Seventeen all-new stories illuminate the steampunk world of fog and fear!Modern masters of the supernatural weave their magic to revitalize the chilling Victorian and Edwardian ghostly tale: here are haunted houses, arcane inventions, spirits reaching across the centuries, ghosts in the machine, fateful revelations, gaslit streets scarcely keeping the dark at bay, and other twisted variations on the immortal classics that frighten us still.

    The star attraction is the novella The Haunted Hotel, a clever combination of detective and ghost story set in Venice, a city of grim waterways, dark shadows and death. The action takes place in an ancient palazzo coverted into a modern hotel that houses a grisly secret. The supernatural horror, relentless pace, tight narrative, and a doomed countess characterise and distinguish this powerful tale.The other stories present equally disturbing scenarios, which includes ghosts, corpses that move, family curses and perhaps most unusual of all, the Devil's spectacles, which bring a clarity of vision that can lead to madness. Collins is one of the great storytellers. He excels in presenting narratives that both disturb and engross the reader, as this fine collection demonstrates.

    They reflect innermost fears and head for spaces where reality is blurred by imagination, where insanity and madness are shrouded in mystery and where humanity is haunted by repressed passion and obsession.

    . . .This collection of tales transports the reader to a time when staircases creaked in old manor houses, and a candle could be blown out by a gust of wind, or by a passing ghost. Penned by some of the greatest Victorian novelists and masters of the ghost story genre, each story is illustrated with exquisitely eerie artwork in this special gift edition featuring an embossed textured case and a ribbon marker.Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad - M.R. JamesThe Old Nurse's Story - Elizabeth GaskellThe Signalman - Charles DickensThe Body-Snatcher - Robert Louis StevensonThe Captain of the Pole-Star - Arthur Conan DoyleThe Phantom Coach - Amelia B. EdwardsThe Screaming Skull - Francis Marion Crawford

    Borderlands is about breaking the mold and pushing the genre and its finest writers to the edge. Hailed as the anthology series of the 90s, Borderlands will remind you that horror can indeed be horrific. Read about a farmer who disdains his wife for a giant potato...women's clothing made from fetal tissue..an executive who slowly slips into the reality he sells...and more.CONTENTS'Introduction' -- Thomas F. Monteleone"The Calling" -- David B. Silva"Scartaris, June 28th" -- Harlan Ellison"Glass Eyes" -- Nancy Holder"The Grass of Remembrance" -- John DeChancie"On the Nightmare Express" -- Francis J. Malozzo"The Pounding Room" -- Bentley Little"Peeling It Off" -- Darrell Schweitzer"The Raw and the Cooked" -- Michael Green"His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood" -- Poppy Z. Brite"Oh What a Swell Guy Am I" -- Jeffrey Osier"Delia and the Dinner Party" -- John Shirley"Suicide Note" -- Lee Moler"Stillborn" -- Nina Kiriki Hoffman"Ladder" -- T.E.D. Klein"Muscae Volitantes" -- Chet Williamson"The Man in the Long Black Sedan" -- Ed Gorman"His Frozen Heart" -- Jack Hunter Daves Jr."Evelyn Grace" -- Thomas Tessier"By The Light of the Silvery Moon" -- Les Daniels"A Younger Woman" -- John Maclay"But You'll Never Follow Me" -- Karl Edward Wagner"Stephen" -- Elizabeth Massie"Alexandra" -- Charles L. Grant"The Good Book" -- G. Wayne Miller"By Bizarre Hands" -- Joe R. Lansdale

    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

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

    Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder is a collection of supernatural detective short stories by author William Hope Hodgson.

    IT IS THEIR RESIDENTS WHO ARE SCREAMING... "No-one could be that unhappy and be alive..." A chambermaid's seemingly innocent request is granted, an act of kindness that has dire consequences for the guest at THE ELMS, MORECAMBE. Human despair has a power of its own after death, and it is contagious... "I wish I had been right; I wish that it had been a man, or death alone, that had found her..." An unearthly light in an abandoned bungalow resolves the mystery of a missing child, but no human force has taken her. An entity that fishes for children is in THE MERRY HOUSE, SCALE HALL. But will it remain there? "Go beyond the graves, and they will come to you." An invitation to a clifftop graveyard leads to a harrowing chase by burrowing things that remain unseen, their hunger unknown and never satisfied, BEYOND ST PATRICK'S CHAPEL. "The great delight in being part of the Save Our Shit crew was that sometimes they could persuade those designers of the present and the future to save or incorporate the past into their designs." There is no need in THE OCEAN GRAND, NW COAST, because the original artists created a living work of art for the hotel. Art that celebrates the triumph of the natural world over the man-made. A life force that transcends - and brings death... "Something white came out. Something white, screaming and screaming..." Homes fit for heroes, they were promised after the Great War. They were given something else in THE TEMPLE OF RELIEF AND EASE. There is a hidden agenda to paranormal researcher Richard Nakata's investigations into these houses. A commission that witnesses cattle lowing in the cowsheds of STACK'S FARM long after they've been slaughtered, and a reckoning in the showhouse of 24 GLASSHOUSE, as he and his colleagues pay the price for creating their own ghost... Simon Kurt Unsworth reinvents the classic English ghost story with a portmanteau collection that takes the haunted house genre and makes it scream...quietly. Because the most terrifying screams are the silent ones. "A major new talent in the horror genre." - Pete Tennant

    Schow received the World Fantasy Award for "Red Light" and the Twilight Zone Magazine Dimension award for "Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You", both of which are included in this volume.

    Each of these stories revolves around the arcane secrets and dark psychic traces to be found in libraries, museums and other treasure troves of hidden knowledge. The 12 stories included are "The Nature of the Evidence" by May Sinclair, "Mr Tallent s Ghost" by Mary Webb, "The Lost Tragedy" by Denis Mackaill, "Bone to His Bone" by Edmund Gill Swain, "Herodes Redivivus" by A. N. L. Munby, "The Book" by Margaret Irwin, "The Whisperers" by Algernon Blackwood, "The Tractate Middoth" by M. R. James, "Afterward" by Edith Wharton, "Fingers of a Hand" by Theo Douglas, and "The Apple Tree" by Elizabeth Bowen.

    In the big white house on the hill angels are said to appear. A forgotten tenant in an isolated building becomes addicted to milk. A strange goddess is worshipped by a home-invading disciple. The least remembered gods still haunt the oldest forests. Cannibalism occurs in high society at the end of the world. The sainted undead follow their prophet to the Great Dead Sea. A confused and vengeful presence occupies the home of a first-time buyer . . . In ghastly harmony with the nightmarish visions of the award-winning writer's novels, these stories blend a lifelong appreciation of horror culture with the grotesque fascinations and childlike terrors that are the author's own. Adam Nevill's best early horror stories are collected here for the first time.

    These tales are richly populated by spirits and ghosts seeking revenge; by grief-stricken women and haunted men coming to terms with their destiny - all rooted deep in the elemental landscapes of Sussex, Brittany and the Languedoc.The collection will include The Mistletoe Bride, La Fille de Melisande, Red Letter Day, The Lending Library, The House on the Hill...

    These stories are explorations of the extreme in human behaviour, where the bizarre chills the spine, and few authors can match Grabinski's depiction of seething sexual frenzy. The Dark Domain will introduce to English readers one of Europe's most important authors of literary fantasy.

    and Thomas F. Monteleone have reapeatedly transformed teh landscape of the modern horror story with their acclaimed Borderlands anthologies. Now in an indispensable new collection, they present twenty-five all-original tales of terror by today's acclaimed masters and the best new voices in horror fiction, including: Stephen KingWhitley StrieberJohn FarrisTom PiccirilliDavid J. SchowBentley Little...and many others.Shocking and cutting edge, these tales of doom, depravity, and menace will chill your blood and haunt your soul. From fantastic supernatural terrors to the very real horrors waiting outside your own front door, these stories expand the boundaries of fear and madness...--back coverContents:Rami temporalis / Gary Braunbeck --All hands / John R. Platt --Faith will make you free / Holly Newstein --N0072-JKI / Adam Corbin Fusco --Time for me / Barry Hoffman --The growth of Alan Ashley / Bill Gauthier --The goat / Whitt Pond --Prisoner 392 / Jon F. Merz --The food processor / Michael Canfield --Story time with the BlueField strangler / John Farris --Answering the call / Brian Freeman --Smooth operator / Dominick Cancilla --Father Bob and Bobby / Whitley Strieber --A thing / Barbara Malenky --The planting / Bentley Little --Infliction / John McIlveen --Dysfunction / Darren O. Godfrey --The thing too hideous to describe / David J. Schow --Slipknot / Brett Alexander Savory --Magic numbers / Gene O. Neill --Head music / Lon Prater --Around it still the sumac grows / Tom Piccirilli --Annabell / L. Lynn Young --One of those weeks / Bev Vincent --Stationary bike / Stephen King.