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.

    She was sad and translucent, present and absent at once. Strange things began to happen in the Santa Fe hotel where she was seen. Gas fireplaces turned off and on without anyone touching a switch. Vases of flowers appeared in new locations. Glasses flew off shelves. And in one second-floor suite with a canopy bed and arched windows looking out to the mountains, guests reported alarming events: blankets ripped off while they slept, the room temperature plummeting, disembodied breathing, dancing balls of light.La Posada--"place of rest"--had been a grand Santa Fe home before it was converted to a hotel. The room with the canopy bed had belonged to Julia Schuster Staab, the wife of the home's original owner. She died in 1896, nearly a century before the hauntings were first reported. In American Ghost, Hannah Nordhaus traces the life, death, and unsettled afterlife of her great-great-grandmother Julia, from her childhood in Germany to her years in the American West with her Jewish merchant husband.American Ghost is a story of pioneer women and immigrants, ghost hunters and psychics, frontier fortitude and mental illness, imagination and lore. As she traces the strands of Julia's life, Nordhaus uncovers a larger tale of how a true-life story becomes a ghost story--and how difficult it is to separate history and myth.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    It is written around 200BC by the great Hindu Scholar Pandit Vishnu Sharma. Panchatantra means "the five books". It is a "Nitishastra" which means book of wise conduct in life. The book is written in the form of simple stories and each story has a moral and philosophical theme which has stood the test of time in modern age of atomic fear and madness. It guides us to attain success in life by understanding human nature. Panchatantra is commonly available in an abridged form written for children. Here is the complete translation of the book as written by Vishnu Sharma.

    For those who already know these tales, the poignant introduction is a window on the creator's mind. Reflecting back after 14 years, Barker writes: I look at these pieces and I don't think the man who wrote them is alive in me anymore.... We are all our own graveyards I believe; we squat amongst the tombs of the people we were. If we're healthy, every day is a celebration, a Day of the Dead, in which we give thanks for the lives that we lived; and if we are neurotic we brood and mourn and wish that the past was still present. Reading these stories over, I feel a little of both. Some of the simple energies that made these words flow through my pen--that made the phrases felicitous and the ideas sing--have gone. I lost their maker a long time ago. These enthusiastic tales are not ashamed of visceral horror, of blood splashing freely across the page: "The Midnight Meat Train," a grisly subway tale that surprises you with one twist after another; "The Yattering and Jack," about a hilarious demon who possesses a Christmas turkey; "In the Hills, the Cities," an unusual example of an original horror premise; "Dread," a harrowing non-supernatural tale about being forced to realize your worst nightmare; "Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament," about a woman who kills men with her mind. Some of the tales are more successful than others, but all are distinguished by strikingly beautiful images of evil and destruction. No horror library is complete without them. --Fiona Webster

    They are the portal to connect with a world that resides beyond our imagination.We are drawn to supernatural stories and mysteries – they have the power to evoke curiosity and widen our perception.But the stories you’re about to uncover aren’t some spiritual mumbo jumbo… each one has a compelling truth attached to it supported by convincing evidence.In Ghost Stories, you’ll unearth a goldmine of haunting stories that will leave goosebumps from head to toe. Inside, you’ll discover: 20 bone-chilling ghost stories that will challenge your sanity and force you to question reality The story of the ghost who testified to a murder mystery The ghastly story of Taunton State Hospital – and what it’s infamous for What’s really hiding in the veins of the famous Roosevelt Hotel The frightening secret hiding in an innocent-looking doll The mystery behind the never-ending construction of the Winchester Mystery House The silent empire that exists beneath the streets of the ‘City of Love’ The dark chapter in the history of Cannock Chase Does science approve of paranormal activities – and does it matter?And so much more!A horror movie or book may scare the soul out of your body, but you at least have the relief that it’s all fiction. What’s more terrifying is when such stories have happened in real life… and make Stephen King’s stories look like lullabies.While these supernatural stories might seem fabricated, there's always some truth in them… and that’s what makes them more terrifying.There are powers in the cosmos that can’t be explained, but it doesn’t change the fact that there’s always an explanation – it depends on how willing you are to explore things further...

    Growing obsessed, David made his way to England to calm his fears -- instead he found an...UNBOUNDED HELL.Colin and his wife were dead -- victims of ghastly violence. Their seemingly serene cottage seethed with an aura of murder, madness, and betrayal. Overpowered by the evil, David soon embarked on a...JOURNEY INTO THE MACABRE.Suffocatingly, the presence grew...grew to a malevolent force trying to kill David's fiancee...grew until David himself was a helpless prisoner of unholy passion!

    The story of the Sallie House and the fire-starting ghost girl who haunted it has sparked endless rumors and theories of murder, cover-ups, racism, and abuse. But the Pickmans know the real story because they lived it--and barely made it out alive.Now, for the first time, Tony and Debra reveal untold stories from their ordeal. They describe Sallie's seemingly protective fascination with their baby, and tell what it was like to live with menacing entities that scratched, bit, and terrorized their family. Along with historical research, the Pickmans share personal photographs and journal entries from their time spent living in the nightmare house that still haunts them today.

    ” A timeless tale of love,  devotion . . . and the undead.Jane Slayre, our plucky demon-slaying heroine, a courageous orphan who spurns the detestable vampyre kin who raised her, sets out on the advice of her ghostly uncle to hone her skills as the fearless slayer she’s meant to be. When she takes a job as a governess at a country estate, she falls head-over-heels for her new master, Mr. Rochester, only to discover he’s hiding a violent werewolf in the attic—in the form of his first wife. Can a menagerie of bloodthirsty, flesh-eating, savage creatures-of-the-night keep a swashbuckling nineteenth-century lady from the gentleman she intends to marry? Vampyres, zombies, and werewolves transform Charlotte Brontë’s unforgettable masterpiece into an eerie paranormal adventure that will delight and terrify.

    This collection of classic and newly reprinted stories provides readers with more of her unsettling, dark tales, including the "The Possibility of Evil" and "The Summer People." In these deliciously dark stories, the daily commute turns into a nightmarish game of hide and seek, the loving wife hides homicidal thoughts and the concerned citizen might just be an infamous serial killer. In the haunting world of Shirley Jackson, nothing is as it seems and nowhere is safe, from the city streets to the crumbling country pile, and from the small-town apartment to the dark, dark woods. There's something sinister in suburbia.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

    At its heart was a beautiful, enigmatic woman called Pandora Gibson-Hoare, a photographer of genius whose only legacy is a handful of photographs and the clues to a mystery.Just weeks after four students cross the threshold of the derelict Fischer House, one of them has committed suicide and the other three are descending into madness.Nick Mason's sister is one of them. To save her, Nick must join ranks with Paul Seaton--the only person to have visited the house and survive. But Paul is a troubled man, haunted by otherworldly visions that even now threaten his sanity.Desperate, Nick forces Paul to go back into the past, to the secret journal of beautiful photographer Pandora Gibson-Hoare and a debauched gathering in the 1920s, and to the dark legacy of Klaus Fischer--master of the unspeakable crime and demonic proceedings that have haunted the mansion for decades.Because now, the Fischer House is beckoning, and some old friends have gathered to welcome Paul back. . . .

    During his lifetime, he was better known as the personal assistant of actor Henry Irving and business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, which Irving owned.

    A retired English professor who began writing fiction at the age of 70, Maclean produced what is now recognized as one of the classic American stories of the twentieth century. Originally published in 1976, A River Runs through It and Other Stories now celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary, marked by this new edition that includes a foreword by Annie Proulx.Maclean grew up in the western Rocky Mountains in the first decades of the twentieth century. As a young man he worked many summers in logging camps and for the United States Forest Service. The two novellas and short story in this collection are based on his own experiences—the experiences of a young man who found that life was only a step from art in its structures and beauty. The beauty he found was in reality, and so he leaves a careful record of what it was like to work in the woods when it was still a world of horse and hand and foot, without power saws, "cats," or four-wheel drives. Populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, and set in the small towns and surrounding trout streams and mountains of western Montana, the stories concern themselves with the complexities of fly fishing, logging, fighting forest fires, playing cribbage, and being a husband, a son, and a father.