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
Paper Book
On the day of his wedding, Conrad, heir to the house of Otranto, is killed in mysterious circumstances. His calculating father Manfred fears that his dynasty will now come to an end and determines to marry his son's bride himself - despite the fact he is already married. But a series of terrifying...
Frankenstein, or, The modern Prometheus
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
Paper Book
Obsessed by creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life by electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear....
The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Paper Book
The respected Dr. Jekyll appears to have fallen under the spell of a disreputable character named Edward Hyde. Hyde has access to Jekyll s bank account and Jekyll has named Hyde as his sole heir in a recently drafted will. And there is something even more disturbing about the close relationship...
The picture of Dorian Gray
Wilde, Oscar
Paper Book
Introduction by Jeffrey Eugenides 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 most popular work. The tale of Dorian Gray's moral disintegration caused a scandal when...
The yellow wall-paper and other stories
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins 1860-1935
Paper Book
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was America's leading feminist intellectual of the early twentieth century.The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories makes available the fullest selection ever printed of her short fiction, featuring the pioneering feminist masterpiece of the title, her stories contemporary...
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
Paper Book
Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design When Jonathan Harker visits...
The phantom of the Opera
Leroux, Gaston
Paper Book
In 1910, the mystery novelist Gaston Leroux, working from scraps of history, theatrical lore, and his own fertile imagination, created a masterpiece in Le fant me de l'opera, the story of a disfigured composer who lives in the labyrinthine depths of the Paris Opera. After the breathtaking...
The call of Cthulhu and other weird stories
Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips) 1890-1937
Paper Book
A definitive collection of stories from the unrivaled master of twentieth-century horror in a Penguin Classics Deluxe edition with cover art by Travis Louie Frequently imitated and widely influential, Howard Philips Lovecraft reinvented the horror genre in the 1920s, discarding...
The haunting of Hill House
Jackson, Shirley
Paper Book
The greatest haunted house story ever written--the inspiration for the hit Netflix horror series! One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has been...

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