GOTHIC NOVELS & NOVELLAS


MACABRE MASTERS         BEST STORIES BY AUTHOR


STORY SUMMARIES & ANALYSES         HORROR FICTION TROPES


FILM ADAPTATIONS         NEW BOOK REVIEWS        HOLIDAY STORIES   

Stevenson was obsessed with the duplicity of man, as each of his horror stories will aptly illustrate. He was fixated on the concept of hypocrisy – the man who loudly espouses a nobler worldview but fails to live up to his own lofty standards. Much of this could be said to emanate from his family’s Presbyterian background: with its stern emphasis on predestination, the unconditional perseverance of the Elect, the unavoidable damnation of the lost, the passionate rejection of

In 1837 Poe wrote his only novel: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, a discombobulating, unearthly sea adventure involving shipwreck (after shipwreck, after shipwreck), cannibalism, marooning, vicious South Sea natives, piracy, and an ominously cryptic ending. Taking place in the Antarctic, his readers continue to find its origins in “MS. Found in a Bottle.” Regardless of its influence on Poe’s later writing career, “MS.” has proved a potent and haunting story o

Perhaps none of Fitz-James O’Brien’s tales are stranger than “The Lost Room.” A bizarre, unresolved nightmare, the story fuses late Gothic conventions with what would later come to be recognized as the defining traits of the Weird. It is a tale that resists explanation, refusing to ground itself in rational cause or moral resolution. As a result, it feels at once antiquated and uncannily modern, occupying a liminal space between nineteenth-century Gothic romance and the psych

Aside from “Man-Size in Marble,” none of Nesbit’s short stories has received wider circulation and acclaim than “John Charrington’s Wedding,” a perennial favorite amongst anthologies of classic ghost stories. The appeal comes – as in “Man-Size” – from Nesbit’s razor-edged taste for irony and fate. A wedding is naturally expected to be the happiest of occasions, but John Charrington’s wedding is different. It had been brought about by sheer will – his will to woo and possess t

(Excerpted from The Essential Victorian Ghost Stories ) The Victorian Age was an epoch of severe social and industrial transition for the...

J. M. Barrie, the Scottish playwright and author of Peter Pan , once quipped that the initials “R.L.S.” are “the best beloved in recent literature.” A quick comparison between Pan and Treasure Island, Kidnapped, or The Black Arrow will remove any doubt that the writer was making an impersonal observation. Edmond Gosse agreed that he was “the most beloved of all the authors of our time,” and William Gladstone, Prime Minister at the time, stayed up an entire night reading Tre

When Arthur Machen published his first serious attempt at a supernatural tale in 1890, it would set the tone for his horror fiction for the rest of his life. Nearly all the themes, motifs, and philosophy that would make Machen an icon of fin-de-siècle horror can be found in “The Great God Pan” – the story that he is most famous for, but one to which critics continue to have mixed (though always strong) reactions. “Pan” was a study in Machen’s favorite horror narrative: the st

Known by several titles, but largely published under this one, “An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street” was the first Le Fanu tale that I ever read. Finding it in Oxford’s collection of Victorian ghost stories, I was tremendously struck by how different it was from the moralizing tales that surrounded it. The first book that I ever published through Oldstyle Tales Press was ‘The Best Victorian Ghost Stories,’ and I used this story as the beating heart aroun

“Be careful what you wish for…” The truism has been this tale’s defacto subtitle since it charged into popular culture, becoming one of the most famous short stories in the horror genre. Along with “The Body Snatchers,” “The Judge’s House,” “The Red Room,” “The Signal-Man,” “Green Tea,” and “Man-Size in Marble,” “The Monkey’s Paw” is a constant component of classic horror anthologies, largely due to the fact that it is a tale of existential proportions, with a philosophical b

One of the few stories in this volume to attract serious attention outside the horror genre, "The Shamraken Homeward-Bounder" occupies an intriguing place alongside works by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Edgar Allan Poe featuring unnaturally aged sailors, ancient ships, and seas haunted by forces beyond ordinary experience. Like many tales of supernatural seafaring, its deepest roots lie in the enduring legend of the Flying Dutchman. According to the traditional legend, an arro

With only a few exceptions, Arthur Machen rarely reveled in gore, Gothic clichés, or moments of horror. He hosts no chattering skeletons,...

Henry James’ ghost stories are, of course, highly celebrated for their psychological ambiguity, their narrators who hover between reliability and self-delusion, and their chilling blend of realism with romantic suggestiveness. We often feel that his ghosts are not literal specters of the dead—no sheeted figures rattling chains—but neither are they ever false. Even when a haunting is revealed to be fraudulent, the atmosphere of terror remains authentic. James teaches us a para

Doyle’s first recorded short story – a rejected horror story called “The Haunted Grange of Goresthorpe,” which was later recycled into 1883’s comical “The Ghosts of Goresthorpe” – was a ghost story written in the Victorian tradition. His first published supernatural tale was similarly crafted, and incidentally a masterpiece of the genre, commonly included in anthologies of Victorian bogey stories. It shares its principle features with the best of them: the wild sublimity of t

Throughout human history our mythology and folklore has studied the duplicitous nature of our hearts. Galant and vulgar. Humble and...

Often underrated and woefully under-anthologized, the following story – or more accurately, two stories couched within a frame narrative (we will comment on each, individually) – is perhaps one of Dickens’ most complex and thematically dark tales. Often misunderstood and typically criticized for its “off-kilter” plot, “To be Read at Dusk” is an intricate study in dualism, repression, fate, and psychological influences on personal identity. Dickens uses the frame narrative – w

It's a chilly night of bright fires, witches' Sabbaths, widely held superstitions, and roaming demon dogs. As cool winds whip mostly-bare...

A little known secret about me is that I take great guilty pleasure – and unapologetic enjoyment – in reading about historical conspiracy...

Crawford’s masterpiece – the story which he is best known for, horror or otherwise – remains comfortably ensconced in the canon of supernatural classics. Frequently anthologized, it pairs well with the masterpieces of other Edwardian writers who are overwhelmingly associated with a single tale: W. W. Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw,” Oliver Onions’ “The Beckoning Fair One,” Ralph Adams Cram’s “The Dead Valley,” Perceval Landon’s “Thurnley Abbey,” and so on. While Crawford is also l

“There are sacraments of evil as well as of good about us, and we live and move to my belief in an unknown world, a place where there are...

When it was first published in 1818, Frankenstein was a caustic indictment of the Enlightenment by way of Romanticism. The intellectual...

The first story in the King in Yellow Mythos (the first five works in the eponymous 1895 collection) introduces us to a universe of instability, irony, and pitiful meaninglessness. It is a world turned upside down, one where time and logic are useless, where status and power are pointless, and where all ambitions, hopes, and loves are destined for obliteration. “The Repairer of Reputations” tells of a strange man whose job is to retroactively clean up his clients’ pasts, savi

Among Blackwood’s most effective ghost stories are several tales of rooms inhabited by the prowling presence of their former occupants. “The Listener” is an epistolary account told through the diary of its protagonist. Much like Guy De Maupassant’s similarly-themed “The Horla, or Modern Ghosts,” Blackwood’s tale depicts the gradual encroachment of a parasitic spirit into the life of an arguably mentally-compromised man. “The Listener” is an excellent exploration of approachin

Horror is perhaps best dictated to the senses – to the animal rather than the intellectual faculties. Amelia B. Edwards shoots for both in this cerebral but visceral tale by cushioning a quaint, fireside chat with a scholar of the natural and supernatural between two lonely, agonizing experiences of fear. The first is an experience that anyone might have when a car breaks down in an unfamiliar county on a winter night. The second is a vision that most can only say to have vie

A huge thanks to the Feedspot Blog for voting Oldstyle Tales' Classic Horror Blog the 9th best literary horror blog on the internet. Now,...