Cult fiction
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"One is not criminal for painting the strange tendencies inspired by nature"--Marquis de Sade "The book which most deserved to be banned would be a catalogue of banned books." --Georg Christoph Lichtenberg "I know of no bomb other than a book" --Stéphane Mallarmé "At present it is impossible to give a full list of the authors from whom we shall quote. Mention of such names as those of Sir Richard Burton, Casanova, Aretino, the Marquis de Sade, Wilkes, Boccaccio, Bandello, Masuccio, Straparola, Rabelais, Lucian, Apuleius, Aristophanes, Sinistrari, Nicolas Chorier, Poggio, J. S. Farmer, John Payne, La Fontaine, Chaucer, Brantôme, Sellon, Pisanus Fraxi, Payne Knight, Havelock Ellis, Bloch, Huhner, Forel and Kraft-Ebing, will give some idea of the work contemplated."--Anthologica Rarissima: The Way of a Virgin (1922) by L. and C Brovan |
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Cult fiction is a term used to denote fiction that has attracted a cult following. This category does not include non-fiction.
On a general level, books that tend to attract a cult following include banned books, transgressive fiction, controversial books, erotic literature, drug literature, rants and incendiary tracts and some genre fiction. The earliest compilation of cult fiction was the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (index of prohibited books) by the Catholic church, although most books on that list were non-fiction.
Broadly the category can be divided in two, cult because of content and because of form.
The term cult fiction (first attested in the late 1980s) is probably a calque from cult movies or cult films, a term which as been in use since the late 1960s and early 1970s. Before this, it was the province of bibliophiles who were hunting for curiosa.
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Bibliography
Avant la lettre
- Curiosities of Literature (4 vols. 1791-1823; single vol. 1824) by Isaac D'Israeli
- Anthology of Black Humor (1940) by André Breton
As a genre
- Cult Fiction: A Reader's Guide (1998) by Andrew Calcutt and Richard Shephard
- Cult Fiction: Popular Reading and Pulp Theory (1998) by Clive Bloom
- Classic Cult Fiction: A Companion to Popular Cult Literature (1992) by Thomas Reed Whissen
- The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction (2005) by various
See also