Classic Horror Fiction

Unique to this title is: A historical introduction and a study of the themes present in A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol and The Chimes. Charles Dickens was an English writer and social critic. He was born in 1812 in Portsmouth. When his father was sent to jail because of unsettled debt, Dickens had to leave school and get a job in a factory. Dickens is believed to be the best novelist of the Victorian era and he became very popular during his lifetime. His novels are still widely read and translated.

تتصاعد الأحداث حينما يقوم الراوي وزوجته بزيارة قبو بيتهم الجديد، حيث يدخل القط بين أقدام سيده ويكاد يتعثر ويسقط فيحاول السيد قتله بالفأس فتمنعه زوجته فيقتلها هي ويدفنها داخل نتوء جدار ويغلقه. تأتي الشرطة للتحقيق فلا تجد شيئاً ويختفي القط أيضاً، وفي اليوم الأخير من التحقيق، تكتشف الشرطة مكان الجثة بعد صدور عويل لا بشري وفوق رأسها المتعفن القط حيّاً، حيث دفنه الراوي مع جثة زوجته. تعتبر قصة القط الأسود قصة رعب، تمتزج بجوانب الغموض والظلام والشر.

Washington Irving was an American author of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories, with his two most famous being "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip van Winkle".

Award winning narrator Mike Vendetti reads The Mask of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe, a Gothic short story that originally appeared in Graham's magazine in May of 1882. This short story later appears as The Masque of the Red Death. The Red death is fictitious, but it is likely that the disease was inspired by tuberculosis (or consumption, as it was known then), since Poe's wife, Virginia, was suffering from the disease at the time the story was written.

From dreams filled with strange, beautiful images and haunting music, Claire Challis woke to the repulsive sound of a nasal, falsetto voice scratching its way through her closed bedroom window - the kind of voice adults reserve for speaking to pets or very small children. A particularly annoying case of the latter, she decided, for the voice was crooning, "My, don't we look fine in our Sunday best! Are you going to church, young man?"

Vincentio di Vivaldi has fallen in love with Ellena Rosalba. However, his proud and noble family vehemently oppose the match: they cannot allow him to wed someone with no money or social standing. Thus, his mother, the mean-spirited Marchesa, and her minion, the evil monk Father Schedoni, set in motion a malign plot that has Ellena kidnapped and imprisoned in a convent, to prevent a hasty marriage.

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.

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is the most famous supernatural wild chase in all of literature. One of the best-known American short stories, this tale has been produced countless times for television and film. A Halloween classic!

Five fantastical tales from the mind of H. P. Lovecraft that center around a theme of illicit substances: some used to transcend the veil of reality, some used to keep one's sanity in check. All of the stories are quite psychedelic and unreal, quite mystical, and quite frightening.

Cloîtrée dans une maison de campagne isolée et tenue à l'écart de toute activité par son mari médecin, une jeune mère dépressive après la naissance de leur enfant brave en secret l'interdiction qu'il lui pose d'écrire. Désœuvrée, elle sombre dans la fascination pour l'affreux papier peint de la chambre à coucher. Elle finit par y voir, en miroir, une femme séquestrée derrière les arabesques.

Nestled off the coast of Cuba and shielded by impenetrable reefs of razor-sharp rock, stands Diablo Caldera. To the rest of the world, the extinct, bowl-shaped volcano is hardly worth exploring. But the caldera has a secret. Its isolated saltwater lake has remained untouched since the fall of the dinosaurs.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (originally titled Notre Dame de Paris) is a Gothic novel by Victor Hugo, published in 1831. It focuses on the unfortunate story of Quasimodo, the Gypsy street dancer Esmeralda and Quasimodo's guardian the Archdeacon Claude Frollo in 15th century Paris. The novel sought to preserve values of French culture in a time period of great change, which resulted in the destruction of many French Gothic structures. The novel made Notre Dame de Paris a national icon and served as a catalyst for renewed interest in the restoration of Gothic form.

It's just a hideously papered room. At least that's what everybody thought. But when a woman suffering from a nervous condition is housed in the room, things begin to surface from the wallpaper. Things that seem familiar but are best left quiet and undisturbed.

Mary Shelley´s FRANKENSTEIN oder: Der moderne Prometheus, gelesen von Ingolf Kloss. Mary Shelleys Frankenstein ist eine erschreckende Vision des wissenschaftlichen Fortschritts ohne moralische Grenzen und führt den Zuhörer auf eine gefährliche Reise von der erhabenen Schönheit der Schweizer Alpen in die trostlose Einöde des Polarkreises. Besessen von der Idee, das Leben selbst zu erschaffen, plündert Victor Frankenstein Friedhöfe und Schlachtereien.

Don Alvaro, a young but wise man, invokes Satan in a goetic-style magical ritual. Upon seeing the young Alvaro, Beelzebub falls in love with him and assumes the appearance of a beautiful young woman. In the journey that unfolds, Satan, disguised as a woman, tries to seduce Alvaro who rejects his advances lest he lose his precious virginity.

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

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.

An eclectic collection of many of the spookiest classic tales of horror, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The New Catacomb"; Edgar Allan Poe's "Masque of the Red Death", "Hop-Frog", and "The Cask of Amontillado"; W. W. Jacobs's "The Monkey's Paw"; Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper"; and Algernon Backwood's "The Willows".

Fifty of the greatest classic horror stories ever written: 1. "The Beast with Five Fingers" by W. F. Harvey 2. "The Well" by W. W. Jacobs 3. "The Nightmare Room" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 4. "The End of a Show" by Barry Pain 5. "Bagnell Terrace" by E. F. Benson 6. "Fingers of a Hand" by H. D. Everett 7. "The Interruption" by W. W. Jacobs 8. "Gavon’s Eve" by E. F. Benson 9. "The Ring of Thoth" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 10. "Moon’s Gibbet" by Egerton Castle 11. "The Mystery of Sasassa Valley" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

John William Polidori was born on 7th September 1795, in London, to Gaetano Polidori. In 1816 Dr Polidori was given the job of Byron’s personal physician and accompanied him on a trip through Europe. The publisher John Murray offered Polidori £500 to keep a diary of their travels. At the Villa Diodati, Byron’s rented villa at Lake Geneva in Switzerland, the pair met with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont.