Responding to people's overwhelming attraction to anything frightening, this marvelous anthology of some of the very best English ghost stories combines a serious literary purpose with the simple intention of arousing a pleasurable fear of the doings of the dead. As the first volume to present the full range and vitality of the ghost fiction tradition, this selection of forty-two stories, written between 1829 and 1968, demonstrates the tradition's historical development, as well as its major themes and characteristics. Though the genre reached its peak in the nineteenth century, it enjoyed a second flowering between the two World Wars and even now still attracts dedicated practitioners and readers. The anthology includes stories by Walter Scott, M. R. James, Bram Stoker, Rudyard Kipling, Edith Wharton, Somerset Maugham, T. H. White, and many others. Stressing the important contribution women writers have made to the genre, the collection also offers eight stories by women, ranging from Amelia Edward's "The Phantom Ghost" (1864) to Elizabeth Bowen's "Hand in Glove" (1952).The tapestried chamber / Walter Scott --The phantom coach / Amelia B. Edwards --Squire Toby's will / J.S. Le Fanu --The shadow in the corner / M.E. Braddon --The upper berth / F. Marion Crawford --A wicked voice / Vernon Lee --The judge's house / Bram Stoker --Man-size in marble / E. Nesbit --The roll-call of the reef / Arthur Quiller-Couch --The friends of the friends / Henry James --The red room / H.G. Wells --The monkey's paw / W.W. Jacobs --The lost ghost / Mary E. Wilkins --"Oh, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad" / M.R. James --The empty house / Algernon Blackwood --The cigarette case / Oliver Onions --Rose Rose / Barry Pain --The confession of Charles Linkworth / E.F. Benson --On the Brighton Road / Richard Middleton --Bone to his bone / E.G. Swain --The true history of Anthony Ffryar / Arthur Gray --The Taipan / W. Somerset Maugham --The victim / May Sinclair --A visitor from down under / L.P. Hartley --Fullcircle / John Buchan --The clock / W.F. Harvey --Old man's beard / H. Russell Wakefield --Mr Jones / Edith Wharton --Smee / A.M. Burrage --The little ghost / Hugh Walpole --Ahoy, sailor boy! / A.E. Coppard --The hollow man / Thomas Burke --Et in sempiternum pereant / Charles Williams --Bosworth summit pound / L.T.C. Rolt --An encounter in the mist / A.N.L. Munby --Hand in glove / Elizabeth Bowen --A story of Don Juan / V.S. Pritchett --Cushi / Charistopher Woodforde --Bad company / Walter de la Mare --The bottle of 1912 / Simon Raven --The Cicerones / Robert Aickman --Soft voices at Passenham / T.H. White

    Ranging from the gothic South to the chic East Coast, from rural children to aging urban sophisticates, all the unforgettable places and people of Capote’s oeuvre are here, in stories as elegant as they are heartfelt, as haunting as they are compassionate. Reading them reminds us of the miraculous gifts of a beloved American original.

    The landscape of death becomes the new frontier for scientific exploration. With remarkable deftness, Rogers draws together the disturbing and the diverting in twenty-two showcase stories that will guide you through terrain at once familiar and startlingly fresh.

    I envy those of you making your first acquaintance with this author.” – From the introduction by Matthew Carpenter Respected as one of today’s leading figures of weird fiction for his striking imagination, versatility, and deeply emotional stories, Jeffrey Thomas here offers up fourteen searing tales. Included are the haunting and surreal "Ghosts in Amber," in which a man is compelled to visit a mysterious derelict factory that harbors chilling secrets; "Jar of Mist," which focuses on a father who, in seeking to understand his daughter’s suicide, encounters a dream-like other realm; "Those Above," which imagines an alternate Victorian society controlled by vast monstrous entities from beyond; and the title novelette "The Endless Fall," which concerns an astronaut who crash-lands on an unknown forested world where time seems to work in an alien way, and where he finds he is unfortunately not alone. “With brutal elegance and chilling subtlety, Thomas pulls his readers into his dark visions immediately from every opening line.” – Paul Di Filippo, in ASIMOV’S “Jeffrey Thomas’ imagination is as twisted as it is relentless.” – F. Paul Wilson “In time he will, in this reviewer’s opinion, be listed alongside King, Barker, Koontz, and McCammon.” – Brian Keene

    They built it outside the Suffolk town so it would not infect the healthy with its horrors. But the town itself is long gone, washed away by the North Sea. Only the Leper House remains, a shelter for the unwanted. A bereaved man strays there on a stormy night when the bell tolls once again beneath the waves. In a nearby house, a woman waits for history to repeat itself. When time isn’t what it seems, nor is love and nor are ghosts. And nor are we. The Leper House is a 19,000-word novella, written for Kindle Singles and available here for the first time. Andrew Taylor is a British crime and historical novelist whose books include the international bestseller, The American Boy (a Richard-and-Judy selection), and the Roth Trilogy (filmed for TV as Fallen Angel). Among his many awards are the Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Excellence in crime writing. His latest novel is The Scent of Death, winner of the 2013 Historical Dagger.

    Although In Darkness Waiting begins in much the same vein as many horror novels (mysterious deaths; a small town invaded by evil; plucky, attractive young lovers; the logical level-headed doctor; some salt-of-the-earth townsfolk...) by its end you will have discovered it is not "just another horror novel." With its exploration of the "insect" inside us all, In Darkness Waiting proves more relevant today than ever. Considering a read of In Darkness Waiting is like considering a trip through the Amazon with no weapons and no vaccinations and no shoes. It's like contemplating a journey in the Arctic clad only in your underwear. Or maybe it's more like dropping into one of those spelunker's challenges, those chilling pitch-black shafts into the Earth's crust-and when you get down there your light burns out and you remember the chitinous fauna of the cavern... Unlike undertaking those endeavors, you can get through the harrowing pages of In Darkness Waiting alive (although we are not promising you'll remain unscathed.) Towards the end you'll discover one of the most extreme yet literate passages ever written. It may well be the most outré scene ever created. But John Shirley wasn't after shock alone. Shock is never enough for him.

    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.

    May of these stories are from the pages of Weird Tales and other classic magazines which brought the work of masters like H.P. Lovecraft, Seabury Quinn, Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, and many others to the public. Includes an active table of contents.

    Now, however, Lord Matthew Fetchford is on the brink of death, and he insists he must return to his ancestral home. Something at Aldburn Park terrifies him, yet after all this time he is determined to finally go back and face the horror. As Lord Fetchford prepares for the journey, he sends his butler ahead to open the house up. For Mr. Lawrence, the journey brings mixed feelings. He has a deep connection to Aldburn Park, and to its history, but he also remembers the night when the house was finally sealed. And although he is not a man who believes in ghosts, Mr. Lawrence cannot shake a sense of unease as he arrives – all alone – at the door to the great house. What really happened on the night that Aldburn Park was abandoned? Where did Lady Catherine go after she was last seen? Was there a face at the window as Mr. Lawrence and his employer drove away? And what really lurks in the shadows as Lord Fetchford finally returns to face the consequences of his actions?

    Instead of the people who could be there, his mother or his brother, the figure reminds him of his long-gone father, who died mysteriously before his family left the reservation. When he follows it he discovers his house is bigger and deeper than he knew. The house is the kind of wrong place where you can lose yourself and find things you'd rather not have. Over the course of a few nights, the boy tries to map out his house in an effort that puts his little brother in the worst danger, and puts him in the position to save them . . . at terrible cost.

    He is absolutely indestructible... He changes with the styles in fiction but he never goes out of fashion. He is the really permanent citizen of the earth, for mortals, at best, are but transients' - Dorothy ScarboroughThis new selection of ghost stories, by Michael Newton, brings together the best of the genre. From Elizabeth Gaskell's 'The Old Nurse's Story' through to Edith Wharton's 'Afterword', this collection covers all of the most terrifying tales of the genre. With a thoughtful introduction, and helpful notes, Newton places the stories contextually within the genre and elucidates the changing nature of the ghost story and how we interpret it.

    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.

    I began to suspect something was wrong with the gothic building when its family fled in the middle of the night, the children screaming, the mother crying. They never came back to pack up their furniture. No family stays long. Animals avoid the place. Once, I thought I saw a woman's silhouette pacing through the upstairs room... but that seems impossible; no one was living there at the time. A new occupant, Anna, has just moved in. I paid her a visit to warn her about the building. I didn't expect us to become friends, but we did. And now that Marwick House is waking up, she's asked me to stay with her. I never intended to become involved with the building or its vengeful, dead inhabitant. But now I have to save Anna... before it's too late for the both of us.

    In this spine-tingling anthology, little known stories from literary titans like Charles Dickens and Edith Wharton are collected alongside overlooked works from masters of horror fiction like Edgar Allan Poe and M. R. James.Acclaimed anthologists Leslie S. Klinger (The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes) and Lisa Morton (Ghosts: A Haunted History) set these stories in historical context and trace the literary significance of ghosts in fiction over almost two hundred years—from a traditional English ballad first printed in 1724 through the Christmas-themed ghost stories of the Victorian era and up to the science fiction–tinged tales of the early twentieth century. In bringing these masterful tales back from the dead, Ghost Stories will enlighten and frighten both longtime fans and new readers of the genre.  Including stories by:Ambrose Bierce, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Olivia Howard Dunbar, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, M. R. James, Arthur Machen, Georgia Wood Pangborn, Mrs. J. H. Riddell, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Walter Scott, Frank Stockton, Mark Twain, and Edith Wharton.

    Here, Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler has followed his keen sense of the supernatural to collect the most chilling and uncanny tales in the canon. These spectral stories span more than a hundred years, from modern-day horrors by Joyce Carol Oates, Chet Williamson and Andrew Klavan, to pulp yarns from August Derleth, Greye La Spina, and M. L. Humphreys, to the atmospheric Victorian tales of Rudyard Kipling, Edith Wharton, and H. P. Lovecraft, not to mention modern works by the likes of Donald E. Westlake and Isaac Asimov that are already classics. Some of these stories have haunted the canon for a century, while others are making their first ghoulish appearance  in book form.  Whether you prefer possessive poltergeists, awful apparitions, or friendly phantoms, these stories are guaranteed to thrill you, tingle the spine, or tickle the funny bone, and keep you turning the pages with fearful delight.Including such classics as “The Monkey’s Paw” and “The Open Window” and eerie vintage illustrations, and also featuring haunted mansions, midnight frights, lovers from beyond the grave, rapping, tapping, wailing shades, and ghosts, ghouls, and specters galore! AlsoFeaturing haunted mansions, midnight frights, lovers from beyond the grave, rapping, tapping, wailing shades, and ghosts, ghouls, and specters galore!