He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock. His fondness for a pun is evident in the titles of his story collections such as Tales in a Jugular Vein, Such Stuff as Screams Are Made Of and Out of the Mouths of Graves.


Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over 30 novels. He was one of the youngest members of the Lovecraft Circle. H. P. Lovecraft was Bloch's mentor and one of the first to seriously encourage his talent. However, while Bloch started his career by emulating Lovecraft and his brand of "cosmic horror", he later specialized in crime and horror stories dealing with a more psychological approach.

Winner of multiple awards including a Hugo, World Fantasy Award and the Bram Stroker Award, Bloch’s work has been extensively adapted for the movies and television, comics and audio books.

DID YOU KNOW: At the age of nine, Block saw his first horror movie, The Phantom of the Opera, starring Lon Chaney, and slept for a long time afterwards with the light on.

Weird Tales became his favorite reading. Bloch started writing stories while still in high school. His first appearance in print was a parody of H.P. Lovecraft, entitled 'The Thing', which he wrote for The Quill, his Lincoln High School literary magazine.

Bloch's true first book was A Portfolio Of Some Rare And Exquisite Poetry By The Bard Of Bards, printed by Comet Publications in 1937 or 1938. Bloch published it under the pseudonym 'Sarcophagus W. Dribble', but his real name was given at the end of the text. Most of the fiction Bloch created between 1935 and 1938 referenced the Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. 

In spite of the writer's age, they also show psychological understanding of human nature. Bloch returned Cthulhu Mythos periodically, also as late as 1979, when Strange Eons appeared.

Building Great Collections, One Fine Book at a Time
Visit us at BlindHorseBooks.com


Comments

Popular posts from this blog