Eight ingenious, gripping tales by the master of suspense and creator of the American Gothic horror story: "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "William Wilson," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Gold-Bug," "The Purloined Letter, and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." Classic, spine-tingling tales for ghost story enthusiasts.
A masterful collection of ghost stories that have been overlooked by contemporary readers—including tales by celebrated authors such as Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain, and Edith Wharton—presented with insightful annotations by acclaimed horror anthologists Leslie S. Klinger and Lisa Morton. The ghost story has long been a staple of world literature, but many of the genre's greatest tales have been forgotten, overshadowed in many cases by their authors' bestselling work in other genres. 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 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 as well as new readers of the genre. Including stories by: Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, M. R. James, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, and more.
A collection of short fiction explores the dark imaginations and experiences of the human mind in tales of horror and duspense by Zane, Tanarive Due, Stephen Barnes, Robert Fleming, and other African-American authors.
Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Anthology "One of the best anthologies of horror and suspense of all time."—Rocky Mountain News From award-winning author and “master anthologist”* Al Sarrantonio, 999: Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense is a specially curated collection of evocative fiction that probes the depth of human fears and frailties. From otherworldly entities stalking prey to psychological terrors borne of trauma, these stories exemplify the limitless possibilities inherent in the genre, revealing that darkness can be found anywhere the imagination dares to look for it. Young siblings uncover a disturbing history of their scandalized family—and encounter a creature of twisted malevolence—when they find themselves in “The Ruins of Contracocur” by Joyce Carol Oates. A man regrets his impulse purchase of a yard sale painting when the image continually shapeshifts into more and more violent depictions of its subject in pursuit of its new owner in Stephen King’s “The Road Virus Heads North.” In Neil Gaiman’s “Keepsakes and Treasures: A Love Story”, an ancient people’s legend haunts a wealthy and powerful man who pays the ultimate price to possess a happiness never meant to endure. Thomas Ligotti unleashes “The Shadow, The Darkness” on an unsuspecting commune of struggling artists who come to accept a damning realization of their misperceived identities and their true existence in the cosmos. And twenty-five more excursions over the course of 666 pages into horror’s unrelenting shadows by: William Peter Blatty * Edward Bryant * P. D. Cacek * Ramsey Campbell * Nancy A. Collins * Thomas M. Disch * Ed Gorman * Rick Hautala * T. E. D. Klein * Joe R. Lansdale * Edward Lee * Bentley Little * Eric Van Lustbader * Dennis L. McKiernan * Thomas F. Monteleone * David Morrell * Kim Newman * Tim Powers * Al Sarrantonio * Peter Schneider * Michael Marshall Smith * Steven Spruill * Chet Williamson * F. Paul Wilson * Gene Wolfe *Booklist
This book presents a detailed academic study of suspense building in Stephen King’s horror novels The Shining and Carrie and their respective film adaptations. Two film versions of each book are taken into consideration – one released immediately after the novel publication and one that appeared decades later. After providing a general idea of what suspense as a phenomenon related to fiction is, the study establishes some repeated plot-bound suspense motifs and episodes in the literary works, and traces their development in the films in order to demonstrate the similarities and differences in the techniques of achieving suspense in literature and in cinema. The model detailed here can also be used for individual or comparative suspense analysis of other literary or cinematic works.
Storm-swept, remote light stations—and the isolated souls who man the beacons—are the perfect inspirations for tales of suspense and horror. Lighthouse Horrors collects 17 of the best from such writers as Rudyard Kipling, Robert Bloch, Jack Vance, and Ray Bradbury. This is a book to save for a fogbound or rain-dark night. Once you've read these pages, you'll never look at a lighthouse in quite the same way again.
The tales of suspense, horror, weirdness, and odd ball humor continues in the fifth installment by this author. In this book is three short stories that range from a serial killer to a strange alien breed to a woman who volunteers to be a human guinea pig. These stories have a touch of humor mixed into the science fiction side of life.
