Author Biography and Bibliography

Dapper raconteur, intimate of Joan Crawford, Boris Karloff, Buster Keaton, and Fritz Lang, correspondent of H.P. Lovecraft, and author of the watershed horror novel of the twentieth century, Psycho (which book and subsequent Alfred Hitchcock film became the turning point where modern horror morphed from a spook in the cellar to the boy next door, with a knife), Robert Bloch made the tale of the conte cruel his own, most frequently observing that humor and horror were "opposite sides of the same coin."

Born in Chicago in 1917, Bloch's earliest writings were in the genre known in the 1930s as the Weird Tale, per Lovecraft, his mentor. This quickly expanded to include science fiction and crime stories for the golden age of the pulp magazines, and by the time of his debut novel, The Scarf (1947), he had commenced the shift from supernatural to psychological horrors; one of his most notable stories that blended the two was "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" (1943).

Unlike many writers, Bloch moved with ease between short fiction, novels, film and television, always with a wry cynicism and much-imitated black humor, and his career spanned seven decades of output. His first TV work was in 1960 for the Macdonald Carey series Lock-Up, followed by tenures on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Thriller, to which he optioned stories or wrote originals totalling 19 episodes, plus various individual episodes for Star Trek, Night Gallery, Tales from the Darkside, Darkroom, and others. His first feature screenplay project was The Couch for Blake Edwards (1962), and he wrote Strait-Jacket and The Night Walker for William Castle. Bloch specialized in "omnibus" horror films for Amicus Productions, including Torture Garden (1967), The House That Dripped Blood (1970), and Asylum (1972).

A frequent award-winner, (usually for his snap-ending short stories), virtually none of Bloch's over 30 novels and more than 30 collections remain in print today, but his influence on generations of suspense, mystery, crime, horror and science fiction writers remains undeniable. His hugely entertaining "unauthorized autobiography," Once Around the Bloch, appeared in 1993. He died September 23rd, 1994.

With thanks to David J. Schow for providing the above biography and the following bibliography.





Photo by Beth Gwinn.