But every wish has a consequence, and the White family finds they are completely unprepared for what comes next. The Monkey’s Paw is a classic horror tale that gives new meaning to the phrase “be careful what you wish for.”The Monkey’s Paw has become a classic horror story and has been adapted numerous times, including into episodes of such popular television series as The X-Files, The Twilight Zone, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, and Tales from the Crypt.HarperCollins brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperCollins short-stories collection to build your digital library.

    He was a gullible and excitable fellow, often so terrified by locals' stories of ghosts that he would hurry through the woods on his way home, singing to keep from hysterics. Until late one night, he finds that maybe they're not just stories. What is that dark, menacing figure riding behind him on a horse? And what does it have in its hands? And why wasn't schoolteacher Crane ever seen in Sleepy Hollow again?

    It sets one dreaming of the oddest possibilities of intercommunication in the future, of spending an intercalary five minutes on the other side of the world, or being watched in our most secret operations by unsuspected eyes. It happened that I was the immediate witness of Davidson's seizure, and so it falls naturally to me to put the story upon paper.

    She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon one afternoon in 1945.... Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn't easy to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town.... Francis is unhappy. Francis was human once, but that was then. Now he's an eight-foot-tall locust and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing....John Finney is locked in a basement that's stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. In the cellar with him is an antique telephone, long since disconnected, but which rings at night with calls from the dead....The past isn't dead. It isn't even past...

    Edwards is acknowledged as one of the best Victorian ghost story writers. She was one of the select band of authors invited by Charles Dickens to contribute ghost stories to the Christmas numbers of his magazine All the Year Round, and some of her tales—such as 'The Four-fifteen Express', 'Number Three', 'My Brother's Ghost Story', and the highly influential 'The Phantom Coach'—have become staples of ghost story anthologies.There was much more to Amelia Edwards than ghost stories, however, as Richard Dalby makes clear in his introduction. She was an indefatigable traveller, and she incorporated much of what she observed into her ghost stories, many of which are set in northern and central Europe. She was also an archaeologist of world renown, who was instrumental in ensuring that the treasures and antiquities of ancient Egypt were properly excavated and preserved.The Phantom Coach is the first book to collect together all of Amelia B. Edwards's supernatural fiction. In addition to all her known ghost stories, the volume also contains three additional items, including a delightful piece by Edwards herself about 'My Home Life': a fascinating look at one of the Victorian era's most fascinating women.Contents: Introduction by Richard Dalby; 'My Brother's Ghost Story'; 'The Eleventh of March'; 'Number Three'; 'The Discovery of the Treasure Isles'; 'The Phantom Coach'; 'The Recollections of Professor Henneberg'; 'An Engineer's Story'; 'The Four-fifteen Express'; 'The Story of Salome'; 'A Service of Danger'; 'The New Pass'; 'In the Confessional'; 'Sister Johanna's Story'; 'A Night on the Borders of the Black Forest'; 'Monsieur Maurice'; 'Was it an Illusion?'; Appendixes: 'Four Ghosts'; 'A Legend of Boisguilbert'; 'My Home Life'.

    A young English gentleman of means, Aubrey is immediately intrigued by Lord Ruthven, the mysterious newcomer among society’s elite. His unknown origin and curious behavior tantalizes Aubrey’s imagination. But the young man soon discovers a sinister character hidden behind his new friend’s glamorous facade.   When the two are set upon by bandits while traveling together in Europe, Ruthven is fatally injured. Before drawing his last breath, he makes the odd request that Aubrey keep his death and crimes secret for a year and a day. But when Ruthven resurfaces in London—making overtures toward Aubrey’s sister—Aubrey realizes this immortal fiend is a vampyre.   John William Polidori’s The Vampyre is both a classic tale of gothic horror and the progenitor of the modern romantic vampire myth that has been fodder for artists ranging from Anne Rice to Alan Ball to Francis Ford Coppola. Originally published in 1819, many decades before Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and misattributed to Polidori’s friend Lord Byron, The Vampyre has kept readers up at night for nearly two hundred years.

    By a stagnant lagoon, as his love lies dying, Arsat tells the story of their meeting and the price he had to pay to be with her.

    Marion Crawfordtext taken from his 1911 collection of weird fiction UNCANNY TALES, now in public domain.This story tells the classic gothic horror account of a young man in the thrall of a vampire, and...yes, there WILL be blood.Typeset and formatted by the publisher Gideonfell Books, Ltd. January 2010.

    A version of the story was published in the magazine Whirlwind in 1890, and Machen revised and extended it for its book publication (together with another story, "The Inmost Light") in 1894. On publication it was widely denounced by the press as degenerate and horrific because of its decadent style and sexual content, although it has since garnered a reputation as a classic of horror. Machen’s story was only one of many at the time to focus on Pan as a useful symbol for the power of nature and paganism. The title was taken from the poem "A Musical Instrument" published in 1862 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in which the first line of every stanza ends "... the great god Pan.

    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

    Set on the obligatory English moor, on an isolated causeway, the story has as its hero Arthur Kipps, an up-and-coming young solicitor who has come north from London to attend the funeral and settle the affairs of Mrs. Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House. The routine formalities he anticipates give way to a tumble of events and secrets more sinister and terrifying than any nightmare: the rocking chair in the deserted nursery, the eerie sound of a pony and trap, a child's scream in the fog, and most dreadfully--and for Kipps most tragically--The Woman In Black.The Woman In Black is both a brilliant exercise in atmosphere and controlled horror and a delicious spine-tingler--proof positive that this neglected genre, the ghost story, isn't dead after all.

    First published in 1892 in Harpers, the story tells of an Oxford college student who, through the use of Egyptian magic, manages to reanimate an ancient Egyptian mummy. Many of the horror stories of monsters and ghouls, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

    Made possible by recent advances in printing and reproduction technology, the publication of new editions of Jerusalem and Songs of Innocence and of Experience in 1991 was a major publishing event. Now these two volumes are followed by The Early Illuminated Books and Milton, A Poem. The books in both volumes are reproduced from the best available copies of Blake's originals and in faithfulness and accuracy match the acclaimed standards set by Jerusalem and Songs. These two volumes are uniform in format and binding with the first two volumes.The Early Illuminated Books comprises All Religions Are One and There Is No Natural Religion; Thel; Marriage of Heaven and Hell; and Visions of the Daughters of Albion. Milton, A Poem, second only to Jerusalem in extent and ambition, is accompanied by Laocon, The Ghost of Abel, and On Homer's Poetry.

    The inspiration for Ray Bradbury's story.From Sara Teasdale's "Flame and Shadow" collection.