Classic Horror Fiction

H. P. Lovecraft is arguably the most important horror writer of the 20th century. Culled from his 1927 essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature”, Lovecraft acknowledges those authors and stories that he feels are the very finest the horror field has to offer, including Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Guy de Maupassant, Ambrose Bierce, and Arthur Conan Doyle. This chilling collection includes 20 works, each prefaced by Lovecraft's own opinions and insights in each author’s work.

Adeline Virginia Woolf (January 1882-1941) was an English writer and one of the preeminent modernists of the 20th century. Her stories often seem to take the form of a stream of consciousness. 'A Haunted House' tells the story of a ghostly couple flitting from one room to the next in search of their hidden treasure...but what is it?

During a canoe trip on the Danube, two men are forced to stop on an island due to the current. What was supposed to be a peaceful temporary camping experience turns into a disturbing and supernatural ordeal: the willows covering the island seem to move and whisper in the wind, giving the impression of being alive; the presence of hostile and terrifying invisible entities is perceived, casting doubt on every capacity for rational thought.

Con Poe nacería el terror como género, fruto de sus obsesiones y de su corta vida errante. Transmutó el gótico alemán utilizando las claves del Romanticismo, anticipándose un siglo a los miedos y a los deseos más íntimos del hombre moderno. Las maldiciones ancestrales, las fuerzas ingentes y desatadas de la naturaleza, son elementos con los que el autor tratará de contagiar al lector para enfrentarlo al pavor de sus miedos más profundos.

Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece of the duality of good and evil in man's nature sprang from the darkest recesses of his own unconscious—during a nightmare from which his wife awakened him, alerted by his screams. More than a hundred years later, this tale of the mild-mannered Dr Jekyll and the drug that unleashes his evil, inner persona—the loathsome, twisted Mr Hyde—has lost none of its ability to shock. Its realistic police-style narrative chillingly relates Jekyll's desperation as Hyde gains control of his soul.

Tales of horror from one of the masters of the genre. Peter Meredith delivers stories that will keep you devouring them one after another. From the Pen - a gift that just keeps on killing, to "The Eyes in the Storm" - a beast that feeds on those who dare to go out when nature is at its cruelest, to "The Haunting at Red Feathers" - a true haunting that has the young couple trapped in the woods with a demonic presence, begging: "Don't let the night catch me here!"

Obsessed with the secret of creation, Swiss scientist Dr. Victor Frankenstein cobbles together a body he's determined to bring to life. And one fateful night, he does. When the creature opens his eyes, the doctor is repulsed: his vision of perfection is, in fact, a hideous monster. Dr. Frankenstein abandons his creation, but the monster won't be ignored, setting in motion a chain of violence and terror that shadows Victor to his death.

An anthology of chilling, classic horror stories, including "The Tale-Tell Heart", "The Pit and the Pendulum", and "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe; "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving; "The Hand", "Was it a Dream?", and "The Horla" by Guy de Maupassant; "The Red Room" by H.G. Wells; "Moon-Face" by Jack London; "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus was written by the English author Mary Shelley. It recounts the tale of Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who creates a grotesque, living creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. The first edition was published anonymously in 1818 when Shelley was only 20 years old. Her name finally appeared in the second edition, published in France in 1823. She was supposedly influenced by knowledge of alchemist experiments carried out by Johann Dippel in the Frankenstein Castle in Germany.

The Victorians were obsessed with Egyptology and mummies. It was during the second half of the 19th century that many of the most significant archeological finds were made in Egypt, and stories of the revenge of the mummies on anyone raiding their tombs, stealing their treasures or unwrapping their corpses abounded. This collection brings together the best and scariest short stories of the period, featuring vengeance-seeking mummies, bandaged zombies, pharaonic ghosts and ancient curses.

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.

Nelson Olmsted reads some of the finest short horror stories ever written.

There is another world than our own - one no closer than a kiss and one no further than our nightmares - where all the stuff of which dreams are made is real and magic is just a step away. But once you see that world, you will never be the same. Dreams and Shadows takes us beyond this veil. Once bold explorers and youthful denizens of this magical realm, Ewan is now an Austin musician who just met his dream girl, and Colby, meanwhile, cannot escape the consequences of an innocent wish.

A gripping gothic page-turner told in a startlingly different and wonderfully captivating voice. In a remote and crumbling New England mansion, 12-year-old orphan Florence is neglected by her guardian uncle and banned from reading. Left to her own devices she devours books in secret and talks to herself in a unique language of her own invention. By night, she sleepwalks the corridors and is troubled by a recurrent dream in which a mysterious woman appears to threaten her younger brother Giles.

In una sera di tempesta del 1816, Lord Byron propone quasi per gioco agli amici riuniti nella sua villa in Svizzera di scrivere un racconto dell'orrore. Folgorata da una spaventosa visione notturna, Mary Shelley, allora diciannovenne, scrive "Frankenstein". Il romanzo, che narra la storia agghiacciante di uno scienziato dall'ambizione prometeica e della sua mostruosa e straziata creatura, ottiene un immediato successo. Per la sua forza di mito universale, è da allora uno dei grandi classici della letteratura.

William Wilson est poursuivi, son existence durant, par son double (un pantin moraliste, sa conscience ?) qui intervient pour le remettre sur la bonne voie, chaque fois qu'il s'égare dans le mal... or, William Wilson est las de ce harcèlement. Il va donc réagir, mais tragiquement.

Charles Dexter Ward is a young man from a prominent Rhode Island family who has disappeared from a mental asylum. He had been incarcerated during a prolonged period of insanity, during which he exhibited minor and inexplicable physiological changes. His empty cell is found to be very dusty. The bulk of the story concerns the investigation conducted by the Wards' family doctor, Marinus Bicknell Willett, in an attempt to discover the reason for Ward's madness and physiological changes.

En 1769, un ingénieur à la cour impériale de Vienne, Wolfgang von Kempelen, assiste au château de Schönnbrunn à un spectacle de magie en...

The House on the Borderland is a supernatural horror novel written by British writer William Hope Hodgson in 1908. The story opens with the discovery of a journal in the ruins of an unusual house in rural Ireland. Penned by a recluse, the journal details the man's stay at the house and his supernatural experiences with menacing monsters and dreaded dimensions.

An elderly couple living in Victorian London struggle against despair as their small resources dwindle. When an eccentric and mysterious gentleman answers their advertisement for a lodger, they celebrate. But as women begin dying at the hands of "The Avenger", they start to suspect something too horrific for words.