Classic Horror Fiction

When modern-day occultist Aaron Pace discovers the secrets of inter-dimensional travel via a mystical pathway called The Labyrinth, he wastes no time in exploring a multitude of strange new worlds and alternate realities. But then, Aaron finds himself trapped in the most bizarre dimension of all - a place where dinosaurs coexist with giant robots, where cowboys fight reptilian lizard people, and where even the grass can kill you. This is a world populated by the missing and the disappeared, a world where myth is reality and where the extinct is reborn.

Montague Rhodes James is cited as perhaps the greatest English writer of ghost stories, an opinion few would disagree with. Many of his elegant yet terrifying tales were created by discarding the prevailing gothic clichés and placing his characters and narrative in a realistic setting. Thereby the stories gained atmosphere and menace on a grand scale and he was famed as the originator of the antiquarian ghost story. Although story-telling and writing these 30 or so tales was a hobby, when published their effect transformed the genre and still chill the bones in our more modern times.

Saintly Dr. Henry Jekyll is the epitome of dedication, while the frightening Mr. Edward Hyde commits murder. What strange secret binds these two men in the fog of London?

In what Henry James called a 'trap for the unwary', The Turn of the Screw tells of a nameless young governess sent to a country house to take charge of two orphans, Miles and Flora. Unsettled by a dark foreboding of menace within the house, she soon comes to believe that something malevolent is stalking the children in her care. But is the threat to her young charges really a malign and ghostly presence or something else entirely?

His name is a byword for unspeakable horror and dread. Across ten stories this dark master holds a fascinating lure for all of us. Word by word, line by line we are drip-fed stomach-churning terror of a mesmerizing kind…

It starts in a laboratory. A man-made strain of flesh-eating virus. Created by a power-hungry cartel. Capable of turning victims into brain-dead carnivores. Smuggled aboard a cruise ship that's about to set sail . . .One by one, the passengers are exposed. A U.S. senator. A young couple. An undercover agent. A beautiful assassin. Some will be infected. Others will survive. But no one will be spared if the outbreak isn't contained and the dead outnumber the living.

Richard Fountain, a promising young Cambridge scholar, went to the island of Crete to study ancient rites and pagan rituals before, suddenly and inexplicably, breaking off all contact with the outside world. Disturbing rumors have filtered their way back to England, whispering of blasphemous rituals and obscene orgies, hints of terrible crimes and wanton murder.

A phantom has haunted the Paris Opera House for years. Now he is infatuated with singer Christine Daaé. Despite an astonishing debut performance, Christine fails to win the lead in Faust, and the Phantom’s cursed retaliation on the opera house is spectacularly fatal. As the chandelier falls, he kidnaps Christine, and through hidden passages and behind trapdoors, shares his life story with her. To secure her escape, Christine promises to stay true to him forever. But when the Phantom learns of the prima donna’s intention to flee, his passion turns terrifying.

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.

Le Chat noir relate l'implacable chute d'un homme. C'est l'une des nouvelles qui ont assuré la célébrité d'Edgar Poe, et ont décidé Charles Baudelaire...

“I was sick, sick unto death with that long agony,” begins one of the most famous tales from the master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. Through the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition, we follow the straying mind of the unnamed prisoner in his quest for hope in a world of darkness and despair. This episode skyrocketed The Classic Tales Podcast to number 3 on iTunes’ Top 100 Podcasts chart.

The Cheyenne spirits have named him Heart of Scars. The Beast has taken just about everything it can from Sylvester Logan James, and for 20 years he has waged his war with silver bullets and a perfect willingness to die. But fighting monsters poses danger beyond death. Sylvester's feud has made him a villainous hero whose only remaining virtue is the greater evil of his adversary. Like a wounded animal, he charges headlong toward his own destruction. He contends with not just the ancient werewolf Peter Stubbe, the cannibalistic demon Windigo, and secret cartels, but with his own newfound fear of damnation.

Stories of famous monsters in a new horror anthology featuring Joe R. Lansdale, F. Paul Wilson, Jonathan Maberry, Ramsey Campbell, and many others.

The beautiful young Dorian Gray has his portrait painted by society artist Basil Hallward. Admired by all, the dazzling, wealthy, handsome young man has everything anyone could wish for, or so it appears. Oscar Wilde's novel is a masterly study of moral corruption, a tour-de-force of suspense and surprise.

They're an iconic part of history's most celebrated birth. But what do we really know about the Three Kings of the Nativity, besides the fact that they followed a star to Bethlehem bearing strange gifts? The Bible has little to say about this enigmatic trio. But leave it to Seth Grahame-Smith, the brilliant and twisted mind behind Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to take a little mystery, bend a little history, and weave an epic tale.

Machen's novella The Great God Pan is often cited as one of Lovecraft's most notable influences. In it, Dr. Raymond's ultimate goal is to devise a way to open the mind of man so that he may experience all the world has to offer. He calls this "seeing the great god Pan". After much study of the human mind, he devises an experiment that involves minor brain surgery. He performs this experiment on a young woman named Mary, but when she awakens she is terrified and mentally crippled.

Our story begins in 1785 when a young seafarer, Captain Thornhill, disappears while visiting the shop of a barber in London, a certain Sweeney Todd whose shop in Fleet Street is situated by St. Dunstan's church, just round the corner from the famous and popular meat pie shop run by Mrs. Lovett. Thornhill was carrying a string of pearls as a gift for Johanna Oakley, the sweetheart of his friend Mark Ingestrie who is missing, presumed lost at sea.

Uma história sombria de paixões e vingança, esta obra provou ser um dos clássicos mais duradouros da literatura inglesa. A turbulenta e tempestuosa história de amor de Cathy e Heathcliff se estende por duas gerações, desde o tempo em que Heathcliff, um menino estranho e grosseiro, é trazido para viver na propriedade varrida pelo vento dos Earnshaws. Uma obra-prima da ficção, O Morro dos Ventos Uivantes permanece tão comovente e atraente hoje como era quando foi publicado pela primeira vez em 1847.

Considered to the be one of most influential American authors, Howard Philip Lovecraft is synonymous with some of the best fantasy and horror fiction of the 20th century, second only to Edgar Allan Poe. Innsmouth is a dilapidated seaside town with secrets as a hybrid race of half-human and half-amphibian creatures worship the gods of Cthulhu and Dagon.

"El horror de Dunwich" (título original en inglés: The Dunwich Horror) es un relato corto escrito por H. P. Lovecraft en 1928 y publicada por Weird Tales en marzo de 1929. Transcurre en el pueblo ficticio de Dunwich, Massachusetts. Se lo considera una de las obras principales de los Mitos de Cthulhu.