Classic Supernatural Stories

This cornucopia of thrills and chills features 25 of the finest English-language tales of the uncanny and macabre.

In addition to works by such stellar authors as Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and Henry S. Whitehead, the book features three complete short novels: A Phantom Lover by Vernon Lee, Serapion by Francis Stevens, and The Ghost Pirates by William Hope Hodgson.

About the Authors

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an American writer of weird fiction and horror fiction. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, he spent most of his life there, and his fiction was primarily set against a New England backdrop.

Arthur Machen was the pen-name of Arthur Llewellyn Jones, a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. Henry James OM was an American-British author regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language.

Edith Wharton was an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper class New York "aristocracy" to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1921. Mary Elizabeth Braddon was an English popular novelist of the Victorian era. She is best known for her 1862 sensation novel Lady Audley's Secret, which has also been dramatised and filmed several times.

Henry St. Clair Whitehead was an Episcopal minister and author of horror and fantasy fiction. Vernon Lee was the pseudonym of the British writer Violet Paget. She is remembered today primarily for her supernatural fiction and her work on aesthetics. An early follower of Walter Pater, she wrote over a dozen volumes of essays on art, music, and travel.

Gertrude Barrows Bennett, known by the pseudonym Francis Stevens, was a pioneering author of fantasy and science fiction. Bennett wrote a number of fantasies between 1917 and 1923 and has been called "the woman who invented dark fantasy". William Hope Hodgson was an English author. He produced a large body of work, consisting of essays, short fiction, and novels, spanning several overlapping genres including horror, fantastic fiction, and science fiction.