Classics Literature Horror

For 140 years, Nathaniel Cade has been the president's vampire, sworn to protect and serve his country. Cade's existence is the most closely guarded of White House secrets: a superhuman covert agent who is the last line of defense against nightmare scenarios of which ordinary citizens only dream. When a new outbreak of an ancient evil - one that he has seen before - comes to light, Cade and his human handler, Zach Barrows, must track down its source.

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.

Scott Crane abandoned his career as a professional poker player 20 years ago and hasn’t returned to Las Vegas, or held a hand of cards, in 10 years. But troubling nightmares about a strange poker game he once attended on a houseboat on Lake Mead are drawing him back to the magical city. For the mythic game he believed he won did not end that night in 1969—and the price of his winnings was his soul. Now, a pot far more strange and perilous than he ever could imagine depends on the turning of a card.

The Most Dangerous Game, also published as The Hounds of Zaroff, is the classic horror yarn about big-game hunter Sanger Rainsford, from New York City, who falls off a yacht and swims to what seems to be an abandoned and isolated island in the Caribbean, where a sadistic Russian aristocrat hunts humans for sport. Rainsford must fight for his life.

Written in 1786, this Asian fantasy tells the story of a dissolute and debauched Caliph, Vathek. Having become obsessed with power and immortality, Vathek embarks on a journey to obtain supernatural powers, in pursuit of which he proves willing to renounce his religion and sacrifice both his children and his soul. We follow Vathek’s remarkable travels to the subterranean palace of Eblis, where his ultimate fate awaits him. Among the themes explored in Vathek are ambition, desire and the consequence of unbridled power

A young boy, Tineboy, is having trouble with his multiplication tables and the number seven. Bored in class one day, he falls asleep and dreams of a story told by his teacher about the number seven going mad. This leads to a world without the number seven and the confusion that comes from getting rid of a number. The schoolhouse bully and Tineboy’s own pet crow play important roles in his vivid daydream, full of intelligent wit and humor.

Alison Hart, a medium by trade, tours the dormitory towns of London's orbital ring road with her flint-hearted sidekick, Colette, passing on messages from beloved dead ancestors. But behind her plump, smiling persona hides a desperate woman: she knows the terrors the next life holds but must conceal them from her wide-eyed clients. At the same time she is plagued by spirits from her own past, who infiltrate her body and home, becoming stronger and nastier the more she resists....

Edgar Allan Poe est considéré comme l'inventeur du conte moderne. Les deux textes qui suivent, "Le Corbeau" et "Double Assassinat dans la rue Morgue", en sont la parfaite illustration. Dans un style inimitable, l'auteur arrive à créer des atmosphères dont lui seul a le secret. Sans nul doute, il s'agit ici de deux chefs-d'oeuvres de la littérature, histoires à la fois captivantes et universelles que la traduction de Charles Baudelaire vient sublimer.

Dubbed the greatest horror story in English by Stephen King, The Great God Pan is an eerie and otherworldly mystery about a diabolical operation and its terrifying repercussions. After rescuing a young woman from the streets of London, Dr. Raymond uses her as a test subject for brain surgery aimed at "lifting the veil" of reality, to see the supernatural and the "great god Pan". The operation is a disaster and leaves the subject lobotomized. Years later, London becomes afflicted with a strange series of male suicides connected to a beautiful but sinister woman.

From the first moment Vincentio di Vivaldi, a young nobleman, sets eyes on the veiled figure of Ellena, he is captivated by her enigmatic beauty and grace. But his haughty and manipulative mother is against the match and enlists the help of her confessor to come between them. Schedoni, previously a leading figure of the Inquisition, is a demonic, scheming monk with no qualms about the task, whether it entails abduction, torture - or even murder.

Lucy likes to tell monster stories. She's told so many that her friends and family are sick of it. Then one day, Lucy discovers a real, live monster: the librarian in charge of the summer reading program. Too bad Lucy's told so many monster tall tales.

Voici 7 nouvelles fantastiques courtes de H.P. Lovecraft : "Dagon", "Celephaïs", "La musique d'Eric Zann", "Mémoire", "Azatoth", "Les chats d'Ulthar", "Nyarlathotep". Stephen King a dit de Lovecraft qu'il était "le plus grand artisan du récit classique d'horreur du vingtième siècle." Ses sources d'inspiration, tout comme ses créations, se réfèrent à la notion d'horreur cosmique, selon laquelle l'être humain est insignifiant à l'échelle du cosmos qui lui est profondément étranger.

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?

In this collection of classic ghost stories from Japan, beautiful princesses turn out to be frogs, paintings come alive, deadly spectral brides haunt the living and a samurai delivers the baby of a Shinto goddess with mystical help. Here are all the phantoms and ghouls of Japanese folklore: 'rokuro-kubi', whose heads separate from their bodies at night; 'jikininki', or flesh-eating goblins; and terrifying faceless 'mujina' who haunt lonely neighbourhoods.

In Ghost of a Smile, the Ghost Finders answer a desperate call for help from one of the world’s biggest drug companies. A team of police enforcement agents has already disappeared, and the Ghost Finders have no idea how to proceed. But they’d better figure something out fast, because time is running out—and failure means an entire building full of innocent victims will cease to exist.

With its irrepressible heroine and playful literary games, Northanger Abbey is the most youthful and optimistic of Jane Austen's novels. It tells the story of young, impressionable Catherine Morland, whose first experience of fashionable society introduces her to the thrills of gothic romances, and to the sophisticated Tilneys, who invite her to their family home, Northanger Abbey. But there, influenced by novels of horror and intrigue, Catherine begins to think that terrible crimes are being committed, and her imagination threatens to run away with her.

Robinson Crusoe is one of the most enduring adventures of the past four centuries and one of the most well-known works in the English language. Or is it? Recently discovered amidst the papers of the 20th-century writer and historian H. P. Lovecraft is what claims to be the true story of Robinson Crusoe. Taken from the castaway's own journals and memoirs, and fact-checked by Lovecraft himself, it is free from many of Defoe's edits and alterations. From Lovecraft's work a much smoother, simpler tale emerges - but also a far more disturbing one.

In a desolate orphanage in what remains of post-Communist Romania, a desperately ill infant is given the wrong blood transfusion - and flourishes when he's supposed to die. The discovery of his unique immune system may hold the key to the long-awaited cure for cancer and AIDS - and a link to a clan of vampires.

As Pip unravels the truth behind his own "great expectations" in his quest to become a gentleman, the mysteries of the past and the convolutions of fate through a series of thrilling adventures serve to steer him toward maturity and his most important discovery of all - the truth about himself.

Ginger Stuyvesant, an American heiress living in London during World War I, is engaged to Captain Benjamin Hartshorne, an intelligence officer. Ginger is a medium for the Spirit Corps, a special Spiritualist force. Each soldier heading for the front is conditioned to report to the mediums of the Spirit Corps when they die so the corps can pass instant information about troop movements to military intelligence. Ginger and her fellow mediums contribute a great deal to the war efforts, so long as they pass the information through appropriate channels.