Best of
Gothic-Horror

1990

The Events at Poroth Farm


T.E.D. Klein - 1990
    He rents an outbuilding from Mennonite couple Sarr and Deborah Poroth, and at first his holiday is happy and productive, but then odd things begin to happen...

Dawn


V.C. Andrews - 1990
    But nothing is what it seems... Now Dawn and her older brother Jimmy have a chance for a decent, respectable life, and Dawn's secret, precious hope to study singing can come true. Philip Cutler, the handsomest boy in school, sets Dawn's heart on fire. She is deeply devoted to her brooding brother; but with Philip, she imagines a lovely dream of romance... Then Dawn's mother suddenly dies, and her entire world begins to crumble. After a terrible new shock, she is thrust into a different family and an evil web of unspoken sins. Her sweet innocence lost, humiliated and scorned, Dawn is desperate to find Jimmy again and...strip away the wicked lies that will change all their lives forever!

The Weird Tale: Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, M.R. James, Ambrose Bierce, H.P. Lovecraft


S.T. Joshi - 1990
    James, and H.P. Lovecraft. The result is a thorough study of the art, craft, philosophy, and aesthetics of an enduring genre of fantastic literature.

The Last Feast of Harlequin


Thomas Ligotti - 1990
    While investigating a particularly odd one, previously the object of study by his former mentor who has disappeared under mysterious circumstances, the narrator discovers the monstrous truth behind the town of Mirocaw and its bizarre traditions...In the observation of H. P. Lovecraft scholar and biographer S. T. Joshi, Ligotti's fascinating story "may perhaps be the very best homage to Lovecraft ever written."

Hear the Children Calling


Clare McNally - 1990
    Another woman is approached by a stranger who tells her that her dead child lives. A fifth grade girl "sees" her dead twin beckoning to her. Parents across the nation are being "contacted" by their dead children and the message is the same: "We're alive and we need help!" Original.

The Mary Shelley Reader


Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - 1990
    Until now, however, there has been no anthology of Shelley's work. The Mary Shelley Reader is a unique new collection that fills this gap. In addition to the original and complete 1818 version of her masterpiece Frankenstein, the book offers a new text of the novella Mathilda--an extraordinary tale of incest, guilt, and atonement that was not published until 1959 and has been out of print since then. Also included are seven short stories that range from gentle satire to fantastic tales of reanimation, diabolical transformation, and immortality. Eight essays and reviews are reprinted here for the first time since their original publication, and eleven representative letters help bring to life a remarkable literary and historical figure--author, daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley. An illuminating introduction, a chronology, explanatory notes, and a bibliography make The Mary Shelley Reader indispensable for readers of English Romantic literature.