Supernatural fiction was one of the most popular literary genres of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most leading literary authors of their day, such as Dickens, Gaskell and Kipling, wrote in the genre. Many others, such as M. R. James, Arthur Machen, and Algernon Blackwood, are known almost purely for their supernatural writing.

Shadows in the Attic provides a comprehensive portrait of a genre more diverse and far more influential than commonly supposed. Based on the world famous collections of the British Library, Neil Wilson has identified the two hundred top writers active in the supernatural genre during its golden age - from the end of the Gothic period to the birth of modern Hоrrоr.

A concise biography of each author is followed by an informed and annotated bibliography of their supernatural stories and novels. Sources for further reading are also given. Shadows in the Attic is not only an authoritative guide, but a reliable and engrossing introduction to the whole of British supernatural fiction.