WORMWOOD is a journal dedicated to fantastic, supernatural, and decadent literature. It is hands-down one of the finest literary journals I know of -- even the paper weight is excellent. Tartarus Press is a highly respected publisher from the UK. Their aim is to publish works from distinguished authors (both antiquated and modern) of the aforementioned genres in fine, handsome editions. Much of what they publish has been out-of-print for generations. Therefore, they provide a unique service; making near-forgotten works available to modern audiences.

Most issues of WORMWOOD contain 6-8 essays on various authors. It also includes reviews. Each issue is concluded with a section titled, "The Decadent World View" by Brian Stableford. It's always an insightful and witty column about Decadent literature.

The new journal, #10, has three essays that really stood out: "No Secret Place: The Haunted Cities of Fritz Leiber" by Joel Lane, "The Void Behind the Face of Order: Robert Aickman, Anthologist of the Ghost Story" by Peter Bell, and "Kenneth Grant: True Tales, Ancient Grimoires and Magical Fiction" by Dave Evans.

The essay on Robert Aickman was eye-opening. Aickman is considered one of the finest writers of supernatural fiction of the 20th century (I own all his works, and I would agree). His style is very refined; extremely subtle and eerie -- no blood 'n guts, just pure spookiness. Thanks to Lane's essay, I also have a whole new appreciation for Fritz Leiber's horror stories (I own a bunch of Leiber's collections too). The final paragraph of Lane's essay sums it up well,

"What is unique about Leiber's work is the way he realized that in order to set Gothic tales in the modern city, it was necessary to create an industrial folklore that would give the tales a new idiom, a new image bank, even a new metaphysics. Leiber changed what it meant to write supernatural horror stories in the urban context. He is the master of literary modernism in the weird fiction genre." ( )