Spider Horror

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is known for his tales of the macabre and the supernatural. "The Black Cat" is one of his most celebrated. In it the narrator tells of his growing hatred for his pet cat and how in a drunken rage he maims the animal by cutting out one of its eyes. Worse is to follow when, in an episode of alcohol-induced depravity, he kills the cat by hanging it from a tree, with the most horrifying of consequences.

E.F. Benson (1867-1940) is probably best known today for his sparkling, comic "Lucia" novels. In his own day it was his ghost stories which were his most popular works. The Sanctuary exemplifies Benson's fine literary style and his ability to create the most frightening of supernatural and macabre tales, this one being particularly disturbing.

Ambrose Bierce's collection of short stories of the supernatural and macabre Can Such Things Be? was first published in 1893 and republished in a revised edition in 1910. One of its most notable inclusions is "The Death of Halpin Frayser" a gothic tale of the murder of the fated hero by the reanimated corpse of his beloved mother.