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James’ favorite writer of ghost stories was, of course, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, and few of the former’s tales of terror are more closely modelled after the latter’s style than “The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral.” Le Fanu’s universe was bleak, vicious, and vengeful, and typically involved the gradual stalking and ensnarement of a brazen sinner by the spirit of his victim (or that of some avenging entity). This is most obviously reflected in James’ favorite story of Le Fanu’s, “T

Although he is more closely – and rightfully – associated with weird fiction, fantasy, and sci-fi than with the traditional ghost story, O’Brien’s first speculative tale of mention features a chilling haunting. A classic Victorian-era ghost story, “The Pot of Tulips” presents an Americanization of the classic English genre. The Victorian ghost story was rarely content with mere fright. More often, it served as a moral instrument—a means of probing guilt, particularly the guil

“The Dragon Fang” – which is much less about its titular artifact and far more about a magical duck that mystifies the fools that would attempt to capture it – is a charming little piece of Oriental fantasy. This being said, there is nothing particularly horrifying about it, and the supernatural mechanics – though they deal injuries to the villains of the tale – are mystical rather than hideous. The story nonetheless deserves attention as an early example of American fantasy

“Bohemian” was a title that O’Brien gladly accepted from his friends, and one approved by scholars (his first real biography was subtitled “A Literary Bohemian of the Eighteen-Fifties”). A member of New York City’s blue collar intellectual class, he spent his evenings drinking in the company of Walt Whitman and his cronies at Pfaff’s beer cellar, known for its artistic atmosphere, where the patrons donned the bohemian lifestyle with relish. The term first became popular with

A strange, haunting, and ultimately lovely piece of Gothic poesy, “The Child Who Loved a Grave” stands as one of Fitz-James O’Brien’s most delicate experiments in blending the morbid with the beautiful. The story compares naturally to Poe’s poetic parables and twilight verses—“Shadow,” “Silence,” “Ulalume,” “Annabel Lee,” “Lenore,” and “The Raven”—works in which the ghoulish is intertwined with the lovely, and where sorrow becomes a kind of aesthetic illumination. Though brie

Fitz-James O’Brien occupies a distinctive, if often overlooked, place in nineteenth-century Gothic literature, bridging the spectral introspection of American dark romantics with the folkloric terrors of his Irish heritage. Best known for his macabre short fiction, O’Brien was equally adept as a poet, crafting verse that mingles psychological unease with supernatural spectacle. His Gothic imagination thrives in liminal spaces—between life and death, dream and waking, the mate

The theme of public attention and appearance runs like a bright thread through nearly all of Oscar Wilde’s plays and stories. In The Importance of Being Earnest, it is far more important to be “Ernest” than to be earnest, because the name itself carries an aura of desirability: the illusion is more powerful than the reality. Throughout Wilde’s fiction, reality and illusion—truth and perception—exist in deliberate, often comic conflict. His characters care surprisingly little

Oscar Wilde was fascinated by the concept of duty—not by its nobility, but by its absurdity. He delighted in exposing the ridiculous extremes to which humans will go when they allow social or moral obligation to govern their lives. In his work, duty often becomes a source of comic tension, revealing how blindly adhering to socially constructed expectations can produce outcomes both absurd and unsettling. Wilde presents duty not as a moral compass but as a lens through which h

It’s 1982. The narrator, Steve Witowski (an alias), is a failed songwriter and fugitive, already trying to escape his past. One night he intervenes to save a woman named Victoria from a brutal assault by a seemingly unstoppable attacker. Rather than moving on, Steve becomes entangled with Victoria, who has just purchased a dilapidated church with a dark, haunting past. As Steve stays on to help with the renovation and the mysteries of the place, he discovers that Victoria--an

This post has been an extremely long time in coming. As I've mentioned in many previous articles, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is both my favorite story and the high-mark of my personal, literary expertise. Washington Irving has his own designated bookshelf in my living room (not including my collection of illustrated "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" editions), I was accepted into grad school based on the strength of a 20-page essay on Freudian subtexts in "Rip Van Winkle," and Irv

Even outside of supernatural fiction circles, “The Bottle Imp” is among Stevenson’s most celebrated short stories. Its reputation stands alongside other perennial classics of the short form—Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw,” Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker,” Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” London’s “To Build a Fire,” and O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi.” Like these tales, Stevenson’s story is remembered for its taut suspense, ironic reversals, and unforgettable emo

“ Markheim ”  stands among Stevenson’s most psychologically intricate tales, fusing the moral unease of the Victorian conscience with the...

This year, behind the scenes at Oldstyle Tales Press, we’ve been quietly undertaking one of the most ambitious projects in our publishing...

Henry James’ ghost stories are almost always elegant and stately, wrapped in psychological tension and emotional complexity, and bereft...

Just months before he wrote The Turn of the Screw , Henry James penned its literary predecessor, a short story called “The Way it Came,”...

One of James’ favorite horror motifs was the object which had the power to influence the perception of its owner – literally. The subject...

For fifteen years after “The Ghostly Rental” (1876), Henry James placed himself under a self-imposed moratorium on supernatural fiction....

Sonia Haft Greene was a widowed Ukrainian Jewish immigrant who had survived a childhood hounded by antisemitism, her father’s death, her...

Jacobs was never one for a conventional ghost story. His horror tales are often marked by unexpected irony, chicanery, and twists. His...

Edgar Allan Poe’s influence on W. W. Jacobs is unmistakable and surfaces repeatedly throughout Jacobs’ body of work. Poe’s tales such as...

Jacobs’ penultimate horror tale belongs firmly to the esteemed tradition of the nervous homicide —a genre in which he had already shown a...

In a genre long haunted by glittering immortals and emotionally tormented antiheroes, The Last Breath Before Death  feels like a jolt...

W. F. Harvey's "August Heat" is a compact yet chilling entry in the tradition of Edwardian supernatural fiction, notable for its uncanny...

"Laura Silver Bell" artfully fuses the folkloric DNA of two of Le Fanu’s most haunting stories: "The Child that Went with the Fairies"...