Classic Horror Fiction

Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, was an Irish writer known also by the Japanese name Koizumi Yakumo. His book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, comprises two parts, the first being the "Kwaidan Proper" and the second, "Insect-Studies", which consists of an essay each on ants, butterflies and mosquitos. According to the author, most of the folk tales and ghost stories in the first part were translated from old Japanese texts. The themes encompass resurrection, sacrifice, magic, and the realm of dreams.

When a curious traveler visits the crumbling seaside town of Innsmouth, he is met with distorted faces, hostile glances, and warnings spoken in fearful whispers. As night falls, unease turns to dread, and the town’s unspeakable secret begins to surface. With every passing moment, the tension tightens, the streets grow darker, and escape feels increasingly impossible.

Writing to her only friend from her deathbed, Mathilda finally reveals the history that led to her isolated life of despairing melancholy. Of her mother dying in childbirth, her father's confession of his incestuous desire and subsequent suicide, and her relationship with a handsome young poet that fails to reverse Matilda's emotional withdrawal or prevent her lonely death. The haunting and relentlessly self-examining voice of Mary Shelley's protagonist is a bare narrative of trauma of a brave woman's failed search for love, atonement, and redemption.

Volume 11 begins with Doug's well-researched insight into the stories and their authors. This is followed by Edgar Allan Poe’s highly acclaimed gothic romance "Ligeia", Ambrose Bierce's haunting "A Fruitless Assignment", H. P. Lovecraft's dark and disturbing "Pickman's Model", Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's sinister masterpiece "Blue John Gap", and more.

When we left Sophie Edwards at the end of Savy Wisdom 2, Sophie had earned her joy: loving husband, beautiful baby, successful career. The only gray cloud in Sophie’s life was the death of her dear friend and mentor, Savy, also known to the world as billionaire Stephen Alexander Vaughan.

In an isolated castle deep in the Austrian forest, Laura leads a solitary life with only her ailing father for company. Until one moonlit night, a horse-drawn carriage crashes into view, carrying an unexpected guest—the beautiful Carmilla. So begins a feverish friendship between Laura and her mysterious, entrancing companion. But as Carmilla becomes increasingly strange and volatile, prone to eerie nocturnal wanderings, Laura finds herself tormented by nightmares and growing weaker by the day.

For a century Bram Stoker's Dracula has reigned supreme as the undisputed masterpiece of horror writing. We have all grown up under the shadow of the elegant Count, at once an attractive, brutal, and erotic creature of the night. A skilled and imaginative cast, including Brian Cox as Van Helsing and Heathcote Williams as Dracula, brings this classic horror story to life!

This collection features four spine-tingling horror stories to entice your imagination, including "Bewitched" by Edith Wharton, "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe, "The Body Snatcher" by Robert Louis Stevenson, and "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe. Each story is chillingly enhanced by music and sound effects. Four Classic Horror Stories is best listened to by candle light at the midnight hour, when the wind howls ‘round the house and ghosts whisper from the dark shadows!

Helen Eustis’s The Horizontal Man (1946) won an Edgar Award for best first novel and continues to fascinate as a singular mixture of detection, satire, and psychological portraiture. A poet on the faculty of an Ivy League school is found murdered, setting off ripple effects of anxiety...

Part local legend of a dark and dangerous Wolf-Leader, part childhood memories of his home near Villers-Cotterets, in Aisne, Dumas here penned a chilling supernatural encounter between man and the devil. Our hero, Thibault the shoemaker, is beaten on the orders of the Lord of Vez for hunting in the lord's forest. With Thibault's resentment at his treatment by the world at its height, the devil sees his chance and, in the guise of a wolf, proposes a deal which Thibault accepts; the ever available trade of one's soul for evil power.

"The Doom That Came to Sarnath" (1920) is a fantasy short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. It is written in a mythic/fantasy style and is associated with his Dream Cycle. It was first published in "The Scot", a Scottish amateur fiction magazine, in June 1920.

Ed McBain made his debut in 1956. In 2004, more than a hundred books later, he personally collected twenty-five of his stories written before he was Ed McBain. All but five of them were first published in the detective magazine Manhunt and none of them appeared under the Ed McBain byline. They...

It only takes a moment for a life to change forever. Ethan Denton is a lucky man. Most things have gone his way, and being granted full custody of Nate, his young son and “North Star,” has given him a near-perfect life. On a crisp winter morning just before the start of deer season, Ethan...

Fantasy author Ken Altabef lends his unique voice talents to a modern reading of 13 classic tales (and six poems) by Edgar Allan Poe.

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Jonathan Keeble. This definitive recording includes an introduction by Peter Wortsman. 'It was a very momentous day, the day on which I was to be slaughtered' Bringing together tales of melancholy and madness, nightmare and fantasy...

Straight out of the pages of the legendary vampire novel Dracula comes a demon hunter for the modern world. Mina Murray and Jonathan Harker had a son. They named him Quincy. His guardian angel calls him Q. Dracula calls him nephew. Demons call him The Reaper.

The creatures of classic horror are coming together this Halloween, lurking through the pages of this exciting new guide! Enjoy learning fun facts about their history, superstitious folk lore, literary appearances and film adaptations. Just when you thought you knew all there was to learn about monsters!

A vivid, multi-generational novel, following three women from the same family as they explore their relationships to dreams and desire, unraveling a historical and social mosaic of a dynamic, tumultuous Barcelona —a classic by “the shining light of Catalan literature” (Colm Tóibín)...

Le narrateur (dont l'identité ne nous est pas connue) arrive à la maison de son ami Roderick Usher, ayant reçu de lui une lettre dans laquelle il se plaignait de maladie et réclamait sa présence. Cette maladie se manifeste par une hyperacuité des sens et une grande anxiété. La sœur jumelle de Roderick, Madeline, est elle aussi malade, tombant dans des états de transes cataleptiques.

Doctor John Silence is an experienced investigator of the paranormal. In this book, he faces three challenges. In the first, a man seems possessed of an ancient spirit and driven to do its will. In he second, he deals with a man whose experiences in a remote part of France almost pulled him into a cursed afterlife. In the final story, a family are haunted by a spirit of fire-bent on destruction.