/lit/ - Literature

I will never stop shilling Ambrose Bierce.
He was a big influence on Lovecraft and Chambers (coined the setting of Carcosa in a random one-off short story of a few pages, both of them very clearly ripped off concepts from him) but was, in my opinion, more broadly talented than either. He was the first and maybe only significant American horror author between Poe and the 20th century but could also effortlessly switch over to realistic depictions of his experiences in the Civil War and then directly into oddball "tall tale" comedy.
I'd almost say the tall tale category is actually closer to a Bloodborne feeling than his horror, interestingly enough. Most of those stories take place in bizarre parallel worlds like pic related. Read this story, Oil of Dog, The Widower Turmore, and Revolt of the Gods. Those were the most "otherworldly" that I can recall, you can finish each of them in like ten minutes, and they all have that charming overwrought Victorian voice that fits the setting you're looking for while also being full of shockingly contemporary humor.

His sense of humor surprised me when I first started going through his work but it really does hold up well. He's not some dry old bag who just has his wit admired by critics "for the time," he legitimately makes me laugh.
His life was also badass, with many of his war stories written out of spite because he was tired of people profiting off of nonsense who hadn't lived through a real war like he did. Even as a curmudgeonly old man he called the next generation of journalists reporting on the Mexican Revolution a bunch of pussies, wandered down into Mexico to watch Pancho Villa fight, and then disappeared in the desert, probably shot somewhere.