The Beast with Five Fingers


William Fryer Harvey - 1928
    'We'll keep it there until it dies, ' he said. 'May I burn in hell, if I ever open the door of that safe again.' The brilliant and scary The Beast with Five Fingers, is the first entry in this mammoth collection of strange and chilling short stories by W. F. Harvey, an unjustly neglected author of supernatural tales. This unique volume demonstrates clearly that Harvey is one of the masters of the genre. Along with such classics as August Heat, which concerns two strangers whose individual fates become inextricably entwined in a nightmare scenario and the gruesome school yarn, The Dabblers, you will find such minor masterpieces of the uncanny as The Man Who Hated Aspidistras, Sarah Bennet's Possession, The Habeas Corpus Club and many more stories which refreshingly avoid the cliche while at the same time creating that wonderfully eerie sense of fear.

The Haunting of Graham House


Darcy Coates
    It uncovers a past ghost and a scam. Takes place four weeks after "The Haunting of Blackwood House".

Isis


Douglas Clegg - 2006
    “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.

A Gathering of Ghosts


David Haynes - 2014
    Prepare to have your blood chilled by six tales of fear and phantasmagoria…The Silent Bell: A doctor’s invention to prevent people being accidentally buried alive backfires on him with horrific results.The Stonegate Manor Collection: Lord Feltham’s paintings are worth a fortune, but also conceal a gruesome tragedy that has yet more lives to claim.The Haunting of Reverend Carson: The charlatan Musgrave makes a living pretending to talk to the dead, until he discovers his new client’s demons are more than merely spiritual.The Last Waltz: Through that miracle of technology, the Zoopraxiscope, a lonely man’s long-lost love is brought back to life before his very eyes.The Speaking Tube: John Barker is consumed with hatred for his malicious father and torments him with voices from hell, unaware of how close to the abyss he is himself.The Ghost Train: Alone aboard an empty train running along a dead track, Godfrey witnesses the grotesque secret that is entombed beneath Paddington Station.Go deeper into David Haynes’s world of the macabre…

The Asylum: A Jack Nightingale Short Story


Stephen Leather - 2017
    A TV crew goes in to investigate and Jack Nightingale goes in with them. But the truth is more shocking than any of them realise, and not everyone will get out alive. The Asylum is a fast-paced supernatural story about 16,000 words long. Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers, an ebook and Sunday Times bestseller and author of the critically acclaimed Dan “Spider’ Shepherd series and the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective novels. You can find out more from his website www.stephenleather.com and Jack Nightingale has his own website at www.jacknightingale.com

Lingering Things and Other Dark Tales: A Horror Anthology


Dana Noraas - 2019
    A woman is left struggling to survive after a bear attack leaves her alone in the wilderness. A writer desperately tries to complete his book while being harassed by a relentless spirit. A poem of warning from a traveling salesman. A young boy disappears after hearing his mother calling to him from the woods and returns later that night acting strangely. This horror anthology features both supernatural and realistic situations that will make you double-check your locks at night. Before you tell yourself that these 15 original stories are just made up, rest assured knowing that one of them is inspired by true events.

Pretty Monsters: Stories


Kelly Link - 2008
    Through the lens of Link's vivid imagination, nothing is what it seems, and everything deserves a second look. From the multiple award-winning The Faery Handbag, in which a teenager's grandmother carries an entire village (or is it a man-eating dog?) in her handbag, to the near-future of The Surfer, whose narrator (a soccer-playing skeptic) waits with a planeload of refugees for the aliens to arrive, Link's stories are funny and full of unexpected insights and skewed perspectives on the world. Her fans range from Michael Chabon to Peter Buck of R.E.M. to Holly Black of Spiderwick Chronicles fame. Now teens can have their world rocked, too!

Ghostly Stories


Celia Fremlin - 2019
    'Be sure you don't answer the door to anyone you don't know.'A little Patricia Highsmith, a touch of Shirley Jackson: the long-neglected Celia Fremlin wrote short, sharp stories that threw women's lives into shiver-inducing relief.In each of these twinned tales, a mother and daughter meet again, and an ordinary home becomes the setting for a return of the repressed.Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.

100 Ghastly Little Ghost Stories


Stefan R. Dziemianowicz - 1993
    They represent more than 150 year's worth of writing, and include the greats: H.P. Lovecraft ("The Terrible Old Man"), Ambrose Bierce ("The Stranger"), Lafcadio Hearn ("A Dead Secret"), Oscar Wilde ("The Sphinx Without a Secret"), and J. Sheridan Le Fanu ("The Ghost and the Bone-Setter"). Best of all, a variety of human emotions and behavior come to the fore, from avarice (August Derleth's "Pacific 421") to revenge (Thorp McCluskey's "Black Gold"), from jealousy (Steve Rasnic Tem's "Daddy") to honor (Edith Nesbit's "John Charrington's Wedding") to love (Darrell Schwietzer's "Clocks"). Using a minimum of elements, each ghost story in this collection will entertain, captivate, and evoke a powerful response in readers. So be warned: you might not want to read these while you're all alone in the house...

Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Tales


Bram Stoker - 2006
    Comprised of spine-chilling tales published by Stoker’s widow after his death, as well as The Lair of the White Worm, an intensely intriguing novel of myths, legends, and unspeakable evils, this collection demonstrates the full range of Stoker’s horror writing.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.

Vernon House


Sandra Farris - 2014
    She wanted this old Victorian for herself. The rumors the house was haunted didn’t bother Jennifer, who is a skeptic by nature. But her skepticism turns to intrigue when she finds a letter dated 1909 in the attic tucked into the folds of a wedding dress. The letter mentions a murder, but no name of the victim and is signed with only initials. Jennifer's challenge is to track down the identity of the victim, as well as the killer. However, her research brings forth two spirits, one of which is evil.

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 Phantom Coach: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Ghost Stories


Michael SimsW.W. Jacobs - 2014
    Michael Sims, whose previous Victorian collections Dracula's Guest (vampires) and The Dead Witness (detectives) have been widely praised, has gathered twelve of the best stories about humanity's oldest supernatural obsession. The Phantom Coach includes tales by a surprising, often legendary cast, from Charles Dickens and Margaret Oliphant to Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, and Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as well as lost gems by forgotten masters such as Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and W.F. Harvey. Amelia Edwards' chilling story gives the collection its title, while Ambrose Bierce (“The Moonlit Road”), Elizabeth Gaskell, (“The Old Nurse's Story”) and W. W. Jacobs (“The Monkey's Paw”) will turn you white as a sheet. With a skillful introduction to the genre and notes on each story by Michael Sims, The Phantom Coach is a spectacular collection of ghostly Victorian thrills.

The Bishop of Hell and Other Stories


Marjorie Bowen - 1949
    We are lucky that she did so, since among the results were these short stories of rare quality. In their use of dreams, ancient anecdote, and ruined or dilapidated buildings ('Florence Flannery', 'The Fair Hair of Ambrosine') they are at times in the finest tradition of The Castle of Otranto and the Gothic revival which had chilled the blood of the British public a hundred and fifty years earlier. But her stories are more subtle in their construction, and often use simple materials ('The Crown Derby Plate', Elsie's Lonely Afternoon'), interweaving their terror and mystery with the commonplace of everyday life. Their mastery of detail, sureness of expression and acute reading of human nature give them a sinister force, which is realistic and unnerving, yet at the same time tinged with pity and compassion.

Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque


Joyce Carol Oates - 1994
    Haunted, a collection of sixteen tales that range from classic ghost stories to portrayals of chilling psychological terror, raises the genre to the level of fine literature - complex, multi-layered, and gripping fiction that is very scary indeed. In the title story, "Haunted, " the pubescent Melissa and her best friend, the sexually precocious Mary Lou, ignore "no trespassing" signs to explore forbidden houses. But the deserted Minton farm is one place where they should not have gone, and years later Melissa is tormented by her memories of its malevolence...and the murder of Mary Lou. In the novella, "The Model, " a sexual threat seems to underlie the interaction between young Sybil Blake and "Mr. Starr, " who asks her to be his model, but the truth about her own identity, and his, shows that the danger is lurking in a different part of the heart. The "Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly, " a macabre reworking of Henry James's "The Turn of the Screw, " resurrects the evil of Miss Jessel and Quint, who are up to their old tricks with the children, Miles and Flora, but with new, perverse, and brilliant revelations. The tales in this collection plunge the reader into nightmare worlds where violence slips in unexpectedly, where reality turns into a funhouse mirror, and where American culture goes awry in shocking, provocative ways. Joyce Carol Oates is a master storyteller of the dark side. She writes with skillfully controlled prose, tightly woven plots, and deep psychological insight that m her fictional horror worthy to set alongside the stories of Edgar Allan Poe - and far above all the rest.Haunted --The doll --The bingo master --The white cat --The model --Extenuating circumstances --Don't you trust me --The guilty party --The premonition --Phase change --Poor Bibi --Thanksgiving --Blind --The radio astronomer --Accursed inhabitants of the House of Bly --Martyrdom