Fears of all kinds have been the topic of horror fiction, of the unknown, of death, of evil, of monsters, ghosts, and other abnormal beings. Writers such as Edgar Allan Poe focused on such fears and helped inaugurate the horror genre. But "fear literature" had existed well before Poe in the work of various Gothic authors, including Mary Shelley. Vampires, mummies, werewolves, zombies, and invisible creatures, and psychologically warped humans became popular subjects for short and long fiction.

Notable Horror Fiction Writers fills a need for an authoritative overview of horror writing. It explores the lives of relevant writers, the reception of relevant texts, and the history of the tradition as it has unfolded over the last four thousand years. Focusing on the existential as well as the psychological, these volumes highlight the literary qualities of horror literature and discusses their social, historical, and cultural contexts.

Relevant writers include Clive Barker, Ambrose Bierce, William Peter Blatty, Ray Bradbury, Lord Dunsanay, Neil Gaiman, Elizabeth Gaskell , Charlotte Perkins Gilman , Thomas Harris, Shirley Jackson, M. R. James, Jack Ketchum, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Victor LaValle, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert McCamman, Richard Matheson, Joyce Carol Oates, Edgar Allan Poe, Anne Rice, Saki, Mary Shelley, R. L. Stine, Bram Stoker, Peter Straub, H. G. Wells, and many others.