Kevin Brockmeier's fiction has always explored the space between the fantastical and the everyday with profundity and poignancy. As in his previous books, The Ghost Variations discovers new ways of looking at who we are and what matters to us, exploring how mysterious, sad, strange, and comical it is to be alive--or, as it happens, not to be.

    They are lessons in ingenuity and surprise, sometimes building slowly to a chilling climax, sometimes springing horror on you from the utterly banal. And as you'd expect from these writers, the stories are more than simply frightening - they're also disquieting exposures of mortality, loneliness and the human capacity for both evil and remorse.We wish you pleasant dreams.Contains ghost stories by: Ruth Rendell, M. R. James, Rudyard Kipling, Edith Wharton, E. F. Benson, E. Nesbit, Saki, W. W. Jacobs, W. F. Harvey, Hugh Walpole, Chico Kidd and LP Hartley.

    Lansdale, Caitlin Kiernan, Catherynne M. Valente, Kit Reed, Ekaterina Sedia, and thirteen other fine writers to create stories unlike any they've written before. Tales to make readers shiver with fear, jump at noises in the night, keep the lights on. These twenty nightmares, brought together by two renowned editors of the dark fantastic, are delightful visions sure to send shivers down the spines of horror readers.

    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"

    While this is his first book for adults, he has been writing ghost stories for young adult readers such as "The Machine Gunners".

    Monsters, real and imagined, external and internal, are the subject. They are us and we are them and Ballingrud's intense focus makes these stories incredibly intense and irresistible.These are love stories. And also monster stories. Sometimes these are monsters in their traditional guises, sometimes they wear the faces of parents, lovers, or ourselves. The often working-class people in these stories are driven to extremes by love. Sometimes, they are ruined; sometimes redeemed. All are faced with the loneliest corners of themselves and strive to find an escape.Nathan Ballingrud was born in Massachusetts but has spent most of his life in the South. He worked as a bartender in New Orleans and New York City and a cook on offshore oil rigs. His story "The Monsters of Heaven" won the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with his daughter.

    Where nature rubs against small towns, in mountains and woods and bedrooms, here is strangeness seen through a poet’s eye.They say there are always greener pastures. These stories consider the cost of that promise.

    Behind a dusty Georgia carny show... In a mausoleum in Baton Rouge, or in an alley in Calcutta... Here wanderers come to rest, the lost and lonely press their bodies up against each other, the heat rises, flesh yields, bones are bared, blood spills. This is the landscape of today's most brilliant young horror writer, Poppy Z. Brite.Now, in a collection that sings like cutting edge rock 'n' roll and shows the deft touch of a master storyteller, Poppy Z. Brite weaves her unique spell of the sensual, the frightening, and the forbidden....

    For this superbly disquieting collection, he selected fourteen of his favorite tales by such authors as E.F. Benson, Rosemary Timperley, and Edith WhartonIncludes:"W.S." L.P. Hartley"Harry" Rosemary Timperley"The Corner Shop" Cynthia Asquith"In the Tube" E.F. Benson"Christmas Meeting" Rosemary Timperley"Elias and the Draug" Jonas Lie"Playmates" A.M. Burrage"Ringing the Changes" Robert Aickman"The Telephone" Mary Treadgold"The Ghost of a Hand" J. Sheridan Le Fanu"The Sweeper" A.M. Burrage"Afterward" Edith Wharton"On the Brighton Road" Richard Middleton"The Upper Berth" F. Marion Crawford

    . . or not.Joining these haunting works are stories linked to Tremblay’s previous novels. The tour de force metafictional novella Notes from the Dog Walkers deconstructs horror and publishing, possibly bringing in a character from A Head Full of Ghosts, all while serving as a prequel to Disappearance at Devil’s Rock. “The Thirteenth Temple” follows another character from A Head Full of Ghosts—Merry, who has published a tell-all memoir written years after the events of the novel. And the title story, Growing Things, a shivery tale loosely shared between the sisters in A Head Full of Ghosts, is told here in full.From global catastrophe to the demons inside our heads, Tremblay illuminates our primal fears and darkest dreams in startlingly original fiction that leaves us unmoored. As he lowers the sky and yanks the ground from beneath our feet, we are compelled to contemplate the darkness inside our own hearts and minds.Growing things --Swim wants to know if it's as bad as swim thinks --Something about birds --The getaway --Nineteen snapshots of Dennisport --Where we all will be --The teacher --Notes for "The Barn in the Wild" --_______ --Our town's monster --A haunted house is a wheel upon which some are broken --It won't go away --Notes from the dog walkers --Further questions for the somnambulist --The ice tower --The society of the monsterhood --Her red right hand --It's against the law to feed the ducks --The thirteenth temple --Notes --Acknowledgments --Credits

    Immersed in the history, atmosphere and rumours of hauntings, they channelled their darker imaginings into a series of extraordinary new ghost stories.Sarah Perry's intense tale of possession at the Jacobean country house Audley End is a work of psychological terror, while Andrew Michael Hurley's story brings an unforgettably shocking slant to the history of Carlisle Castle. Within the walls of these historic buildings each author has found inspiration to deliver a new interpretation of the classic ghost story.Also includes two afterwords: Andrew Martin's Within These Walls: How the Abbeys and Houses of England Inspired the Ghost Story, and Katherine Davey's A Gazetteer of English Heritage Hauntings, properties which are said to be haunted, including the eight locations which inspired the stories in this book.

    In these stories of doubt, delusion, and paranoia, no belief, no claim to objectivity, is immune to the distortions of human perception. Here, self-deception is a means of justifying our most inhuman impulses--whether we know it or not.

    Rolt in Sleep No More, his highly effective collection of stories which was first published in 1948.Tom Rolt was an engineering historian, whose many book credits include biographies of Thomas Telford and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, as well as the highly-acclaimed Red for Danger, a history of railway accidents and railway safety.Rolt's first book, Narrow Boat, a classic in its own right, tells of his love for Britain's canals, a love which led to his involvement with the Inland Waterways Association.His knowledge of Britain's industrial past and his love for the countryside around him are very evident in this collection, which includes two stories not included in the original edition and also Rolt's essay 'The Passing of the Ghost Story'. Rolt takes us on a haunted tour of the world he knew well—from Cornwall to Wales, and from the hill country of Shropshire to the west coast of Ireland—in tales which are guaranteed to make you Sleep No More.Jacket and interior illustrations by Paul Lowe.Contents:The MineThe Cat ReturnsBosworth Summit PoundNew CornerCwm GaronA Visitor at AshcombeThe Garside Fell DisasterWorld's EndHear Not My StepsAgony of FlameHawley Bank FoundryMusic Hath CharmsThe ShoutingThe House of VengeanceThe Passing of the Ghost Story

    “Never go in, miss. Never say a prayer at its door. If you are angry, do not seek revenge by the Laughing Maiden stone or at the threshold of the Tombs. There be those who listen for oaths and vows….What may be said in innocence becomes flesh and blood in such places.”She was born Iris Catherine Villiers. She became Isis.From childhood until her sixteenth year, Iris Villiers wandered the stone-hedged gardens and the steep cliffs along the coast of Cornwall near her ancestral home. Surrounded by the stern judgments of her grandfather—the Gray Minister—and the taunts of her cruel governess, Iris finds solace in her beloved older brother who has always protected her. But when a tragic accident occurs from the ledge of an open window, Iris discovers that she possesses the ability to speak to the dead...Be careful what you wish for…it just may find you.

    The Dark takes a look at the tormented and unquiet dead; the darkness in us, the living; and the sometimes tenuous boundary between the two.