Weird fiction has long been not only unappreciated but actively maltreated by orthodox esthetic evaluation, but its stature has improved considerably in modern times, and that has encouraged a reexamination of the genre's history.

It has required nearly two centuries since the beginnings of modern weird fiction in the cradle of the Romantic Movement for the concept to be properly formulated, and the course of its development usefully mapped.

That cartography can now be carried out with a reasonable degree of accuracy, as the present collection, albeit limited in time and space, hopefully illustrates. The book hopefully shows that fiction depicting hypothetical aberrations in nature or perception is not a necessarily a symptom of aberration on the part of the author, but frequently quite the opposite: evidence of a sanity contemplating its own potential limits and uncertainties, in a context that is esthetic rather than diagnostic. '

Romanticisme is not dead, and is no less preciously modern today than it was two centuries ago, and weird fiction is not the least of its achievements.