like a compilation of idea/prose experiments that seemed to all fall short. If I can muster the time, maybe I'll give some more of the stories a shot but, for now, this one goes back on the shelf and feels like a potential waste of money.

I'm currently making my way through Gateways to Abomination by Bartlett. The format of the small shorter passages/stories is one that, I have to admit, I came into the book with a biased against. I've been pleasantly surprised, though. This book is pretty rad when you get into it and I like the feeling of reading different passages about how fucked up Leeds, the town/city, can be.

I'm also making my way through Stephen King's IT and Clive Barker's Books of Blood Vol 4-6. Just recently finished Behold the Void by Fracassi and I can't recommend it enough. Fracassi has some very unique ideas for his stories and executes them with awesome prose—not too verbose and not too succinct, just right.

Writing is going okay. Still churning through the rough drafts of the stories that will be in the next compilation of mine, hopefully self-published by the end of this year (2017).

Google and Amazon have showed me a couple but they are expensive. One is an out of print paperback starting at $150 USD:

https://www.amazon.com/fantastic-art-Clark-Ashton-Smith/dp/0883580136

The other is a hardback book that they are taking pre-orders on for $160 USD, marked down from $250 USD:

https://www.amazon.com/Eldritch-Dark-Collected-Artwork-Ashton/dp/1613470584

This second one seems more likely to be a nice edition. Maybe there are other titles out there as well.

Good luck!

For anyone that's been interested in some of the articles I've posted over the last couple of years regarding pulp authors: there's now a book. Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard & Others collects many of my essays and articles that have appeared online and in print, as well as a couple of original and expanded pieces you haven't seen yet - examining Howard's interactions with fellow pulp writers like H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, Frank Belknap Long, Seabury Quinn, R. H. Barlow, Henry S. Whitehead, his agent Otis Adelbert Kline, the mystic William Lumley and more; there are works that touch on Howard's work in the amateur press and his thoughts on marijuana.

Most of these essays rely very strongly on the correspondence between Lovecraft & Robert E. Howard - and Lovecraft's correspondence about Howard with various other writers in the circle. These are resources that provide much more light and context on Howard's life and work than his letters by themselves provide, since many times we can get more insight into different angles of a conversation or the flow of events - fans of Lovecraft might find this book interesting if only on that angle.

Many of my essays get nominated for Robert E. Howard Foundation Awards; last year one of them actually won. So I like to think there's a bit of scholarly value to them.

Available from Hippocampus Press and on Amazon for US$20 - that'll probably go up in a bit, since my other book normally goes for $25 retail:

https://www.amazon.com/Weird-Talers-Essays-Robert-Howard/dp/1614982589/

https://www.hippocampuspress.com/robert-e.-howard/essays-on-robert-e.-howard-and-others-by-bobby-derie

This is pretty great: Cult of the Great Eleven 7th Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/1511440864/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_CHt5ybWY1XTQQ

If you fancy something a bit on the demons and god end of the scale, why not give my new novel HellCorp a look? https://www.amazon.co.uk/HellCorp-Jonathan-Whitelaw/dp/1911583727

Plenty of depictions of Hell and Heaven in there and imagery was a big part of me telling the story.

Would love to know what you think too!

Enjoy.

>Agents of Dreamland

thank you mate - too many books and less time for reading... So far i managed to read just one collection by Caitlin Kiernan : "The Ammonite Violin"- I loved so much her style and felt at home with her pessimism and bleak views... I'm looking forward to read more, starting from this one here ( usually i avoid collections called "the best of" but she really has a huge production + some titles are not available ). For sure i'll read also her novellas in the future and i thin i'll start from Agents Of Dreamland.

kind of an anthological essay, not fiction, but it's a fun book and has a ton of pointers to other interesting reads: The Book of Legendary Lands by Umberto Eco.

Not sure if you're interested in self-published work, but you might dig my book Corruption. It's a horror/portal fantasy set in Eastern Europe with giant lice, sexual curses, vodka-guzzling wights, and a solar apocalypse. If that sounds up your alley, give it a shot! If not, then I'd say start with the classics - you really cannot go wrong with The Master and Margarita.

Edit: found a typo and thought of another one - Gene Wolfe's The Land Across was great, too, albeit not an easy read.

My backlog of short story collections has gotten way too big as of late, so I think I might sit out this month.

Also, I've been eye-balling the Best of Collection that she is releasing this month. I'm not positive, but I think this is the previous Best of Collection from her, but that one was always way outside my price range.

This might be worth considering? I can vouch for it being a nice set of his complete works, not much in the way of 'extras' but having six small books is much easier to deal with than one monster.

https://www.amazon.com/H-P-Lovecraft-Collection-Slip-cased/dp/1784288608

If you haven't seen it yet, I have very good news for you: https://www.amazon.com/Ladies-Grace-Adieu-Other-Stories/dp/1596913835

The VanderMeer's book The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories is a great place to start.

If you really want to delve deeper into this genre, I recommend getting your hands on Jeff and Ann Vandermeer's anthology The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories. In my opinion there is no other single anthology that covers so much ground of this particular thread of speculative fiction while being up to date with current developments. It is the veritable weird fiction bible, within it you will find selected stories from all the essential writers as well as many more obscure ones. You couldn't find a better place to start if you wanted to see what is out there. I won't repeat any of the suggestions made here, but stories by most of the authors you see in this thread will be in this anthology.