Classics Literature Horror

The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung, also sometimes translated as The Transformation) is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It has been cited as one of the seminal works of fiction of the 20th century and is studied in colleges and universities across the western world. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed (metamorphosed) into a large, monstrous insect-like creature.

One morning, traveling salesman Gregor Samsa wakes from an anxious dream to discover that he has inexplicably changed into a monstrous insect. Nonetheless, life goes on, and poor Gregor is left to deal not only with the existential questions of who or what he now is but also with more mundane concerns: his job (which he fears he’ll lose), his loved ones (whom he fears he disgusts), and the daily indignities of everyday life (which continue apace). Soon, even those who sympathize with his bizarre predicament begin to lose their patience....

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!

'The Pit and the Pendulum', one of Poe's most well-renowned short stories, is centred around the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition. The narrator of the story describes his experience of being tortured. The story is especially effective at inspiring fear in the listener because of its heavy focus on the senses, such as sound, emphasising its reality, unlike many of Poe's stories, which are aided by the supernatural.

The tale of murder and terror, told by a nameless homicidal madman, influenced later stream-of-consciousness fiction and helped secure the author’s reputation as master of the macabre. The narrator relates with relish his murder and dismemberment of an old man. Poe’s revelation of the narrator’s madness is a classic study in psychopathology.

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.

The unifying factor of this collection is that, without exception, every author included here was in some way or another involved with or interested in the occult. In some cases, they were members of an occult organization, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society, or similar such groups. Others simply had a strong personal interest in the subject matter or practiced some form of the esoteric sciences in private.

Nyarlathotep is the prose poem that marks the first appearance of "The Crawling Chaos", an Outer God in the Cthulu Mythos and one of Lovecraft’s most famous creations. Based on a vivid nightmare that Lovecraft experienced, the poem has been described as “a bleak view of human civilization in decline, and explores the mixed sensations of desperation and defiance in a dying society.”

The gods are dying. But for one man, death is only the beginning. Murdered as a ritual sacrifice, amateur thief and professional charmer Dustin Graves mysteriously survives, finding himself gifted with strange, dark magic. Then more dead bodies turn up. Some are human, but one is a god of the old world, slain at his own doorstep.

Basil Hallward había terminado el retrato. El joven Dorian, al verlo, no pudo más que desear, desde su frívola inocencia, que fuera su imagen la que envejeciera y se corrompiera con el paso de los años mientras él permanecía intacto. Y así fue: a partir de entonces, Dorian Gray conservó no solo la lozanía y la hermosura propias de la juventud, sino el aspecto puro de los inocentes. Pero ¿a qué precio? El retrato de Dorian Gray es un logro insoslayable de la literatura universal, vertido aquí magníficamente por el escritor y traductor Alejandro Palomas.

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!

The Willows is a novella by English author Algernon Blackwood, originally published as part of his 1907 collection The Listener and Other Stories. It is one of Blackwood's best known works and has been influential on a number of later writers. Horror author H.P. Lovecraft considered it to be the finest supernatural tale in English literature. The Willows is an example of early modern horror and is connected within the literary tradition of weird fiction. Two friends are midway on a canoe trip down the Danube River.

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!

This collection includes five of the greatest stories of American classic horror. The richest of language is used to create extraordinary atmosphere - gloom, darkness, solitude, despair - and the relentless feeling of impending doom. Includes: "The Oval Portrait", by Edgar Allan Poe; "Ethan Brand", by Nathaniel Hawthorne; "The Yellow Sign", by Robert W. Chambers; "The Upper Berth", by F. Marion Crawford; and "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", by Ambrose Bierce.

Il capolavoro di Grazia Deledda, che fu insignita del premio Nobel per la letteratura nel 1926, narra le vicende di tre sorelle, le dame di Pintor, rimaste padrone di un podere, attraverso gli occhi del protagonista, un loro servo. L'opera pone un'equazione che unisce la Sardegna e la Russia. Infatti negli anni a cavallo tra Ottocento e Novecento, quelli in cui la scrittrice si dedica alla ricerca di un proprio stile, concentra la sua attenzione, sull'opera e sul pensiero di Tolstoj.

Since the publication of his first novel 30 years ago, Don DeLillo has lived in the skin of our times. He has found a voice for the forgotten souls who haunt the fringes of our culture and for its larger-than-life real figures. The Body Artist is DeLillo's haunting and profoundly moving new novel.

A brilliant short story demonstrating how a truly balanced set of dilemmas can allow a reader to conclude two different endings. In this case a young man is faced with two doors. One holds a door with a ferocious tiger. The other? A beautiful lady whom he would immediately marry. The struggle comes not so much in defining a choice, but the reasons that brought the young man to the choice, and who helps him make the choice.

“The Thing Invisible” is a story featuring Thomas Carnacki, a detective who investigates cases of an occult or supernatural nature. It is one of five tales of Carnacki's ghost hunting exploits that first appeared serially in The Idler magazine in 1910 and were published together with one more as a collection Carnacki the Ghost-Finder in 1913. After a good dinner, Mr. Carnacki relates his experiences of ghost-finding to his limited circle of four friends whom he has summoned to his home in Chelsea.

This is a story from the Fall of the House of Usher collection. The horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, with its dungeon of death, and the overhanging gloom on the House of Usher demonstrate unforgettably the unique imagination of Edgar Allan Poe. Unerringly, he touches upon some of our greatest nightmares: Premature burial, ghostly transformation, words from beyond the grave. Written in the 1840s, they have retained their power to shock and frighten even now.

Here is the most famous of all tales of vampirism and an enduring classic. Jonathan Harker's journeys to Transylvania and the discovers the un-dead Count Dracula. Upon his return to England, Professor Van Helsing joins the dark struggle to overcome the evil Count. Only with a pursuit back to Transylvainia can the battle between good and evil finally prove decisive.