Strange Story

In two novels, Zanoni (1842) and A Strange Story (1862), Bulwer-Lytton invented the Occult/Dark Fantasy subgenre (as opposed to other subgenres of fantasy like Tolkienian High Fantasy). Academic critics usually describe Zanoni as a kunstlerroman (novel of the maturation of an artist) and as an allegory of Science versus Art, but Zanoni is also the first modern British work of occult fantasy.