Peter Straub Anthologies books in order

Reading order

Straub’s involvement in horror anthologies began early and continued for the rest of his career. Fear Itself (1982) was one of the first serious critical examinations of Stephen King’s fiction, gathering essays from major figures in the field and establishing the terms in which King’s work would continue to be discussed. It appeared at the height of King’s early commercial success and helped make the case that his work deserved serious attention from critics and readers who might otherwise have dismissed it.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, Straub contributed stories and introductions to a wide range of anthologies, from themed collections like Black Thorn, White Rose and October Dreams to the ongoing Best New Horror series edited by Stephen Jones. His own editorial voice became clearer with the Foundations of Fear volumes in the early 1990s, which presented a historical survey of horror fiction as a literary tradition rather than merely a commercial category.

Poe’s Children (2008) is the anthology most closely associated with Straub’s editorial vision. Gathering writers like Kelly Link, Denis Johnson, Joyce Carol Oates, and others who were producing dark fiction outside genre boundaries, the book argued that the most interesting supernatural writing was happening in the spaces between literary and genre fiction. It stands as a document of a particular moment when horror was being reclaimed by serious literary writers, and Straub was one of the people doing the reclaiming.