Robert Bloch (1917–1994) will forever be remembered as the author of Psycho—the novel that inspired one of the most influential horror films of the twentieth century—but his legacy extends far beyond that singular work. A master of imagination and craft, Bloch was one of the century’s most versatile and groundbreaking literary voices, admired for his wit, warmth, and innovation. His influence can be traced through the works of Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Richard Matheson, Ramsey Campbell, Arthur C. Clarke, and many others.
Spanning six decades, from the depths of the Great Depression to the dawn of the digital age, Bloch’s career produced an astonishing range of work: hundreds of short stories, novels, teleplays, screenplays, and essays across genres as varied as horror, mystery, crime, thriller, and science fiction. His versatility positioned him as a central figure in shaping modern popular fiction. To understand the arc of American genre writing in the twentieth century, one must understand Robert Bloch.
Psycho Century: Robert Bloch, American Horror Master is the first full literary biography of this immensely influential author. It situates Bloch within the larger landscape of twentieth-century horror and suspense while tracing how he continually reinvented his stories for new audiences in television and film. Through these transformations, the book reveals Bloch’s evolving literary sensibilities—ones that both reflected and shaped the shifting tastes of his era. At once a biography and a cultural history, the volume offers a vivid portrait of a writer whose work defined and redefined American genre fiction.
