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One of Stevenson’s most shamefully underrated stories, Olalla (pronounced oh - LAH -yah ), is a masterpiece of erotic horror—among the most coquettishly ambiguous vampire tales in English—and an eerily prescient reflection of Jung’s later theories of the Self. At once philosophical and sensual, it stands as a bridge between the Dark Romanticism of Edgar Allan Poe and the psychological realism of the twentieth century. The novelette also represents one of the most brilliant h

Subtitled “An Imitation of the German,” this, the earliest of Poe’s supernatural tales, builds a unique atmosphere on a foundation of...

Edith Nesbit’s supernatural masterpiece – “Man-Size in Marble” – was first published in 1887, one year after “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll...

Written one year after “The Turn of the Screw,” the story which many consider Machen’s masterpiece shared several elements with Henry...

Most famous and proliferate of all Hoffmann’s tales, “Nutcracker and the King of Mice” was not, however , very well received by its...

CREPUSCULAR (Adj.) : of, resembling, or relating to twilight; (of an animal) appearing or active in twilight. Synonyms: Half-light,...

The last of James’ ghost stories, written six years before his death, is widely considered his best, after “Turn of the Screw.” “The...

No collection of Victorian Era ghost stories would be complete without a glance into the troubling relationship between Britain and her...

There is no question as to which of Charles Dickens’ traditional ghost stories is the magnum opus: critics, readers, and aficionados...

The general way that these stories are structured is as follows: a heinous murder, a tragic death, or an unexpected demise causes someone...

Aside from the King in Yellow Mythos, Chambers’ most notable contribution to weird fiction is the following story. “The Maker of Moons” is typical of most of the Chambers’ weird fiction in that it collates a variety of genres into a marketable pop hit that is at parts forgettable and at others blazingly original. “The Maker of Moons” is seemingly equal parts horror, romance, fantasy, mystery, farce (in the style of P. G. Wodehouse), and science fiction. However, the story is

A drifting couple leave their bustling Chicago neighborhood to photograph a covered bridge outside of the wife's rural hometown....

Blackwood’s most famous ghost story is also one of the most excellent examples of the haunted house genre. It is not a story about ghosts, however; it is a story about fear. Like “The Willows,” “The Empty House” features two adventurers finding themselves locked in a battle for their sanity, desperately employing psychological gambits to maintain their self-control and avoid the madness that runs at them full tilt. Supposedly a relic from Blackwood’s ghost hunting days with t

Anthologies are the sampler flights of literature. When I go to a restaurant with its own microbrewery, I always get the sampler flight:...

He was the greatest American writer of his time: he was a mentor to Poe, Longfellow, and Hawthorne, his country’s first professional...

The Victorian Era was ostensibly one of confidence: confidence in queen and country, in God and duty, in science and virtue. But beneath the solid wainscoting crawled many rats. Wells, whose speculative fiction almost always had a social conscience hammering industriously behind the scenes, knew that the ghost story – a naturally subversive genre – had the potential to expose the vulnerability of British social and philosophical vulnerability, and in “The Red Room,” he does s

Unquestionably, “The Judge’s House” is Stoker’s short fiction masterpiece. Alongside “The Squaw,” “Dracula’s Guest,” and “The Burial of the Rats,” it will remain remembered and celebrated as one of his greatest literary accomplishments. A frequent luminary of horror anthologies, it has become as ubiquitous to editors as “The Body Snatcher,” “The Monkey’s Paw,” “Man-Size in Marble,” “The Signal-Man,” or “The Red Room.” It probes themes common to Stoker’s fiction, but still rel

Some of the novels I review can be described as pleasant, humorous little reads – Gothic but campy, dark but easygoing – and I certainly...

Other than Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, none of Stevenson’s horror tales has achieved greater renown than “The Body Snatcher.” The story appears regularly in anthologies of classic terror, standing shoulder to shoulder with “The Judge’s House,” “The Black Cat,” and “The Monkey’s Paw.” It deserves this distinction, for it resists simple classification. The supernatural episode that concludes the story cannot be conclusively labeled a haunting, a vision, a vampire’s return, or a re

Poe’s tales have unique Gothic elements that were mostly born from the disturbing episode that follows. The tropes of hypersensitivity, wasting women, psychosis-blighted genius, premature burial, monomaniac fixations, and gruesome, psychologically-poignant violence trace back to “Berenice” (sounds like “barren-icy”). “Berenice” is the grandmother of the Poe Grotesquerie: it formulates his dark Romantic vision by developing themes and motifs which, while not original in large

M. R. James considered “The Familiar” to be Le Fanu’s greatest ghost story, and incorporated its primary elements thoroughly into his own supernatural tales – today considered amongst the best in the English language: past sins hounding a remorseful wrongdoer; a merciless predator who shifts shapes, fades into crowds, follows closely behind, and tightens his net with increasing violence; an overwhelming sense of loneliness and hopelessness – of being beyond the aid of God; a

The best part of reading Lou Yardley’s excellent werewolf novel, “Hellhound,” is a very basic, very underrated, very underappreciated...

Although “The Monkey’s Paw” is without a doubt Jacobs’ most popular tale the following story is my absolute favorite of his. It also had a profound impression on a young academic who had just recently begun writing his own horror stories. His name was Montague Rhodes James, and we’ll talk more about him in the conclusion. “The Well” is a tremendously dark story – both thematically and artistically. So much shadow covers it. Suggestion reigns in its chilling text, and terror

“Jerry Bundler” is, in all likelihood, Jacobs’ second most famous spook tale other than “The Monkey’s Paw,” which – once you arrive at the ending – is an interesting fact to note. Although “The Toll-House” and “The Well” are more suitable candidates for the genre, there is something about “Jerry Bundler” which grabs the imagination and haunts. More on that later. For the time being a few words on the context within which this story is placed. For the modern audience it teems