Jack Sullivan is an American literary scholar, essayist, author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, editor

Editing

Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...

, musicologist, and short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

. He is one of the leading modern figures in the study of the horror

Horror fiction

Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...

 genre

Genre

Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...

, particularly the ghost story

Ghost story

A ghost story may be any piece of fiction, or drama, or an account of an experience, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them. Colloquially, the term can refer to any kind of scary story. In a narrower sense, the ghost story has...

.

His critically acclaimed Elegant Nightmares: The English Ghost Story From Le Fanu To Blackwood (1978) examines the works of several recognized masters of the ghostly tale, including E. F. Benson, H. Russell Wakefield

H. Russell Wakefield

Herbert Russell Wakefield was an English short story writer, novelist, publisher, and civil servant chiefly remembered today for his ghost stories.-Life:...

, Oliver Onions

Oliver Onions

George Oliver Onions was a significant English novelist who published over forty novels and story collections. Originally trained as a commercial artist, he worked as a designer of posters and books, and as a magazine illustrator, before starting his career in writing...

, and Walter de la Mare

Walter de la Mare

Walter John de la Mare , OM CH was an English poet, short story writer and novelist, probably best remembered for his works for children and the poem "The Listeners"....

; separate chapters are devoted to full, in-depth studies of Sheridan Le Fanu

Sheridan Le Fanu

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was an Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels. He was the leading ghost-story writer of the nineteenth century and was central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era....

, M. R. James, and Algernon Blackwood

Algernon Blackwood

Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE was an English short story writer and novelist, one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories in the history of the genre. He was also a journalist and a broadcasting narrator. S. T...

. A companion volume, Lost Souls (1983), is a collection of English ghost stories with stories from these and other practitioners of supernatural fiction

Supernatural fiction

Supernatural fiction is a literary genre exploiting or requiring as plot devices or themes some contradictions of the commonplace natural world and materialist assumptions about it....

, such as L.P. Hartley, Arthur Machen

Arthur Machen

Arthur Machen was a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella The Great God Pan has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror...

, Robert Aickman

Robert Aickman

Robert Fordyce Aickman was an English conservationist and writer of fiction and nonfiction. As a writer, he is best known for his supernatural fiction, which he described as "strange stories".-Life:...

, and Ramsey Campbell

Ramsey Campbell

John Ramsey Campbell is an English horror fiction author.Since he first came to prominence in the mid-1960s, critics have cited Campbell as one of the leading writers in his field: T. E. D. Klein has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today", while S. T...

.

Probably his most notable contribution to the historical study of the horror genre to date has been the mammoth The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural

The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural

The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural is a reference work on horror fiction in the arts, edited by Jack Sullivan. The book was published in 1986 by Viking Press....

(1986), which he edited. Hundreds of entries and literary essays are provided on a variety of subjects, topics and writers, contributed by such genre luminaries as Ramsey Campbell, Kim Newman

Kim Newman

Kim Newman is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternate fictional versions of history...

, T. E. D. Klein

T. E. D. Klein

Theodore "Eibon" Donald Klein is an American horror writer and editor.Klein has published very few works, but they have all achieved positive notice for their meticulous construction and subtle use of horror: critic S. T...

, John Crowley

John Crowley

John Crowley is an American author of fantasy, science fiction and mainstream fiction. He studied at Indiana University and has a second career as a documentary film writer...

, Colin Wilson

Colin Wilson

Colin Henry Wilson is a prolific English writer who first came to prominence as a philosopher and novelist. Wilson has since written widely on true crime, mysticism and other topics. He prefers calling his philosophy new existentialism or phenomenological existentialism.- Early biography:Born and...

, Thomas M. Disch

Thomas M. Disch

Thomas Michael Disch was an American science fiction author and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book – previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book" – in 1999, and he had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, plus one win of the John W...

, Ron Goulart

Ron Goulart

Ron Goulart is an American popular culture historian and mystery, fantasy and science fiction author.The prolific Goulart wrote many novelizations and other routine work under various pseudonyms: Kenneth Robeson , Con Steffanson , Chad Calhoun, R.T...

, Whitley Strieber

Whitley Strieber

Louis Whitley Strieber is an American writer best known for his horror novels The Wolfen and The Hunger and for Communion, a non-fiction account of his perceived experiences with non-human entities. Strieber also co-authored The Coming Global Superstorm with Art Bell, which inspired the film about...

, and many others. The volume offers a very broad definition of the term “horror”, and consequently several of the entries are much more eclectic than many reviewers expected. It was immediately recognized as one of the definitive reference works on the subject.

Sullivan also has written two music-related book length studies, Words On Music (1990) and New World Symphonies: How American Culture Changed European Music (1999). His literary and music essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, The New Republic

The New Republic

The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...

, Saturday Review, USA Today

USA Today

USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...

, and Harper's Magazine

Harper's Magazine

Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...

. His short fiction was published in The Kelsey Review and New Terrors (edited by Ramsey Campbell).

Sullivan is currently a professor of American Studies at Rider University, Lawerenceville, NJ.

External links

• Official Hitchcock's Music Site