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 mysteries of Udolpho
Radcliffe, Ann
Paper Book
`Her present life appeared like the dream of a distempered imagination, or like one of those frightful fictions, in which the wild genius of the poets sometimes delighted. Rreflections brought only regret, and anticipation terror.' Such is the state of mind in which Emily St. Aubuert - the orphaned...
Frankenstein
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
Paper Book
One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World' 'That rare story to pass from literature into myth' The New York Times Mary Shelley's chilling Gothic tale was conceived when she was only eighteen, living with her lover Percy Shelley on Lake...
Carmilla
Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan
Paper Book
"To this hour the image of Carmilla returns to my memory with ambiguous alternations--sometimes the playful, languid, beautiful girl; sometimes the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church. Sometimes, I start from a reverie, certain I heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing-room door....
The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Paper Book
This intriguing novel, both fantasy thriller and moral allegory, depicts the struggle of two opposing personalities -- one essentially good, the other evil -- for the soul of one man.
The picture of Dorian Gray
Wilde, Oscar 1854-1900
Paper Book
'A triumph of execution ... one of the best narratives of the "double life" of a Victorian gentleman' Peter Ackroyd Oscar Wilde's alluring novel of decadence and sin was a succès de scandale on publication. It follows Dorian Gray who, enthralled by his own exquisite portrait,...
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
When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon afterwards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England- an apparently unmanned ship is wrecked off the coast of Whitby; a young woman...
The phantom of the opera
Leroux, Gaston
Paper Book
The Phantom of the Opera is the first in the Haunted Library Horror Classics series presented by the Horror Writers Association. An unabridged edition of the novel that inspired the famous Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Deep beneath the Paris Opera House, a masked man lives in silence......
The call of Cthulhu and other weird stories
Lovecraft, H. P.
Paper Book
A definitive collection of stories from the unrivaled master of twentieth-century horror "I think it is beyond doubt that H. P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale." -Stephen King Frequently...
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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