American Gothic Tales

by Joyce Carol Oates (Editor), Charles Brockden Brown, Washington Irving

Joyce Carol Oates has a special perspective on the “gothic” in American short fiction, at least partially because her own horror yarns rank on the spine-tingling chart with the masters. She is able to see the unbroken link of the macabre that ties Edgar Allan Poe to Anne Rice and to recognize the dark psychological bonds between Henry James and Stephen King. This remarkable anthology of gothic fiction, spanning two centuries of American writing, gives us an intriguing and entertaining look at how the gothic imagination makes for great literature in the works of forty-six exceptional writers. In showing us the gothic vision—a world askew where mankind’s forbidden impulses are set free from the repressions of the psyche, and nature turns malevolent and lawless—Joyce Carol Oates includes Henry James’s “The Romance of Certain Old Clothes,” Herman Melville’s horrific tale of factory women, “The Tartarus of Maids,” and Edith Wharton’s “Afterward,” which are rarely collected and appear together here for the first time.

Added to these stories of the past are new ones that explore the wounded worlds of Stephen King, Anne Rice, Peter Straub, Raymond Carver, and more than twenty other wonderful contemporary writers. This impressive collection reveals the astonishing scope of the gothic writer’s subject matter, style, and incomparable genius for manipulating our emotions and penetrating our dreams. With Joyce Carol Oates’s superb introduction, American Gothic Tales is destined to become the standard one-volume edition of the genre that American writers, if they didn’t create it outright, have brought to its chilling zenith.

rom Wieland, or The transformation / Charles Brockden Brown --
The legend of Sleepy Hollow / Washington Irving --
The man of adamant / Nathaniel Hawthorne --
Young Goodman Brown / Nathaniel Hawthorne --
The Tartarus of maids / Herman Melville --
The black cat / Edgar Allan Poe --
The yellow wallpaper / Charlotte Perkins Gilman --
The romance of certain old clothes / Henry James --
The damned thing / Ambrose Bierce --
Afterward / Edith Wharton --
The striding place / Gertrude Atherton --
Death in the woods / Sherwood Anderson --
The outsider / H.P. Lovecraft --
A rose for Emily / William Faulkner --
The lonesome place / August Derleth --
The door / E.B. White --
The lovely house / Shirley Jackson --
Allal / Paul Bowles --
The reencounter / Isaac Bashevis Singer --
In the icebound hothouse / William Goyen --
The enormous radio / John Cheever --
The veldt / Ray Bradbury --
The Dachau shoe / W.S. Merwin --
The approved / W.S. Merwin --
Spiders I have known / W.S. Merwin --
Postcards from the Maginot Line / W.S. Merwin --
Johnny Panic and the Bible of dreams / Sylvia Plath --
In bed one night / Robert Coover --
Schrödinger's cat / Ursula K. Le Guin --
The waterworks / E.L. Doctorow --
Shattered like a glass goblin / Harlan Ellison --
Human moments in World War III / Don DeLillo --
The anatomy of desire / John L'Heureux --
Little things / Raymond Carver --
The temple / Joyce Carol Oates --
Freniere (from Interview with the Vampires) / Anne Rice --
A short guide to the city / Peter Straub --
In the penny arcade / Steven Millhauser --
The reach / Stephen King --
Exchange value / Charles Johnson --
Snow / John Crowley --
The last feast of Harlequin / Thomas Ligotti --
Time and again / Breece D'J Pancake--
Replacements / Lisa Tuttle --
Spirit seizures / Melissa Pritchard --
Cat in glass / Nancy Etchemendy --
The girl who loved animals / Bruce McAllister --
Ursus Triad, later / Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg --
(from Geek Love) The nuclear family: his talk, her teeth / Katherine Dunn --
Subsoil / Nicholson Baker

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Gothic, Fiction, Anthologies, Classics, Halloween

550 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1996

About the author

Joyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel Them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.

Reviews

[Eliza · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Read for Class*

I didn't read all of the short-stories in here, but the ones I read for class were pretty good. Then again, I love almost anything Gothic, so I guess I'm biased. Regardless, I can't wait to get back to the stories I didn't read; I'm sure they're just as eerie!

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

A recommendable collection full of some stories I've read before and some unusual choices.
Plenty of classics like "The Veldt," and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and "A Rose for Emily."

But I preferred my encounters with the less-commonly anthologized ones like "Death in the Woods" by Sherwood Anderson, "The Man of Adamant" by Hawthorne, and "Cat in Glass" by Nancy Etchemendy. I am tempted to search out some stories by the latter mentioned author, since I got genuine creepy vibes from that story of haunted artwork.

I adored "Snow" by John Crowley. A truly melancholic and even humorous offering, touching on the ephemerality of life's inimitable moments. Happiness is in the interstices. A vine of joy growing through a bedrock of suffering. But in the author's subtle and elegant style, we are treated to a futuristic tale that will resonate with many readers.

I don't consider "The Enormous Radio" by John Cheever to be Gothic literature. Doesn't fit the bill for me. "The Reach" by Stephen King is also hardly Gothic. It's a pretty engrossing ghost story though. I do not believe that ghost stories should automatically be considered Gothic. The one by Raymond Coover was just weird satire, and the final story, "Subsoil" by Nicholson Baker was nightmarish. I will never look at a Mr. Potato Head the same again. This anthology will surprise and delight, with additional stories by Melville, Le Guin, DeLillo, Peter Straub, Thomas Ligotti, and many more.

I never get much out of E. L. Doctorow or Kathe Koja tales, but maybe I haven't found the right entry point. The purpose of an anthology is probably to assist readers in finding out which authors they love to read. But it can also point toward the authors you don't need to read, the ones who don't infect you with their style.

Steven Millhauser, whose stories are typically overly long, intricate descriptions of places and things, employs his style to great effect in the tale "In the Penny Arcade." It is possible to write a Gothic story about an arcade, just as it is possible to write a horror story with nothing horrifying in it.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nice little collection of classic gothic tales by well-known American authors. Most of them aren't "horror writers," per se, but all of them have written one or more books that fall within the realm of "dark Romanticism." If you're into modern horror, you may find some of these stories too dull and "literary"--not a lot of gore or monsters or graphic violence. Instead, most of these are more subtle stories of psychological terror--think "The Others" or "Donnie Darko" rather than "The Exorcist" or "Texas Chainsaw Massacre"!

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oates is no stranger to the gothic genre herself and she has created one hell of an anthology here. Some of the authors are the usual suspects that crop up in high school anthologies (A Rose for Emily, The Yellow Wallpaper, The Black Cat). But Oates moves beyond the usual syllabus to include Lovecraft (she should get some credit for helping to mainstream him) and contemporary writers like King and Thomas Ligotti, an author I think deserves more critical attention. Surveying the entire history of American gothic literature, Oates presents an astonishing array of authors and viewpoints, from straight up horror to more existential/psychological gothic. Unlike some anthologies, this one isn't just a random hodgepodge of some gems and a bunch of mediocre tales. Rather Oates has gone out of her way to include distinguished work from high brow and low brow, renowned and largely overlooked authors. Some of my favorites in this volume include August Derleth's "The Lonesome Place," Sherwood Anderson's "A Death in the Woods," Stephen Millhauser's "In the Penny Arcade" and Nancy Etchemendy's "Cat in Glass."

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, after over a year of intermittent reading -- mostly "seasonal" reading in October -- I finally finished this excellent collection. It's arranged chronologically, which I found both logical and interesting, and the selection was quite varied. There were only a couple tales that I found uninteresting or not to my liking and quite a few that were excellent. Some of these were in the vein of the unsettling tales of Robert Aickman (a personal favorite), and others had a touch of macabre humor.

Reading the H.P. Lovecraft tale "The Outsider" in this book made me reread more of his work elsewhere -- something I hadn't done for years and years. Even more beneficial was finding writers I'd never heard of before that I hope to seek out in the future, such as Nancy Etchemendy, Lisa Tuttle, and Nicholson Baker. Also represented are several modern masters not necessarily associated with this genre such as Don DeLillo, Stephen Millhauser, and John Cheever. I had not read either DeLillo or Millhauser, though I'd always meant to, so was happy to have their stories prod me toward finding other work by them. (I have not, so far, done so, but these things will come in their seasons.)

Then there were the "classics," both modern and old, that bear reading again and again: Faulkner's "A Rose for Miss Emily," Ambrose Bierce's "The Damned Thing," Edith Wharton's "Afterward" (another personal favorite), Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper." Add to the roster other illuminaries such as Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Henry James, E.L. Doctorow, of course the editor herself, plus many, many others, and you've got a very fine collection indeed.

This kind of book is best kept on the nightstand and dipped into occasionally, rather than read straight through. The effect of these stories is more powerful when they are spread out. Also, I should mention that Oates' personal taste comes through quite clearly, and although she does a fine job of selecting representative American tales, the reader will note that the choices are slanted toward more artistic and subtle tales rather than straight-up horror, which is my preference as well. There are a number that don't really have conclusions as such but simply leave the reader to contemplate what may -- or may not -- have happened. I especially enjoy this sort of unresolved and cryptic story.

I only wish that someone would edit such an eclectic and far-ranging collection of British and Irish writers, if they haven't done so already. I'm imagining such a book featuring E.F. Benson, A.S. Byatt, Sheridan LeFanu, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Daphne DuMaurier, Algernon Blackwood, Margot Livesey, Kingsley Amis, Henry James (arguably British though also claimed by America, of course), Somerset Maugham, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, A.C. Doyle, Robert Aickman.... well, those are just a few off the top of my head. That would indeed make a wonderful companion volume.

[Lee Foust · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine, exhaustive collection over all. I would omit the two novel excerpts--I see them as cheating. I would stick to a single literary form for a collection myself, but that's just me. A few of the tales--which I've marked in my reading process--didn't quite qualify, in my book, as Gothic. And, yes, I know how hard that word is to exactly define. A couple of the classic authors' tales may not have been their best--I think a Robert Bloch, or an H. P. Lovecraft, or a Richard Matheson could have rated more than a single story, as well--perhaps at the expense of a few of the more literary authors whose works were stretched for inclusion. Still, enjoyed this, discovered some new authors, and pleasantly revisited some stories from my youthful pulp paperback collection.

[Kivrin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting collection of gothic tales dating from 1798 to modern times. Many of the authors I've read before (Hawthorne, Poe, Lovecraft, etc.) but there were several authors and stories I had not heard of. Truly horrific tale of madness. As the tales became more modern, there are a few more from science fiction including stories from Bradbury, Le Guin, and Ellison. Some of these are truly disturbing tales while others left me scratching my head wondering what I'd just read.

The spookiest one for me was "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. "The Last Feast of Harlequin" by Thomas Ligotti also creeped me out (because...clowns!) "Cat in Glass" by Nancy Etchemendy was another good one.

It's been a while since I've read any short stories. Enjoyed it.

[Nancy Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Favorites:
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
In the Penny Arcade by Steven Millhauser
The Reach by Stephen King

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edited and compiled by Joyce Carol Oates, with whom I think many may have a love/hate relationship...although, in the end, I am not entirely sure what sort of influence that should have on anyone deciding whether or not to read this...

That said, I think this is a fantastic compilation of Gothic tales, past and present. Oates, I feel, was thorough in including a breadth of short stories that was reflective of the genre. I read many (not all) of these stories in my Gothic lit class a few years ago, and continue to teach many of them in my American Lit class (my juniors LOVE this unit). Dark and creepy, outright gory, or somewhere in between, this anthology has a little bit of everything for the true Gothic lover.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the selections are really pushing the definition of "gothic" -- c'mon, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?" -- and it's nuts not to include biographical info for the authors, but this is a pretty nice anth, all things considered.

[Cristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tons of great gothic stuff from Hawthorne, Melville, Faulkner, Joyce Carol Oates,Plath and W.S. Merwin. Great classic writing ready to be read by you on a stormy night.

[Amdietrich2159 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book. A collection of short spine tingling stories. Great read.

[Ashley]

Short story scariness! Lots of classic and a few really cool obscure authors in here. My favorite short story from high school is in here: "The Yellow Wallpaper".

[Johnny D · Rating 5 out of 5]

a gorgeous anthology compiled by joyce carol oates. explores the dark romantic imagination in america from poe to king

[Jia]

picked up this lil bad boy for a buck at the Dollar Scholar on Hawthorne. lets see what fun it brings.

[Laura Ruetz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of horror stories!

[Vel Veeter]

Joyce Carol Oates knows her stuff. Her introduction to this collection her focus on the Gothic as the selection process makes this an incredibly satisfying collection because it’s not all one type of story. So while on the one had you do in fact get a bunch of ghost stories, you also get stories that are eerie or disturbing or full of murder, and you get stories that are off-putting but not directly scary stories, and sometimes those are just better.

I don’t have a complaint regarding this collection except for one thing it does that I hate: Excerpts. I hate them. Guess what ya’ll…if I read part of something I feel required to read the whole thing, so it pisses me off to just read part. And if it’s something I have read the whole of, I definitely ain’t reading the part. So I definitely skipped the Anne Rice and Geek Love stuff, because among other reasons, I read both of those in the last two years.

But here are the real joys of this collection:

The Breece D’J Pancake story: If you haven’t read Pancake before, do. His Appalachian Gothic stories are so heart-felt and beautifully written, and in the case of this story, very disturbing. It reminds me a lot of a well-known short short by Annie Proulx, but this comes before. His own personal history is equally touching and disturbing.

The Washington Irving “Legend of Sleepy Hollow”: Have you read it? Are you sure? Are you really sure? You should because it’s so great. I actually got the chance to be in Sleepy Hollow this summer and we read this at bedtime.

Poe’s “The Black Cat” which is like the Black Swan of “Tell-Tale Heart” It’s great.

Faulkner’s “A Rose For Emily”; Isaac Bashevis Singer’s “The Reencounter”; Sylvia Plath’s “Johnny Panic”; and Nicholson Baker’s “Subsoil.”

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

"American Gothic Tales" is a superb collection of gothic stories published by American authors, ranging from the late 18th century to the present. I'm about halfway through the anthology, and so far none of the stories have been anything but excellent and enjoyable, although some stand out more than others.

A few of the stories I've read before, like "The Black Cat," "The Yellow Wallpaper," and of course "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," but what makes this collection so interesting is the inclusion of gothic stories by authors that are not usually considered to be gothic writers. (Joyce Carol Oates, the editor of this collection, notes in the introduction that the point is to make readers question how flimsy the concept of "genre" is.)

The stand-out stories from the ones I hadn't read before:

Nathaniel Hawthorn - "Young Goodman Brown"
Herman Melville - "The Tartarus of Maids"
Edith Wharton - "Afterward"
Gertrude Atherton - "The Striding Place"
HP Lovecraft - "The Outsider"
EB White - "The Door"

[Nomadicaia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’d read a few one-off gothic and horror short stories before, but this was really my introduction to the depth of the genre. My favorite part about this anthology how broad it was. The stories included ranged from gothic, horror, ghost, comedy, war, memoir, creepy, surreal, and historic fiction. There were well-known stories and authors as well as lesser-known works. I’m not going to say I loved everything in the anthology or will even remember all the stories, but I will definitely be delving deeper into some of the work of the a few notable authors. I think its a great overview of the creativity of the genre and will have something in it for everyone.

[Stasa Fritz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting set of short stories, mildly "gothic" in the sense of having a bit of dark mystery/horror. The choices of stories are mixed. Some are very well done, some are obvious, some just don't fit. What makes this interesting is the timeline progression. The authors are from early 1800s to almost present.

As always, I am "amused" that so many stories have what is a fantasy, or science-fiction, twist and yet "my" genre always gets a bad rap.

Worth the read, but not worth buying.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book in high school and have read it more times than I can remember because it has classics like "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and "The Tartarus of Maids," and strange stories from heavy hitters like Sylvia Plath ("Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams") and E.B. White ("The Door").

I think I love it so much because it shows that the Literati can write ghost stories and creepy tales without being condescending. It's a great historical perspective on the Gothic theme and I don't even have to wear eye-liner and a Robert Smith shirt to read it.

[Katie Thomason · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am starting an MFA program and wanted to read a wide variety of authors with a darker sensibility. This collection was phenomenal. Not only did I discover new writers, I also discovered stories I had never read from some favorites. Excellent anthology and I would expect nothing less from Joyce Carol Oates.

[Caleb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, a good anthology. Most of the stories were very good, although there were two or three that were so bad that I couldn't bring myself to finish them. I would recommend the anthology to any fan of gothic or horror literature.

[Lee Delamater · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent book. I love the short story genre, and this one was filled with excellent authors both old and new. Classic tales, each one a little vacation from my constantly running mind. I highly recommend it. I like being taken to the dark side and this book did that. Five stars.

[Myriah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Checked it out of the library because I wanted to re-read The Yellow Wallpaper and ended up reading the entire book, flipping around from one delightful, eerie little story to the next. I kind of want to own it now, great for picking up and reading shorts stories when you're in the mood.

[Danielle Alexandria · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing anthology of classic and contemporary horror fiction. I highly recommend it.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Several familiar tales, all eerie. Arranged chronologically ranging from 19th century to the present. A great collection of creepy stories.

[Nishi Serrano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love these short stories by some of my favorite writers. A great read for a dark and stormy night!

[Katie McMullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

read this in high school and i loved it so much i still have it. i should bring it back out for halloween!

[Zitlali · Rating 4 out of 5]

its a mix of everything. its good