Ghost Stories


Henry James - 1898
    Henry James was arguably the greatest practitioner of what has been called the psychological ghost story. His stories explore the region which lies between the supernatural or straightforwardly marvellous and the darker areas of the human psyche. This edition includes all ten of his ghost stories, and as such is the fullest collection currently available. The stories range widely in tone and type. They include 'The Jolly Corner', a compelling story of psychological doubling; 'Owen Wingrave', which is also a subtle parable of military tradition; 'The Friends of the Friends', a strange story of uncanny love; and 'The Private Life', which finds a shrewd, high comedy in its ghostly theme. The volume also includes James's great novella The Turn of the Screw , perhaps the most ambiguous and disturbing ghost story ever written.

The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre


Robert MorrisonNathaniel Parker Willis - 1997
    The present volume selects thirteen other tales of mystery and the macabre, including the works of James Hogg, J.S. LeFanu, Letitia Landon, Edward Bulwer, and William Carelton. The introduction surveys the genesis and influence of The Vampyre and its central themes and techniques, while the Appendices contain material closely associated with its composition and publication, including Lord Byron's prose fragment Augustus Darvell.JOHN POLIDORI - The VampyreHORACE SMITH - Sir Guy Eveling's DreamWILLIAM CARLETON - Confessions of a Reformed RibbonmanEDWARD BULWER - Monos and DaimonosALLAN CUNNINGHAM - The Master of LoganANONYMOUS - The VictimJAMES HOGG - Some Terrible Letters from ScotlandANONYMOUS - The CurseANONYMOUS - Life in DeathN. P. WILLIS - My Hobby,--RatherCATHERINE GORE - The Red ManCHARLES LEVER - Post-Mortem Recollections of a Medical LecturerLETITIA E. LANDON - The Bride of LindorfJOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU - Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Contess

The Vampyre


John William Polidori - 1819
    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.

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary


M.R. James - 1904
    "Number Thirteen," "The Mezzotint," "Canon Alberic's Scrapbook," and more. Renowned for their wit, erudition and suspense, these stories are each masterfully constructed and represent a high achievement in the ghost genre. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

In a Glass Darkly


J. Sheridan Le Fanu - 1872
    Justice Harbottle, The Room in the Dragon Volant, and Carmilla. The five stories are purported to be cases by Dr. Hesselius, a 'metaphysical' doctor, who is willing to consider the ghosts both as real and as hallucinatory obsessions. The reader's doubtful anxiety mimics that of the protagonist, and each story thus creates that atmosphere of mystery which is the supernatural experience. This new annotated edition includes an introduction, notes on the text, and explanatory notes.NB: The Familiar is a revision of The Watcher; Mr. Justice Harbottle is a revision of An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street.

Children of the Night: Classic Vampire Stories


David Stuart Davies - 2007
    In this unique collection of vampire stories you will find some of the earliest depictions of these fearful creatures as in John Polidori's 'The Vampyre' and James Malcolm Rymer's 'Varney, the Vampyre', a tale which held readers in thrall when it was first published in the mid-nineteenth century. As well as these rare stories and those featuring the more well known bloodsuckers such as Le Fanu's 'Carmilla' and Stoker's 'Dracula', there is a clutch of lesser known but equally frightening tales written by expert practitioners in the art of raising goose pimples. Children of the Night is a volume filled with the rich blood of chilling vampire fiction.

Fallen Angels ...and Spirits of the Dark


Robert Masello - 1994
    Fallen Angels is the first book to delve into previously uncharted territory: the world of infamous angels and evil beings. Illustrated.

The Haunted Hotel: A Mystery of Modern Venice


Wilkie Collins - 1879
    Are their malefactions at the root of the haunting -- or is there something darker, something much more unknowable at work? (Jacketless library hardcover.)

20th Century Ghosts


Joe Hill - 2005
    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...

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"

Hauntings and Other Fantastic Tales


Vernon Lee - 1890
    of whom I can affirm only one thing, that they haunted certain brains, and have haunted, among others, my own.” First published in 1890, Lee’s most famous volume of supernatural tales occupies a special place in the literature of the fantastic for its treatment of the femme fatale and the allure of the past, along with the themes of thwarted artistic creativity and psychological obsession. This collection, which includes the four stories originally published in Hauntings and three others, enables readers to consider Lee’s work anew for its subtle redefinitions of gender and sexuality during the Victorian fin-de-siècle.The appendices, which include extensive excerpts from writings by Lee’s predecessors and peers, including Algernon Charles Swinburne, Walter Pater, and Lee’s brother Eugene Lee-Hamilton, allow the reader to see how Lee takes on the themes and preoccupations of the late-Victorian period but adapts them to her own purposes.Preface to Hauntings (1890) -- Amour dure (1887, 1890) -- Dionea (1890) -- Oke of Okehurst (1886, 1890) -- A wicked voice (1887, 1890) -- Prince Alberic and the snake lady (1896) -- A wedding chest (1904) -- Preface to The virgin of the seven daggers (1927) -- The virgin of the seven daggers (1896, 1909,1927) -- Appendix A: From Algernon Charles Swinburne, "Notes on designs of the old masters at Florence" (1868, 1875) -- Appendix B: From Walter Pater, "Pico della Mirandula" (1871, 1873) -- Appendix C: From Walter Pater, "Lionardo da Vinci" (1869, 1873) -- Appendix D: Vernon Lee, "Faustus and Helena: notes on the supernatural in art" (1880, 1881) -- Appendix E: A. Mary F. Robinson, "Before a bust of Venus" (1881) -- Appendix F: Eugene Lee-Hamilton, "The mandolin" (1882) -- Appendix G: A. Mary F. Robinson, "The ladies of Milan" (1889) -- Appendix H: Eugene Lee-Hamilton, "On a surf-rolled torso of Venus" (1884, 1894) -- Appendix I: Vernon Lee, "Out of Venice at last" (1925).

Varney the Vampire; or, The Feast of Blood


James Malcolm Rymer - 1845
    Sold for a penny a chapter on the streets of London in 1845, Varney the Vampire is a milestone of Vampire fiction, yet ignored and overlooked for nearly 100 years, until now! The Critical Edition of Varney the Vampire; or, The Feast of Blood includes: · A critical introduction about the Penny Dreadful Press and the lore of the Mid 19th Century Vampire · Over 200 notes explaining references, historical information, and corrections to the text · A variety of 19th century essays explaining the horrors and dangers of (gasp!) reading Penny Dreadfuls · Contemporary critical essays on James Malcolm Rymer and his most famous Penny Dreadfuls: Varney the Vampire and Sweeney Todd · Four additional early Penny Dreadfuls detailing insanity, family cannibalism, torture gone wrong, and other bedtime stories · A reader's guide · Reproductions of the original woodcut illustrations

Anno Dracula


Kim Newman - 1992
    Peppered with familiar characters from Victorian history and fiction, the novel follows vampire Geneviève Dieudonné and Charles Beauregard of the Diogenes Club as they strive to solve the mystery of the Ripper murders. Anno Dracula is a rich and panoramic tale, combining horror, politics, mystery and romance to create a unique and compelling alternate history. Acclaimed novelist Kim Newman explores the darkest depths of a reinvented Victorian London. This brand-new edition of the bestselling novel contains unique bonus material, including a new afterword from Kim Newman, annotations, articles and alternate endings to the original novel.

The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton


Edith Wharton - 1937
    Fine line-drawings by Laszlo Kubinyi enhance the mysterious and sometimes chilling mood.The lady's maid's bell (1904)The eyes (1910)Afterward (1910)Kerfol (1916)The triumph of night (1914)Miss Mary Pask (1925)Bewitched (1925)Mr Jones (1928)Pomegranate seed (1931)The looking glass (1935)All souls' (1937)

The Woman in Black


Susan Hill - 1983
    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.