Book picks similar to
The Great God Pan and Other Horror Stories by Arthur Machen
horror
short-stories
fiction
classics
The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales
Edgar Allan Poe - 1849
Some of the celebrated tales contained in this unique volume include the world's first detective stories -- "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Purloined Letter", and three stories sure to make a reader's hair stand on end -- "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Tell-Tale Heart", and "The Masque of the Red Death".The work includes a new introduction by Stephen Marlowe, author of "The Memoirs of Christopher Columbus" and "The Lighthouse at the End of the World."Besides the five stories already mentioned, it also contains: "The Balloon-Hoax", "Ms. Found in a Bottle", "A Descent into a Maelstrom", "The Black Cat", "The Pit and the Pendulum", The Assignation", "Diddling", "The Man That Was Used Up", and the novel, "Narrative of A. Gordon Pym". These may vary with different editions.The Signet Classic Edition of "The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales" has over 250,000 copies in print!Librarian's note: this is a collection by the author of short stories, and one novel, Entries for each of them on their own can be found elsewhere on Goodreads, including the specific entry for the story, "The Fall of the House of Usher".
The Haunted Looking Glass
Edward Gorey - 1959
It includes stories by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, M. R. James, W. W. Jacobs, and L. P. Hartley, among other masters of the fine art of making the flesh creep, all accompanied by Gorey's inimitable illustrations.ALGERNON BLACKWOOD, "The Empty House"W.F. HARVEY, "August Heat"CHARLES DICKENS, "The Signalman"L.P. HARTLEY, "A Visitor from Down Under"R.H. MALDEN, "The Thirteenth Tree"ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, "The Body-Snatcher"E. NESBIT, "Man-Size in Marble"BRAM STOKER, "The Judge's House"TOM HOOD, "The Shadow of a Shade"W.W. JACOBS, "The Monkey's Paw,"WILKIE COLLINS, "The Dream Woman"M.R. JAMES, "Casting the Runes"
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories
Angela Carter - 1979
K. Rowling, Kelly Link, and other contemporary masters of supernatural fiction. In her masterpiece, The Bloody Chamber—which includes the story that is the basis of Neil Jordan’s 1984 movie The Company of Wolves—she spins subversively dark and sensual versions of familiar fairy tales and legends like “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Bluebeard,” “Puss in Boots,” and “Beauty and the Beast,” giving them exhilarating new life in a style steeped in the romantic trappings of the gothic tradition.
Carnacki, the Ghost Finder
William Hope Hodgson - 1913
Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder is a collection of supernatural detective short stories by author William Hope Hodgson.
Wessex Tales
Thomas Hardy - 1888
But this great novelist began and ended his writing career as a poet. In-between, he wrote a number of books that many readers find emotionally-wrenching, but which are considered among the classics of 19th Century British literature, including Far from the Madding Crowd, and Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Readers will experience Hardy's uncompromising, unsentimental realism in Wessex Tales, and for those seeking a taste of the Dorset poet and novelist, they represent an ideal start.
The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories
Alan RyanJames Malcolm Rymer - 1987
Editor Alan Ryan includes a wide range of talents here, from Bram Stoker to Robert Bloch to Tanith Lee.Contents:"Fragment of a Novel" by George Gordon, Lord Byron "The Vampyre" by John Polidori "Varney the Vampyre, or, the Feast of Blood" [excerpt] by James Malcolm Rymer "The Mysterious Stranger" by Anonymous"Carmilla" by Sheridan Le Fanu"Good Lady Ducayne" by Mary Elizabeth Braddon "Dracula's Guest" by Bram Stoker "Luella Miller" by Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman "For the Blood is The Life" by F. Marion Crawford "The Transfer" by Algernon Blackwood "The Room in the Tower" by E.F. Benson "An Episode of Cathedral History" by M.R. James "A Rendevous in Averoigne" by Clark Ashton Smith "Shambleau" by C.L. Moore "Revelations in Black" by Carl Jacobi "School for the Unspeakable" by Manly Wade Wellman "Drifting Snow" by August Derleth "Over the River" by P. Schuyler Miller "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" by Fritz Leiber "The Mindworm" by C.M. Kornbluth "Drink My Blood" by Richard Matheson "Place of Meeting" by Charles Beaumont "The Living Dead" by Robert Bloch "Pages from a Young Girl's Journal" by Robert Aikman "The Werewolf and the Vampire" by R. Chetwynd-Hayes "Love-Starved" by Charles L. Grant "Cabin 33" by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro "Unicorn Tapestry" by Suzy McKee Charnas "Following the Way" by Alan Ryan "The Sunshine Club" by Ramsey Campbell "The Men & Women of Rivendale" by Steve Rasnic Tem "Bite-Me-Not, or, Fleur de Feu" by Tanith Lee Also includes short appendices of vampire novels and movies.
Thus Were Their Faces
Silvina Ocampo - 1988
Italo Calvino once said about her, “I don’t know another writer who better captures the magic inside everyday rituals, the forbidden or hidden face that our mirrors don’t show us.” Thus Were Their Faces collects a wide range of Ocampo’s best short fiction and novella-length stories from her whole writing life. Stories about creepy doubles, a marble statue of a winged horse that speaks to a girl, a house of sugar that is the site of an eerie possession, children who lock their perverse mothers in a room and burn it, a lapdog who records the dreams of an old woman.Jorge Luis Borges wrote that the cruelty of Ocampo’s stories was the result of her nobility of soul, a judgment as paradoxical as much of her own writing. For her whole life Ocampo avoided the public eye, though since her death in 1993 her reputation has only continued to grow, like a magical forest. Dark, gothic, fantastic, and grotesque, these haunting stories are among the world’s finest.
New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird
Paula GuranLaird Barron - 2011
Lovecraft has inspired writers of supernatural fiction, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and gamers. His themes of cosmic indifference, the utter insignificance of humankind, minds invaded by the alien, and the horrors of history—written with a pervasive atmosphere of unexplainable dread—remain not only viable motifs, but are more relevant than ever as we explore the mysteries of a universe in which our planet is infinitesimal and climatic change is overwhelming it. In the early twenty-first century the best supernatural writers no longer imitate Lovecraft, but they are profoundly influenced by the genre and the mythos he created. New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird presents some of the best of this new Lovecraftian fiction—bizarre, subtle, atmospheric, metaphysical, psychological, filled with strange creatures and stranger characters—eldritch, unsettling, evocative, and darkly appealing.
The Mistletoe Bride & Other Haunting Tales
Kate Mosse - 2013
These tales are richly populated by spirits and ghosts seeking revenge; by grief-stricken women and haunted men coming to terms with their destiny - all rooted deep in the elemental landscapes of Sussex, Brittany and the Languedoc.The collection will include The Mistletoe Bride, La Fille de Melisande, Red Letter Day, The Lending Library, The House on the Hill...
The Gods of HP Lovecraft
Aaron J. FrenchJames A. Moore - 2015
Lovecraft: a brand new anthology that collects the twelve principal deities of the Lovecraftian Mythos and sets them loose within its pages. Featuring the biggest names in horror and dark fantasy, including many NY Times bestsellers, full of original fiction and artwork, and individual commentary on each of the deities by Donald Tyson.About the book: Lovecraft’s bestiary of gods has had a major influence on the horror scene from the time these sacred names were first evoked. Cthulhu, Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, Yog-Sothoth—this pantheon of the horrific calls to mind the very worst of cosmic nightmares and the very darkest signs of human nature. The Gods of H.P. Lovecraft brings together twelve all-new Mythos tales from:Cthulhu (Adam Nevill) – Yog-Sothoth (Martha Wells) – Azathoth (Laird Barron) – Nyarlathotep (Bentley Little) – Shub-Niggurath (David Liss) – Tsathoggua (Brett Talley) – The Mi-Go (Christopher Golden & James A. Moore) – Night-gaunts (Jonathan Maberry) – Elder Things (Joe Lansdale) – Great Race (Rachel Caine) – Yig (Douglas Wynne) – The Deep Ones (Seanan McGuire)With commentary on each deity by Donald Tyson
Late Victorian Gothic Tales
Roger LuckhurstJean Lorrain - 2005
This heady brew was caught nowhere better than in the revival of the Gothic tale in the late Victorian age, where the undead walked and evil curses, foul murder, doomed inheritance and sexual menace played on the stretched nerves of the new mass readerships. This anthology collects together some of the most famous examples of the Gothic tale in the 1890s, with stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Vernon Lee, Henry James and Arthur Machen, as well as some lesser known yet superbly chilling tales from the era. The introduction explores the many reasons for the Gothic revival, and how it spoke to the anxieties of the moment.
A Lush and Seething Hell: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror
John Hornor Jacobs - 2019
P. Lovecraft, The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky examines life in a South American dictatorship. Centered on the journal of a poet-in-exile and his failed attempts at translating a maddening text, it is told by a young woman trying to come to grips with a country that nearly devoured itself.In My Heart Struck Sorrow, a librarian discovers a recording from the Deep South—which may be the musical stylings of the Devil himself.Breathtaking and haunting, A Lush and Seething Hell is a terrifying and exhilarating journey into the darkness, an odyssey into the deepest reaches of ourselves that compels us to confront secrets best left hidden.
Seven Gothic Tales
Isak Dinesen - 1934
Here are seven exquisite tales combining the keen psychological insight characteristic of the modern short story with the haunting mystery of the nineteenth-century Gothic tale, in the tradition of writers such as Goethe, Hoffmann, and Poe.
Flowers of Mold
Ha Seong-nan - 1999
From the title story told by a woman suffering from gaps in her memory, to one about a man seeking insight in bags of garbage, to a surreal story about a car salesman and the customer he tries to seduce, The Woman Next Door charms and provokes with an incomparable style.
Gutshot
Amelia Gray - 2015
A medical procedure reveals an object of worship. A carnivorous reptile divides and cauterizes a town. Amelia Gray’s curio cabinet expands in Gutshot, where isolation and coupling are pushed to their dark and outrageous edges. These singular stories live and breathe on their own, pulsating with energy and humanness and a glorious sense of humor. Hers are stories that you will read and reread—raw gems that burrow into your brain, reminders of just how strange and beautiful our world is. These collected stories come to us like a vivisected body, the whole that is all the more elegant and breathtaking for exploring its most grotesque and intimate lightless viscera.