Classic horror

Novels that not only define horror but also explore deep psychological and existential themes, making them timeless reads that have left a lasting impact on the genre.

Updated October 21, 2024
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The Castle of Otranto
Walpole, Horace
Ebook
In a faraway medieval realm, Manfred, an arrogant and evil prince, rules with an iron fist. Banishing his wife to the castle dungeon, he confines -- and plans to wed -- the lovely Isabella, fiancée of his recently deceased son. The prince's plans are foiled, however, when a well-meaning...
The mysteries of Udolpho : a romance : interspersed with some pieces of poetry
Radcliffe, Ann
Paper Book
Frankenstein, or, The modern prometheus
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
Paper Book
  No-one in the grip of Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN, with its mythic-minded hero and its highly sympathetic monster who reads Goethe and longs to be at peace with himself, can fail to notice how much more excellent the original is than all the adaptations, imitations and outright...
The fall of the House of Usher
Poe, Edgar Allan
Paper Book
Carmilla
Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan 1814-1873
Paper Book
A beautiful gift edition of this cult classic female vampire story, which predated and greatly influenced Dracula.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Paper Book
Robert Louis Stevenson originally wrote Dr. Jekyll And Mr Hyde as a "chilling shocker." He then burned the draft and, upon his wife's advice, rewrote it as the darkly complex tale it is today. Stark, skillfully woven, this fascinating novel explores the curious turnings of human character...
The picture of Dorian Gray
Wilde, Oscar
Paper Book
Introduction by Jeffrey Eugenides .Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS'sThe Great American Read Written in his distinctively dazzling manner, Oscar Wilde's story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the author's...
The great god Pan and other horror stories
Machen, Arthur 1863-1947
Paper Book
Something pushed out from the body there on the floor, and stretched forth a slimy, wavering tentacle... Perhaps no figure better embodies the transition from the Gothic tradition to modern horror than Arthur Machen. In the final decade of the nineteenth century, the Welsh writer...
Dracula
Stoker, Bram 1847-1912
Paper Book
'it was butcher work...the horrid screeching as the stake drove home; the plunging of writhing form, and lips of bloody foam'Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic shocker introduced Count Dracula to the world, an ancient creature bent on bringing his contagion to London, the very heart of the British Empire....
The phantom of the opera
Leroux, Gaston
Paper Book
"The wildest and most fantastic of tales." - New York Times Book Review. The novel from the early 20th century that inspired the Lon Chaney film and the hit musical. In the 1880s, in Paris, the Palais Garnier Opera House is believed haunted. One night, a young woman, Christine, is asked to...
The call of Cthulhu and other weird stories
Lovecraft, H. P.
Paper Book
Collecting uniquely uncanny tales from the master of American horror, H.P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories is edited with an introduction and notes by S. T. Joshi in Penguin Classics. Credited with inventing the modern horror tradition, H. P. Lovecraft...
The haunting of Hill House
Jackson, Shirley 1916-1965
Paper Book
Part of a new six-volume series of the best in classic horror, selected by award-winning director Guillermo del Toro. First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four...

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