Richard Matheson

In the post-World War Two era, the mythologies that horror fiction had previously been founded upon underwent a radical shift. After all, “a world forced to contend with the war’s very real legions of the dead and the unalleviated apprehensions of the dawning nuclear age demanded horrors that were more believable, rather than more fantastic.” (“Contemporary Horror Fiction 1950-1998”, Fantasy and Horror, ed. Neil Barron, London: Scarecrow Press 1999) As a result, from the mid 1940s onwards, horror fiction increasingly assumed forms that embodied the most powerful anxieties of twentieth century life. A pivotal figure in this transition, Richard Matheson is one of the most important figures in modern American