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Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves and Ghosts: 25 Classic Stories of the Supernatural
They are the fearful images that have stalked humanity's nightmares for centuries, supernatural creatures that feast on flesh and haunt the soul, macabre and uncanny beings that frighten and fascinate the imagination.
"Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves, and Ghosts" collects classic stories from literary masters inspired by folklore and mythology who dared to explore the darker side of human nature and crafted tales that defied convention, stirred up controversy, and gave life to a storytelling genre that has endured for generations.
"Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves, and Ghosts" collects classic stories from literary masters inspired by folklore and mythology who dared to explore the darker side of human nature and crafted tales that defied convention, stirred up controversy, and gave life to a storytelling genre that has endured for generations.
450 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2011
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August 21, 2020
Note, Aug. 21, 2020: When I read short story collections intermittently over a long period of time, my reactions are similarly written piecemeal, while they're fresh in my mind. That gives the reviews a choppy, and often repetitive, quality. Recently, I had to condense and rearrange one of these into a unified whole because of Goodreads' length limit; and I was so pleased with the result that I decided to give every one of these a similar edit! Accordingly, I've now edited this one.
Editors Solomon and Panetta are English faculty at Iona College in upstate New York; but they provide a 17+-page introduction to the English-language tradition of scary fiction (and film/TV, which inter-relates with the printed medium) and some of the psychological forces behind it, structured around their titular four categories, that's informative, often insightful, and free of academic jargon. They use the term "supernatural" in the title loosely, in the sense of "uncanny" or outside of conventional explanation; for instance, they note that the (relatively late-blooming, compared to the other three) zombie category is most often explained today by science-fictional premises. (Stories representing the other categories may also fit into the SF genre.)
"Classic" is a word they also use loosely; the works here, by a mix of British and American authors, range chronologically from 1836-2009. Nine of the 25 contributors are women. Arrangement is alphabetical by author; the publication date of each selection is provided (a helpful feature), and each is preceded by a short paragraph with information about the author. Most of the authors are well-known, though there are a couple I'd never heard of before. All but three of the inclusions are short stories; the rest are novel excerpts, which I didn't read or reread (I've read Dracula before). Not all of them fit neatly into any of the four categories; as the editors note, some "horror figures" here "won't lie still in any precise classification."
Before opening this anthology, I'd previously read eight of the stories, several of which I commented on already in reviews of other collections: Doyle's "Lot No. 249," in Mummy: Stories of the Living Corpse; "Cool Air" by Lovecraft, in The Transition of H. P. Lovecraft: The Road to Madness; Anne Rice's "The Master of Rampling Gate" (which I liked much better than Interview with the Vampire), in The Vampire Hunters' Casebook; Oscar Wilde's "The Canterville Ghost," in Classic Ghost Stories; Fritz Leiber's "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes," in The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories; and "Disturb Not My Slumbering Fair" by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, in Young Monsters. (The protagonist of the last-named one is a ghoul, not a zombie.) E. F. Benson's "The Room in the Tower" appears in The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories, and is a worthy read, but not one I actually commented on in my review of that book. Henry James is represented here by his excellent "The Ghostly Rental," which I assigned as reading for American Literature when Barb and I were home-schooling our girls. (IMO, some of his best short-fictional work was done in the ghost story sub-genre.)
I deliberately passed up two selections, Joyce Carroll Oates' longish "short" story "Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly" (which is a spin-off of The Turn of the Screw) and Woody Allen's "Count Dracula." Although all authors are imperfect people, and don't have to be candidates for sainthood for me to like their work, some behaviors are so creepy and beyond the pale I can't feel comfortable reading things by those who do them, and for me some of Allen's admitted behaviors (let alone the allegations he denies) fall into that category. And Oates is an author whom I resolved not to read any further, having disliked or detested every one of several stories by her that I've read.
Two other stories here that I did read, I wish I hadn't: Angela Carter's "In the Company of Wolves," which is an ugly and disgusting perversion of the folktale of Little Red Riding Hood, and "For the Good of All" by Yvonne Navarro, which uses the "zombie apocalypse" trope (something I don't care much for anyway) to portray Christians as dangerous lunatics and Christian beliefs as ineffectual. (Both of these tales are also as predictable as clockwork, though you read them in the futile hope that they won't be.) Ramsey Campbell's "The Brood" was another of the least satisfactory selections; it's effective in creating the mood of impending doom the author wanted and conjuring his desired image of unexplained, loathsomely repellent uncleanness destroying and consuming the living, but it fails to convey a sense of any purpose or constructive vision beyond conjuring doom and repulsion for their own sake.
Two stories are also "zombie apocalypse" yarns, but they're told reasonably well and have enough "heart" to be worth telling. Irish writer Derek Gunn's "The Third Option" is set in an alternate post-Civil War Texas, and creatively re-interprets some aspects of the trope. His apocalypse is supernatural, brought about by an Indian shaman's curse; Stephen King's apocalypse in "Home Delivery" is engineered by aliens from outer space, presumably as a prelude to the invasion and colonization of Earth. This premise actually isn't very plausible (and is left hanging in the denouement); but the story succeeds as well as it does because of strong character development on the part of its heroine. Both tales, though, are marred by gratuitous bad language; King's also suffers from unnecessary sexual references and obvious attempts to gross out the readers, and Gunn's ignorance of some aspects of American state/local government shows. (Of course, most Americans don't know much about Irish local government, either.)
It's tempting to see Anne Sexton's "The Ghost," published posthumously in 1978, four years after her suicide, primarily as a reflection or meditation on her own "haunted" psychological troubles. (The title character of the story, from internal chronological clues, would have died in 1928, the year Sexton was born; the ghost's haunted granddaughter, who like Sexton is hospitalized for mental disturbance, might well be the poet's alter ego.) The "science" behind Jane Yolen's science-fictional reinterpretation of the werewolf mythos in "Green Messiah" is ludicrous (and not really meant to be taken seriously --we're very much in the "soft" SF realm here); but Lupe is a compelling character, and the imagery of the tale is emotionally suggestive and haunting.
Turning to the stories I liked the best, Charles Dickens' "The Lawyer and the Ghost" is (like many short stories) difficult to comment on without a spoiler, but suffice it to say that it's an absolute gem in less than three pages. A visit to Ray Bradbury's Green Town (modeled on his boyhood hometown of Waukeegan, Illinois in the 1920s) is always a pleasure, and "The Man Upstairs" (featuring his own alter ego, Douglas Spaulding from Dandelion Wine) is no exception. Rudyard Kipling's "The Mark of the Beast," set like much of his fiction in the 19th-century India of the Raj, is a masterpiece of supernatural horror which (like Edward Lucas White's "Lukundoo") evokes the idea that non-Western cultures may possess genuine magic arts that Western medicine or science can't really cope with. (Some modern readers will dismiss that conceit as "racist," but I don't believe that it necessarily is.) Ellen Glasgow's "The Shadowy Third" (1916) is an excellent example of a ghostly tale in the classic tradition. Finally, "20th Century Ghost" by Joe Hill (who is Stephen King's son --his real full name is Joseph Hillstrom King), centering around a haunted movie theater, is an outstanding work that would get six stars from me if that were possible. (I can't say more without a spoiler!) This was my first real introduction to both of the latter two writers, and it was definitely a happy one.
So for me, this anthology was a mixed bag, with selections running the gamut from superlatively good to excruciatingly bad. (My star rating is an overall average.) Of course, eight stories I'd already read (although that's no demerit for the collection!) and five selections --a fifth of the total-- I didn't read. That only left 12, or slightly less than half, that I did. I still consider it a worthwhile purchase; but I personally think it would have been improved by better selection on the part of the editors. Lovecraft's "Cool Air," for instance, does not really feature a zombie, and it's a far-fetched stretch to see it as fitting in here. Richard Gilliam's "Storyville, Tennessee," an outstanding zombie story (and one that employs the traditional, supernatural concept of the zombie, not the cannibalistic hordes out of the 60s movie!), which appears in Grails: Quests of the Dawn, would have been a much better choice. Novels are meant to be read as whole units, not in partial excerpts; omitting the latter, and omitting some of the trash stories, would have allowed for the inclusion of some really good tales that are absent here, such as Jerome Bixby's "The Young One," Tanith Lee's "Red as Blood," and Clemence Houseman's "The Were-wolf." But I can't afford to pay copyright holders for rights, so as to edit my own anthologies; so, I read the work of better-financed editors, and appreciate it as much as I can! :-)
Editors Solomon and Panetta are English faculty at Iona College in upstate New York; but they provide a 17+-page introduction to the English-language tradition of scary fiction (and film/TV, which inter-relates with the printed medium) and some of the psychological forces behind it, structured around their titular four categories, that's informative, often insightful, and free of academic jargon. They use the term "supernatural" in the title loosely, in the sense of "uncanny" or outside of conventional explanation; for instance, they note that the (relatively late-blooming, compared to the other three) zombie category is most often explained today by science-fictional premises. (Stories representing the other categories may also fit into the SF genre.)
"Classic" is a word they also use loosely; the works here, by a mix of British and American authors, range chronologically from 1836-2009. Nine of the 25 contributors are women. Arrangement is alphabetical by author; the publication date of each selection is provided (a helpful feature), and each is preceded by a short paragraph with information about the author. Most of the authors are well-known, though there are a couple I'd never heard of before. All but three of the inclusions are short stories; the rest are novel excerpts, which I didn't read or reread (I've read Dracula before). Not all of them fit neatly into any of the four categories; as the editors note, some "horror figures" here "won't lie still in any precise classification."
Before opening this anthology, I'd previously read eight of the stories, several of which I commented on already in reviews of other collections: Doyle's "Lot No. 249," in Mummy: Stories of the Living Corpse; "Cool Air" by Lovecraft, in The Transition of H. P. Lovecraft: The Road to Madness; Anne Rice's "The Master of Rampling Gate" (which I liked much better than Interview with the Vampire), in The Vampire Hunters' Casebook; Oscar Wilde's "The Canterville Ghost," in Classic Ghost Stories; Fritz Leiber's "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes," in The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories; and "Disturb Not My Slumbering Fair" by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, in Young Monsters. (The protagonist of the last-named one is a ghoul, not a zombie.) E. F. Benson's "The Room in the Tower" appears in The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories, and is a worthy read, but not one I actually commented on in my review of that book. Henry James is represented here by his excellent "The Ghostly Rental," which I assigned as reading for American Literature when Barb and I were home-schooling our girls. (IMO, some of his best short-fictional work was done in the ghost story sub-genre.)
I deliberately passed up two selections, Joyce Carroll Oates' longish "short" story "Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly" (which is a spin-off of The Turn of the Screw) and Woody Allen's "Count Dracula." Although all authors are imperfect people, and don't have to be candidates for sainthood for me to like their work, some behaviors are so creepy and beyond the pale I can't feel comfortable reading things by those who do them, and for me some of Allen's admitted behaviors (let alone the allegations he denies) fall into that category. And Oates is an author whom I resolved not to read any further, having disliked or detested every one of several stories by her that I've read.
Two other stories here that I did read, I wish I hadn't: Angela Carter's "In the Company of Wolves," which is an ugly and disgusting perversion of the folktale of Little Red Riding Hood, and "For the Good of All" by Yvonne Navarro, which uses the "zombie apocalypse" trope (something I don't care much for anyway) to portray Christians as dangerous lunatics and Christian beliefs as ineffectual. (Both of these tales are also as predictable as clockwork, though you read them in the futile hope that they won't be.) Ramsey Campbell's "The Brood" was another of the least satisfactory selections; it's effective in creating the mood of impending doom the author wanted and conjuring his desired image of unexplained, loathsomely repellent uncleanness destroying and consuming the living, but it fails to convey a sense of any purpose or constructive vision beyond conjuring doom and repulsion for their own sake.
Two stories are also "zombie apocalypse" yarns, but they're told reasonably well and have enough "heart" to be worth telling. Irish writer Derek Gunn's "The Third Option" is set in an alternate post-Civil War Texas, and creatively re-interprets some aspects of the trope. His apocalypse is supernatural, brought about by an Indian shaman's curse; Stephen King's apocalypse in "Home Delivery" is engineered by aliens from outer space, presumably as a prelude to the invasion and colonization of Earth. This premise actually isn't very plausible (and is left hanging in the denouement); but the story succeeds as well as it does because of strong character development on the part of its heroine. Both tales, though, are marred by gratuitous bad language; King's also suffers from unnecessary sexual references and obvious attempts to gross out the readers, and Gunn's ignorance of some aspects of American state/local government shows. (Of course, most Americans don't know much about Irish local government, either.)
It's tempting to see Anne Sexton's "The Ghost," published posthumously in 1978, four years after her suicide, primarily as a reflection or meditation on her own "haunted" psychological troubles. (The title character of the story, from internal chronological clues, would have died in 1928, the year Sexton was born; the ghost's haunted granddaughter, who like Sexton is hospitalized for mental disturbance, might well be the poet's alter ego.) The "science" behind Jane Yolen's science-fictional reinterpretation of the werewolf mythos in "Green Messiah" is ludicrous (and not really meant to be taken seriously --we're very much in the "soft" SF realm here); but Lupe is a compelling character, and the imagery of the tale is emotionally suggestive and haunting.
Turning to the stories I liked the best, Charles Dickens' "The Lawyer and the Ghost" is (like many short stories) difficult to comment on without a spoiler, but suffice it to say that it's an absolute gem in less than three pages. A visit to Ray Bradbury's Green Town (modeled on his boyhood hometown of Waukeegan, Illinois in the 1920s) is always a pleasure, and "The Man Upstairs" (featuring his own alter ego, Douglas Spaulding from Dandelion Wine) is no exception. Rudyard Kipling's "The Mark of the Beast," set like much of his fiction in the 19th-century India of the Raj, is a masterpiece of supernatural horror which (like Edward Lucas White's "Lukundoo") evokes the idea that non-Western cultures may possess genuine magic arts that Western medicine or science can't really cope with. (Some modern readers will dismiss that conceit as "racist," but I don't believe that it necessarily is.) Ellen Glasgow's "The Shadowy Third" (1916) is an excellent example of a ghostly tale in the classic tradition. Finally, "20th Century Ghost" by Joe Hill (who is Stephen King's son --his real full name is Joseph Hillstrom King), centering around a haunted movie theater, is an outstanding work that would get six stars from me if that were possible. (I can't say more without a spoiler!) This was my first real introduction to both of the latter two writers, and it was definitely a happy one.
So for me, this anthology was a mixed bag, with selections running the gamut from superlatively good to excruciatingly bad. (My star rating is an overall average.) Of course, eight stories I'd already read (although that's no demerit for the collection!) and five selections --a fifth of the total-- I didn't read. That only left 12, or slightly less than half, that I did. I still consider it a worthwhile purchase; but I personally think it would have been improved by better selection on the part of the editors. Lovecraft's "Cool Air," for instance, does not really feature a zombie, and it's a far-fetched stretch to see it as fitting in here. Richard Gilliam's "Storyville, Tennessee," an outstanding zombie story (and one that employs the traditional, supernatural concept of the zombie, not the cannibalistic hordes out of the 60s movie!), which appears in Grails: Quests of the Dawn, would have been a much better choice. Novels are meant to be read as whole units, not in partial excerpts; omitting the latter, and omitting some of the trash stories, would have allowed for the inclusion of some really good tales that are absent here, such as Jerome Bixby's "The Young One," Tanith Lee's "Red as Blood," and Clemence Houseman's "The Were-wolf." But I can't afford to pay copyright holders for rights, so as to edit my own anthologies; so, I read the work of better-financed editors, and appreciate it as much as I can! :-)
January 27, 2024
Count Dracula by Woody Allen - 1/5
This story was stupid as hell. It sucked.
The Room in the Tower by E.F. Benson - 3/5
This one was okay and kind of intriguing; and had some eerie moments... but the ending left me a tad confused and left something to be desired.
The Man Upstairs by Ray Bradbury - 4/5
This isn't a particularly unique or frightening tale, but I very much enjoyed Bradbury's writing here; it gave the story a sort of surreal feeling to it and I liked the narration of the main character.
The Brood by Ramsey Campbell - 3/5
This one had an interesting idea but I was very confused by the climax and ending. Not really sure what was going on here.
The Company of Wolves by Angela Carter - 2.5/5
I've read this one before in another collection and I skimmed it this time around. It's okay. Not really a fan of Carter's works, from what I've read from her.
The Lawyer and the Ghost by Charles Dickens - 2/5
Too basic and old-timey for me. A very short story with very little that happens. I think this one was meant to be a bit humorous but it didn't work for me.
Lot No. 249 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - 4/5
This is the story that I came to this book for. I love the movie Tales From the Darkside, which is an anthology horror film that adapts this story for one of its segments. While I enjoyed this story, I think the film adaptation is actually slightly superior, and has a more climactic and satisfying ending, whereas the story version feels very tame and ends rather abruptly.
The Shadowy Third by Ellen Glasgow - 2.5/5
Too melodramatic for me.
The Third Option by Derek Gunn - 2/5
A very short post-apocalyptic type story. This one didn't do much for me.
20th Century Ghost by Joe Hill - 3/5
The Ghostly Rental by Henry James - 2/5
Home Delivery by Stephen King - 1.5/5
The Mark of the Beast by Rudyard Kipling - 2.5/5
The Girl With the Hungry Eyes by Fritz Leiber - 3.5/5
Cool Air by H.P. Lovecraft - 3.5/5
For the Good of All by Yvonne Navarro - 2/5
Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly by Joyce Carol Oates - 2/5
An excerpt from Dying to Live by Kim Paffenroth - 2/5
The Master of Rampling Gate by Anne Rice - 2/5
The Ghost by Anne Sexton - 2/5
An excerpt from Dracula by Bram Stoker - ?
I've read the novel Dracula a couple of times... I didn't really find it necessary to read an excerpt from the book. It seems like a poor choice to me, in general, to be including a small part of a novel.
An excerpt from The Wolfen by Whitley Strieber - ?
Skipped this one.
The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde - ?
Didn't read this one.
Disturb Not My Slumbering Fair by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - 2.5/5
Green Messiah by Jane Yolen - 2/5
Overall kind of a forgettable anthology.
This story was stupid as hell. It sucked.
The Room in the Tower by E.F. Benson - 3/5
This one was okay and kind of intriguing; and had some eerie moments... but the ending left me a tad confused and left something to be desired.
The Man Upstairs by Ray Bradbury - 4/5
This isn't a particularly unique or frightening tale, but I very much enjoyed Bradbury's writing here; it gave the story a sort of surreal feeling to it and I liked the narration of the main character.
The Brood by Ramsey Campbell - 3/5
This one had an interesting idea but I was very confused by the climax and ending. Not really sure what was going on here.
The Company of Wolves by Angela Carter - 2.5/5
I've read this one before in another collection and I skimmed it this time around. It's okay. Not really a fan of Carter's works, from what I've read from her.
The Lawyer and the Ghost by Charles Dickens - 2/5
Too basic and old-timey for me. A very short story with very little that happens. I think this one was meant to be a bit humorous but it didn't work for me.
Lot No. 249 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - 4/5
This is the story that I came to this book for. I love the movie Tales From the Darkside, which is an anthology horror film that adapts this story for one of its segments. While I enjoyed this story, I think the film adaptation is actually slightly superior, and has a more climactic and satisfying ending, whereas the story version feels very tame and ends rather abruptly.
The Shadowy Third by Ellen Glasgow - 2.5/5
Too melodramatic for me.
The Third Option by Derek Gunn - 2/5
A very short post-apocalyptic type story. This one didn't do much for me.
20th Century Ghost by Joe Hill - 3/5
The Ghostly Rental by Henry James - 2/5
Home Delivery by Stephen King - 1.5/5
The Mark of the Beast by Rudyard Kipling - 2.5/5
The Girl With the Hungry Eyes by Fritz Leiber - 3.5/5
Cool Air by H.P. Lovecraft - 3.5/5
For the Good of All by Yvonne Navarro - 2/5
Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly by Joyce Carol Oates - 2/5
An excerpt from Dying to Live by Kim Paffenroth - 2/5
The Master of Rampling Gate by Anne Rice - 2/5
The Ghost by Anne Sexton - 2/5
An excerpt from Dracula by Bram Stoker - ?
I've read the novel Dracula a couple of times... I didn't really find it necessary to read an excerpt from the book. It seems like a poor choice to me, in general, to be including a small part of a novel.
An excerpt from The Wolfen by Whitley Strieber - ?
Skipped this one.
The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde - ?
Didn't read this one.
Disturb Not My Slumbering Fair by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - 2.5/5
Green Messiah by Jane Yolen - 2/5
Overall kind of a forgettable anthology.
December 6, 2021
My ratings & rankings of the short stories I read from this book…
Top 5 (aka stories I’d recommend & authors I’d read more from):
5 The Room in the Tower by E.F. Benson
5 The Girl with the Hungry Eyes by Fritz Leiber
4.75 The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde
4.5 The Master of Rampling Gate by Anne Rice
4.5 Cool Air by H.P. Lovecraft
4 The Ghostly Rental by Henry James =*
4 Count Dracula by Woody Allen =
4 The Man Upstairs by Ray Bradbury =
4 The Company of Wolves by Angela Carter =
4 Disturb Not My Slumbering Fair by Chelsea Yarbro =
3.5 Lot No. 249 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle =
3.5 The Shadowy Third by Ellen Glasglow =
3.5 20th Century Ghost by Joe Hill =
3 The Ghost by Anne Sexton
2.5 Green Messiah by Jane Yolen
2.5 The Mark of the Beast by Rudyard Kipling
2 Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly by Joyce Carol Oates
2 The Lawyer and the Ghost by Charles Dickens
1.5 The Third Option by Derek Gunn
1 The Brood by Ramsey Campbell
*stories with = at the end mean that the ones with the same rating are in no particular order, I liked them equally
Key:
5 - Loved it
4.5 - Really Really Liked It
4 - Really Liked It
3.5 - Liked It
3 - Ok
2.5 - Eh
2 - Did Not Like
1.5 - Did Not Like AT ALL
1 - Almost DNF
Top 5 (aka stories I’d recommend & authors I’d read more from):
5 The Room in the Tower by E.F. Benson
5 The Girl with the Hungry Eyes by Fritz Leiber
4.75 The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde
4.5 The Master of Rampling Gate by Anne Rice
4.5 Cool Air by H.P. Lovecraft
4 The Ghostly Rental by Henry James =*
4 Count Dracula by Woody Allen =
4 The Man Upstairs by Ray Bradbury =
4 The Company of Wolves by Angela Carter =
4 Disturb Not My Slumbering Fair by Chelsea Yarbro =
3.5 Lot No. 249 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle =
3.5 The Shadowy Third by Ellen Glasglow =
3.5 20th Century Ghost by Joe Hill =
3 The Ghost by Anne Sexton
2.5 Green Messiah by Jane Yolen
2.5 The Mark of the Beast by Rudyard Kipling
2 Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly by Joyce Carol Oates
2 The Lawyer and the Ghost by Charles Dickens
1.5 The Third Option by Derek Gunn
1 The Brood by Ramsey Campbell
*stories with = at the end mean that the ones with the same rating are in no particular order, I liked them equally
Key:
5 - Loved it
4.5 - Really Really Liked It
4 - Really Liked It
3.5 - Liked It
3 - Ok
2.5 - Eh
2 - Did Not Like
1.5 - Did Not Like AT ALL
1 - Almost DNF
October 20, 2019
I didn’t finish the last 3 stories, it I’m counting it as read anyway.
Count Dracula- Woody Allen 2 stars
The Room in the Tower- E.F. Benson 3 stars
The Man Upstairs-Ray Bradbury 4 stars
The Brood- Ramsey Campbell 2 stars (I should read this again as my mind wasn’t 100% focused on the story.)
The Company of Wolves- Angela Carter 2 stars
The Lawyer and the Ghost- Charles Dickens 3 stars
Lot No. 249- Arthur Conan Doyle 2 stars
The Shadowy Third- Ellen Glasgow (I cant properly rate this since I fell asleep listening to the audio version, which was over an hour long.)
The Third Option- Derek Gunn 3 stars
20th Century Ghost- Joe Hill 2 stars
The Ghostly Rental- Henry James 2 stars (This was unnecessarily long.)
Home Delivery- Stephen King 2 stars
The Mark of the Beast- Rudyard Kipling 2 stars
The Girl with the Hungry Eyes- Fritz Leiber 1 star
Cool Air- H.P. Lovecraft 3&1/2 stars
For the Good of All-Yvonne Navarro 4 stars
Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly- Joyce Carol Oates
excerpt from Dying to Live- Kim Paffenroth
The Master of Rampling Gate- Anne Rice 2&1/2 stars
The Ghost- Anne Sexton 3 stars
excerpt from Dracula- Bram Stoker (didn’t read)
excerpt from The Wolfen- Whitley Strieber
The Canterville Ghost- Oscar Wilde 3 stars
Disturb Not My Slumbering Fair- Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Green Messiah- Jane Yolen 2 stars
Count Dracula- Woody Allen 2 stars
The Room in the Tower- E.F. Benson 3 stars
The Man Upstairs-Ray Bradbury 4 stars
The Brood- Ramsey Campbell 2 stars (I should read this again as my mind wasn’t 100% focused on the story.)
The Company of Wolves- Angela Carter 2 stars
The Lawyer and the Ghost- Charles Dickens 3 stars
Lot No. 249- Arthur Conan Doyle 2 stars
The Shadowy Third- Ellen Glasgow (I cant properly rate this since I fell asleep listening to the audio version, which was over an hour long.)
The Third Option- Derek Gunn 3 stars
20th Century Ghost- Joe Hill 2 stars
The Ghostly Rental- Henry James 2 stars (This was unnecessarily long.)
Home Delivery- Stephen King 2 stars
The Mark of the Beast- Rudyard Kipling 2 stars
The Girl with the Hungry Eyes- Fritz Leiber 1 star
Cool Air- H.P. Lovecraft 3&1/2 stars
For the Good of All-Yvonne Navarro 4 stars
Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly- Joyce Carol Oates
excerpt from Dying to Live- Kim Paffenroth
The Master of Rampling Gate- Anne Rice 2&1/2 stars
The Ghost- Anne Sexton 3 stars
excerpt from Dracula- Bram Stoker (didn’t read)
excerpt from The Wolfen- Whitley Strieber
The Canterville Ghost- Oscar Wilde 3 stars
Disturb Not My Slumbering Fair- Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Green Messiah- Jane Yolen 2 stars
December 2, 2022
Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves, and Ghosts contains 25 stories, the creepiest of which are the ghouls, particularly the penultimate story. I also found others to enjoy, such as The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde. That one was made into a powerful movie starring Sir Patrick Stewart as the infamous ghost in one of the most famous coming-of-age stories. Read the story and see the movie. You will not be disappointed.
For writers, I strongly recommend these stories to provide an interesting and useful compendium of a range of things that creep and bump in the night, and, yes, sometimes in the light of day as well ;)
For this one, I appreciate the careful selection of stories and the range from centuries past to more recent yarns of the dark-supernatural.
Four stars and a strong recommendation…
For writers, I strongly recommend these stories to provide an interesting and useful compendium of a range of things that creep and bump in the night, and, yes, sometimes in the light of day as well ;)
For this one, I appreciate the careful selection of stories and the range from centuries past to more recent yarns of the dark-supernatural.
Four stars and a strong recommendation…
September 25, 2023
A good mix of stories introducing various authors from different time periods and places.
They imagine various encounters with strange phenomena in their stories - ghosts ghouls, vampires, zombies and ware wolves.
Some of the stories can be extremely violent (Stephen King) or grisly (Chelsea Quinn Yarbro) even though there is a typical rural and suburban American setting.
I originally took this book out of the library to read Joyce Carol Oates story about Bly Manor, Essex.
.....................................................................
1.Woody Allen: Count Dracula (1966)
A humorous story about the Transylvanian vampire who miscalculates the time on his visit to the baker and his wife, with whom he intends to satisfy his appetite that night.
…………
2.E.F. Benson: The Room in the Tower (1912)
Set in Ashdown Forest, Sussex, Edwardian family life is depicted in this story about a young man, who, visiting a school friend, Jack Stone, in a dream is directed to sleep in a scary guest room in the tower section of the home by his mother, Julia Stone.
His dream foreshadows his friend John Clinton’s invitation him for a weekend visit after many years abroad.
……….
3.Ray Bradbury: The Man Upstairs (1947)
Douglas’s Grandma and Grandpa rent a room to a stranger, Mr. Koberman, who has responded to an advertisement in the newspaper.
He gives Douglas some copper pennies for his piggy bank and later, he uses Douglas’s baseball bat without permission which gets Douglas into trouble with Grandma.
Depicts old-fashioned suburban life in the United States.
………
4.Ramsey Campbell: The Brood (1980)
A vet observes a woman, the Lady of the Lamp, while she is going home to the condemned house which he can see from his kitchen window. She takes a woman to her house one day and subsequently starts bringing animals home. The vet wonders what is going on.
…………….
5.Angela Carter: The Company of Wolves (1979)
Village women meeting men who turn into wolves.
……………..
6.Charles Dickens: The Lawyer and the Ghost (1836)
A man moves into a set of old rooms at the Inns, at a low price.
There is some leftover furniture in the room including a lumbering wooden press which takes on a life of its own.
…………….
7.Arthur Conan Doyle: Lot No 249 (1892)
A story set at the University of Oxford with Edward Bellingham, William Monkhouse, Abercrombie Smith, Jepheo Hastie.
William Monkhouse’s sister, Eveline, is engaged to Bellingham.
Hastie warns Smith about Bellingham: …something damnable about him…”...
Bellingham has an Egyptian mummy in his room, no 249: …“...a horrid, black, withered thing …”...
Tom Styles, the manservant, is worried about Bellingham’s health because he keeps talking to himself.
A man called Long Norton, with whom Bellingham had had a telling off for poor behavior towards an old woman, gets attacked coming out of the high street.
Later, Monkhouse Lee gets into an altercation with Bellingham about his sister Eveline. Monkhouse Lee subsequently gets thrown into the river and nearly drowns: …something from behind picked me like a feather…
Smith gets followed when he goes to see his friend, the Reverend Plumtree Peterson: … “ …scraggy neck…two eyes…” ….
Something that looks like an “escaped ape” has been seen in town.
Because of all these incidents, Smith decides to get to the bottom of the matter: …”…Bellingham in his Eastern studies, has got hold of some infernal secret by which a mummy …can be temporarily brought to life…”...
………………..
8.Eilen Glasgow:The Shadowy Third (1916)
Set in New York City’s lower fifth avenue, Doctor Roland Maradick’s wife is ill, and he asks a sympathetic nurse to help look after her, Margaret Randolph, along with other help.
Margaret and Mrs. Maradick bond over Mrs. Maradick’s daughter, Dorothea, with her former husband, Mr. Ballard.
Mrs. Maradick is suspicious of her husband’s motives when he marries her.
Dorothea creeps around in the shadows of the house playing with her toys, mostly unobserved:...”with peculiar lightness and grace…”...except by a loyal old butler, Gabriel, Margaret and Mrs. Maradick.
………………
9.Derek Gunn: The Third Option (2007)
This is a story about how Deputy William Boyle, Sheriff Amos Carter and “dead folk” whose “legal right to walk around” has yet to be decided.
…………….
10.Joe Hill Twentieth Century Ghost (2002)
In 1945, as a young man, Alex Sheldon, who eventually became the owner, liked going to the movies at the Rosebud movie theater, New Hampshire.
Alex had met a vivacious girl there, called Imogene Gilchrist, 19, a few years older than him, who had worked at Waterstreet Stationary.
Imogene is very particular about her friends; her parents are Colm and Mary.
Over the years, Imogene brings back memories of Alex’s brother Ray and other thoughts about lives cut short.
Ray was killed in the South Pacific during WW2; Truman had sent a letter of condolence.
Harry Purcell, the then owner of the Rosebud (in the 1940s), explains that Imogene had been to the first showing of The Wizard of Oz but hadn’t been able to see the end of it back in 1939.
Later on, just before Alex retires, beset with ghostly legends, competition and financial difficulties caused, in part by the opening of an 8-screen cineplex on the edge of town, Alex sells the Rosebud movie theater to Steven Greenberg, who is a famous, wealthy filmmaker.
Steven thinks old movie theaters are "national treasures” / “revival joints” and worth saving.
He had seen The Birds at the Rosebud in 1963;
he had also met Imogene at that time (when Alex was the owner of the Rosebud): “Hey kid, in or out?
Others have met Imogene over the years, including a woman called Lois Weisel who is set to make a documentary of the newly revived Rosebud.
After the Rosebud sale to Steven, Alex sits down to watch a double feature the Birds and The Wizard of Oz with Imogene; together they become part of the Rosebud’s history.
A great story for movie buffs - Bataan, The Fighting Seabees, Going My Way, Midnight Cowboy. 8/23/2023.
…………………
11.Henry James: The Ghostly Rental
Narrated by a Cambridge, Massachusetts college student of divinity, who is pondering the theme of what makes a ghost real.
He reads Dr. Channing, Plotinus and St. Augustine (also Jonathan Edwards and Dr. Hopkins).
He takes walks in the surrounding countryside and meets a sailor called Captain Diamond. The protagonist is reminded of Andrew Jackson and Hoffman’s tales.
He gives Captain Diamond a book, Pascal’s Thoughts, as a gift with his name on it.
The protagonist goes to visit Miss Deborah, a friend of the Captain’s former lady friend.
Miss Deborah recounts the story of Captain Diamond, who thinks his house has been haunted by his daughter. Miss Deborah is frightened by the story.
Many years prior, Captain Diamond had had an argument with his daughter about her elopement with an unworthy young man (with whiskers) from Boston.
Captain Diamond sends her away from the house and thinks that she has subsequently died and returned to the house as a ghost.
Short of money, and unable to sell his “haunted” house, Captain Diamond’s “ghostly” daughter takes pity on her father, and agrees to rent it from him.
Later on, the protagonist goes to collect some of the rent on Captain Diamond’s behalf because he is ill. During the visit, Miss Diamond, thinking that her father has just died and that she is seeing his ghost, drops her candle in fright and flees from the house.
............
12.Stephen King: Home Delivery
A story about a community living on a small island named Gennesault off the coast of Maine. The main character has recently lost her husband, Jack Pace, in a fishing accident. She is pregnant.
A futuristic alien disaster confronts the world called Star Wormwood. After an attempt by a joint American and Soviet space shuttle mission to thwart it, a zombie plague spreads over the world and causes civilization to collapse.
There is a depiction of the Gennesault community’s attempt to defeat the zombies and the main organizer’s own struggle against becoming reanimated (Frank Daggett).
Maddie hears a lot of the details about the war with the zombies from one of the participants, Dave Eamon.
Maddie had to defeat one of the zombies by herself - a reincarnation of her husband.
Captures the way of life and personalities of practical working people in America in the 1980s - TV commercials, gun ownership, group think (Methodists) and self segregating (only one minority - Burt Dorfman, a Jewish electrician: … “quixotic and fearsome, like an oracle that works about half the time…)
Since normal life has been disrupted - (Maddie can’t make a purchase from an 800 number for Boxcar Willy records that aren't available in the stores), Maddie plans to have her baby at home instead of a hospital on the mainland.
A humorous undertone throughout the story - as the characters behave according to type in a semi-serious, touchy and jovial manner - one man feels he has been disrespected by someone because his great-uncle calls him Bobby, “like he was a kid.”
...................
13.Rudyard Kipling: The Mark of the Beast next 9/7/2023…
In India, an Englishman, Fleete, is cursed by the bite of a leper priest after he desecrates a Hindu temple.
His friends, Strickland (policeman) and an unnamed narrator go about trying to save him by capturing the leper and physically harming him (with no evidence of doing wrong) so as to induce the leper to undo the curse.
Throughout the story, the Englishmen are overbearing, entitled and arrogant: “Shee that ? ‘Mark of the Bbesht! I made it. Ishn’t it fine?”
Note: Unlike Clemence Housman's The Were-Wolf and other werewolf stories often focused on werewolves as predatory villains, and usually had this threat occur in a village or town.
...................
14.Fritz Leiber: The Girl with the Hungry Eyes
A photographer, Dave, who had set up his own business, takes a couple of provisional photos of an inexperienced advertising model.
Against all the odds, she becomes very sought after by companies for their advertisements.
Her eyes are very attractive to men: …they’re looking at you with a hunger that’s all sex and something more than sex…”.
Dave, too, is very attracted to her. However, he begins to understand that her former associates have not fared well.
Likening her effect to advertisements, Dave has to weigh profitability and self-interest.
.................
15.H.P. Lovecraft: Cool Air
Set in a boarding house on Fourteenth Street in New York City, a man, who works for a magazine that doesn’t pay well, describes a fellow boarder’s peculiar requirement for cold air (Doctor Munoz).
..................
16.Yvonne Navarro: For the Good of All
Set in a futuristic boarding house (Broxton House), owned by a woman (Fida), the boarding house residents are not normal people (walking dead) -
- Patrick (Irish), Manuelaa, Mexican, whose son Reynaldo has died (“whose mouth is rimmed with the dried blood of her son”), Cade (gang member), Jesse and Tina (sixteen, Jesse/pregnant), Max (heroine addict), Sylvie (thirteen, runaway).
Fida is a Roman Catholic woman and she feels she has a responsibility towards these people. She wants a priest (Father Stane) to save them (forgiven) by performing a religious service.
Fida carries a machete.
Fida gives Father Stane lunch in the drawing room. The borders are at the far end of the house. Fida carries a machete on her.
She asks Father Stanes to come upstairs to perform the church rituals. He does so reluctantly.
……………
17.Joyce Carol Oates: Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly
A young governess from Ottery St. Mary (Methodist) is hired to look after two children by their uncle, Miles and Flora at Bly Manor, Essex.
Thoughts about two former servants, Miss Jessel, governess, and Peter Quint, valet affect the governess’s behavior to such an extent that Flora becomes ill and Miles ends up running into the night futilely shouting for Quint.
..................
18.Kim Paffenroth: Excerpt from Dying to Live
Fighting zombies with gruesome details and the mass annihilation is somehow excusable because the people are represented as inhuman. Similar to Stephen King’s Home Delivery.
......................
19.Anne Rice: The Master of Rampling Gate
In Southern England during the late 19th Century, siblings Richard and Julie Rampling visit their family's long-vacant ancestral mansion.
Their late father wished to have the house, called Rampling Gate, destroyed and had asked his son, Richard, to do it. Their mother had died when they were young.
Richard has just spent four years at Oxford University and Julie has just finished two London social seasons.
While the children are staying in the mansion, pondering their father’s wishes, Julia meets a young man in the library who had been sighted by their father in London, years before at Victoria Station.
At the time, the children could not understand why their father didn't like the young man: “Unspeakable horror!”
During their visit, the children begin to understand the circumstances behind their fathers feelings and wishes.
....................
20.Anne Sexton: The Ghost
Told from the point of view of the ghost. An elderly woman haunts her niece after she has died. Compare to Bly which is also told from the ghosts’ point of view - mental health and social issues.
......................
21.Bram Stoker: Excerpt from Dracula
Dr. Seward, narrates in his diary the last moments of Lucy Westenra, Arthur’s fiancee who is sick in bed in a professor’s room. John Van Helsing is a friend of the couple and is helping to take care of her.
The next day, when she is in her tomb, Dr. Seward relates that John Van Helsing, Quincey Morris, the Professor and Arthur go to her tomb surreptitiously, after a funeral has taken place. This is to ensure that she can rest peacefully.
.....................
22.Whitley Strieber: Excerpt from The Wolfen
A man smelling of alcohol and sleeping on a bench is attacked in Central Park.
Dr. Carl Fergerson is reading about werewolves in the Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library.
Fergerson reads an ancient story by Montague Summers in his book: The Werewolf. Legends about werewolf legends died out in the nineteenth century.
Fergerson wants to read a book by Beauvoys de Chauvincourt who was considered an authority on werewolves and vampires in his day.
Detective Wilson thinks a pack of werewolves were involved in the incident in Central Park.
Coming across an engraving in de Chaurvincourt’s book, Dr. Fergerson recalled a childhood memory when he was staying in the Catskills near New Paltz of a creature leaning in his ground floor bedroom window.
The library thinks that Dr. Fergerson is getting upset with his reading material.
................
23.Oscar Wilde: The Canterville Ghost …next 9/23/2023…
Sir Simon de Canterville had murdered his wife in 1575 and appears as a ghost in his house, Canterville Chase.
Canterville Chase is seven miles from Ascot
Canterville Chase is bought from the current Lord Canterville, and subsequently lived in by an American family, Mr. Hiram B. Otis, his wife, three sons and a daughter.
Mr. Otis is the United States Minister. Virginia is engaged to the Duke of Cheshire who is related by marriage to the ghost.
There are interactions between the ghost and the Otis family members, and stories about the ghost’s antics in the past.
These come to a head one day, when Virginia goes up the backstairs and meets the ghost in the Tapestry Chamber and learns about his fate at the hands of his wife’s two brothers.
................
24.Chelsea Quinn Yarbro: Disturb Not My Slumbering Fair
Diedre, a calculating ghoul, leaves her grave on Thursday and she encounters a night watchman, a woman, and a man in a morgue with gruesome results.
...................
25.Jane Yolen: Green Messiah
Lupe de Diega is the first girl to be genetically changed into a wolf with unsettling consequences for the science community.
They imagine various encounters with strange phenomena in their stories - ghosts ghouls, vampires, zombies and ware wolves.
Some of the stories can be extremely violent (Stephen King) or grisly (Chelsea Quinn Yarbro) even though there is a typical rural and suburban American setting.
I originally took this book out of the library to read Joyce Carol Oates story about Bly Manor, Essex.
.....................................................................
1.Woody Allen: Count Dracula (1966)
A humorous story about the Transylvanian vampire who miscalculates the time on his visit to the baker and his wife, with whom he intends to satisfy his appetite that night.
…………
2.E.F. Benson: The Room in the Tower (1912)
Set in Ashdown Forest, Sussex, Edwardian family life is depicted in this story about a young man, who, visiting a school friend, Jack Stone, in a dream is directed to sleep in a scary guest room in the tower section of the home by his mother, Julia Stone.
His dream foreshadows his friend John Clinton’s invitation him for a weekend visit after many years abroad.
……….
3.Ray Bradbury: The Man Upstairs (1947)
Douglas’s Grandma and Grandpa rent a room to a stranger, Mr. Koberman, who has responded to an advertisement in the newspaper.
He gives Douglas some copper pennies for his piggy bank and later, he uses Douglas’s baseball bat without permission which gets Douglas into trouble with Grandma.
Depicts old-fashioned suburban life in the United States.
………
4.Ramsey Campbell: The Brood (1980)
A vet observes a woman, the Lady of the Lamp, while she is going home to the condemned house which he can see from his kitchen window. She takes a woman to her house one day and subsequently starts bringing animals home. The vet wonders what is going on.
…………….
5.Angela Carter: The Company of Wolves (1979)
Village women meeting men who turn into wolves.
……………..
6.Charles Dickens: The Lawyer and the Ghost (1836)
A man moves into a set of old rooms at the Inns, at a low price.
There is some leftover furniture in the room including a lumbering wooden press which takes on a life of its own.
…………….
7.Arthur Conan Doyle: Lot No 249 (1892)
A story set at the University of Oxford with Edward Bellingham, William Monkhouse, Abercrombie Smith, Jepheo Hastie.
William Monkhouse’s sister, Eveline, is engaged to Bellingham.
Hastie warns Smith about Bellingham: …something damnable about him…”...
Bellingham has an Egyptian mummy in his room, no 249: …“...a horrid, black, withered thing …”...
Tom Styles, the manservant, is worried about Bellingham’s health because he keeps talking to himself.
A man called Long Norton, with whom Bellingham had had a telling off for poor behavior towards an old woman, gets attacked coming out of the high street.
Later, Monkhouse Lee gets into an altercation with Bellingham about his sister Eveline. Monkhouse Lee subsequently gets thrown into the river and nearly drowns: …something from behind picked me like a feather…
Smith gets followed when he goes to see his friend, the Reverend Plumtree Peterson: … “ …scraggy neck…two eyes…” ….
Something that looks like an “escaped ape” has been seen in town.
Because of all these incidents, Smith decides to get to the bottom of the matter: …”…Bellingham in his Eastern studies, has got hold of some infernal secret by which a mummy …can be temporarily brought to life…”...
………………..
8.Eilen Glasgow:The Shadowy Third (1916)
Set in New York City’s lower fifth avenue, Doctor Roland Maradick’s wife is ill, and he asks a sympathetic nurse to help look after her, Margaret Randolph, along with other help.
Margaret and Mrs. Maradick bond over Mrs. Maradick’s daughter, Dorothea, with her former husband, Mr. Ballard.
Mrs. Maradick is suspicious of her husband’s motives when he marries her.
Dorothea creeps around in the shadows of the house playing with her toys, mostly unobserved:...”with peculiar lightness and grace…”...except by a loyal old butler, Gabriel, Margaret and Mrs. Maradick.
………………
9.Derek Gunn: The Third Option (2007)
This is a story about how Deputy William Boyle, Sheriff Amos Carter and “dead folk” whose “legal right to walk around” has yet to be decided.
…………….
10.Joe Hill Twentieth Century Ghost (2002)
In 1945, as a young man, Alex Sheldon, who eventually became the owner, liked going to the movies at the Rosebud movie theater, New Hampshire.
Alex had met a vivacious girl there, called Imogene Gilchrist, 19, a few years older than him, who had worked at Waterstreet Stationary.
Imogene is very particular about her friends; her parents are Colm and Mary.
Over the years, Imogene brings back memories of Alex’s brother Ray and other thoughts about lives cut short.
Ray was killed in the South Pacific during WW2; Truman had sent a letter of condolence.
Harry Purcell, the then owner of the Rosebud (in the 1940s), explains that Imogene had been to the first showing of The Wizard of Oz but hadn’t been able to see the end of it back in 1939.
Later on, just before Alex retires, beset with ghostly legends, competition and financial difficulties caused, in part by the opening of an 8-screen cineplex on the edge of town, Alex sells the Rosebud movie theater to Steven Greenberg, who is a famous, wealthy filmmaker.
Steven thinks old movie theaters are "national treasures” / “revival joints” and worth saving.
He had seen The Birds at the Rosebud in 1963;
he had also met Imogene at that time (when Alex was the owner of the Rosebud): “Hey kid, in or out?
Others have met Imogene over the years, including a woman called Lois Weisel who is set to make a documentary of the newly revived Rosebud.
After the Rosebud sale to Steven, Alex sits down to watch a double feature the Birds and The Wizard of Oz with Imogene; together they become part of the Rosebud’s history.
A great story for movie buffs - Bataan, The Fighting Seabees, Going My Way, Midnight Cowboy. 8/23/2023.
…………………
11.Henry James: The Ghostly Rental
Narrated by a Cambridge, Massachusetts college student of divinity, who is pondering the theme of what makes a ghost real.
He reads Dr. Channing, Plotinus and St. Augustine (also Jonathan Edwards and Dr. Hopkins).
He takes walks in the surrounding countryside and meets a sailor called Captain Diamond. The protagonist is reminded of Andrew Jackson and Hoffman’s tales.
He gives Captain Diamond a book, Pascal’s Thoughts, as a gift with his name on it.
The protagonist goes to visit Miss Deborah, a friend of the Captain’s former lady friend.
Miss Deborah recounts the story of Captain Diamond, who thinks his house has been haunted by his daughter. Miss Deborah is frightened by the story.
Many years prior, Captain Diamond had had an argument with his daughter about her elopement with an unworthy young man (with whiskers) from Boston.
Captain Diamond sends her away from the house and thinks that she has subsequently died and returned to the house as a ghost.
Short of money, and unable to sell his “haunted” house, Captain Diamond’s “ghostly” daughter takes pity on her father, and agrees to rent it from him.
Later on, the protagonist goes to collect some of the rent on Captain Diamond’s behalf because he is ill. During the visit, Miss Diamond, thinking that her father has just died and that she is seeing his ghost, drops her candle in fright and flees from the house.
............
12.Stephen King: Home Delivery
A story about a community living on a small island named Gennesault off the coast of Maine. The main character has recently lost her husband, Jack Pace, in a fishing accident. She is pregnant.
A futuristic alien disaster confronts the world called Star Wormwood. After an attempt by a joint American and Soviet space shuttle mission to thwart it, a zombie plague spreads over the world and causes civilization to collapse.
There is a depiction of the Gennesault community’s attempt to defeat the zombies and the main organizer’s own struggle against becoming reanimated (Frank Daggett).
Maddie hears a lot of the details about the war with the zombies from one of the participants, Dave Eamon.
Maddie had to defeat one of the zombies by herself - a reincarnation of her husband.
Captures the way of life and personalities of practical working people in America in the 1980s - TV commercials, gun ownership, group think (Methodists) and self segregating (only one minority - Burt Dorfman, a Jewish electrician: … “quixotic and fearsome, like an oracle that works about half the time…)
Since normal life has been disrupted - (Maddie can’t make a purchase from an 800 number for Boxcar Willy records that aren't available in the stores), Maddie plans to have her baby at home instead of a hospital on the mainland.
A humorous undertone throughout the story - as the characters behave according to type in a semi-serious, touchy and jovial manner - one man feels he has been disrespected by someone because his great-uncle calls him Bobby, “like he was a kid.”
...................
13.Rudyard Kipling: The Mark of the Beast next 9/7/2023…
In India, an Englishman, Fleete, is cursed by the bite of a leper priest after he desecrates a Hindu temple.
His friends, Strickland (policeman) and an unnamed narrator go about trying to save him by capturing the leper and physically harming him (with no evidence of doing wrong) so as to induce the leper to undo the curse.
Throughout the story, the Englishmen are overbearing, entitled and arrogant: “Shee that ? ‘Mark of the Bbesht! I made it. Ishn’t it fine?”
Note: Unlike Clemence Housman's The Were-Wolf and other werewolf stories often focused on werewolves as predatory villains, and usually had this threat occur in a village or town.
...................
14.Fritz Leiber: The Girl with the Hungry Eyes
A photographer, Dave, who had set up his own business, takes a couple of provisional photos of an inexperienced advertising model.
Against all the odds, she becomes very sought after by companies for their advertisements.
Her eyes are very attractive to men: …they’re looking at you with a hunger that’s all sex and something more than sex…”.
Dave, too, is very attracted to her. However, he begins to understand that her former associates have not fared well.
Likening her effect to advertisements, Dave has to weigh profitability and self-interest.
.................
15.H.P. Lovecraft: Cool Air
Set in a boarding house on Fourteenth Street in New York City, a man, who works for a magazine that doesn’t pay well, describes a fellow boarder’s peculiar requirement for cold air (Doctor Munoz).
..................
16.Yvonne Navarro: For the Good of All
Set in a futuristic boarding house (Broxton House), owned by a woman (Fida), the boarding house residents are not normal people (walking dead) -
- Patrick (Irish), Manuelaa, Mexican, whose son Reynaldo has died (“whose mouth is rimmed with the dried blood of her son”), Cade (gang member), Jesse and Tina (sixteen, Jesse/pregnant), Max (heroine addict), Sylvie (thirteen, runaway).
Fida is a Roman Catholic woman and she feels she has a responsibility towards these people. She wants a priest (Father Stane) to save them (forgiven) by performing a religious service.
Fida carries a machete.
Fida gives Father Stane lunch in the drawing room. The borders are at the far end of the house. Fida carries a machete on her.
She asks Father Stanes to come upstairs to perform the church rituals. He does so reluctantly.
……………
17.Joyce Carol Oates: Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly
A young governess from Ottery St. Mary (Methodist) is hired to look after two children by their uncle, Miles and Flora at Bly Manor, Essex.
Thoughts about two former servants, Miss Jessel, governess, and Peter Quint, valet affect the governess’s behavior to such an extent that Flora becomes ill and Miles ends up running into the night futilely shouting for Quint.
..................
18.Kim Paffenroth: Excerpt from Dying to Live
Fighting zombies with gruesome details and the mass annihilation is somehow excusable because the people are represented as inhuman. Similar to Stephen King’s Home Delivery.
......................
19.Anne Rice: The Master of Rampling Gate
In Southern England during the late 19th Century, siblings Richard and Julie Rampling visit their family's long-vacant ancestral mansion.
Their late father wished to have the house, called Rampling Gate, destroyed and had asked his son, Richard, to do it. Their mother had died when they were young.
Richard has just spent four years at Oxford University and Julie has just finished two London social seasons.
While the children are staying in the mansion, pondering their father’s wishes, Julia meets a young man in the library who had been sighted by their father in London, years before at Victoria Station.
At the time, the children could not understand why their father didn't like the young man: “Unspeakable horror!”
During their visit, the children begin to understand the circumstances behind their fathers feelings and wishes.
....................
20.Anne Sexton: The Ghost
Told from the point of view of the ghost. An elderly woman haunts her niece after she has died. Compare to Bly which is also told from the ghosts’ point of view - mental health and social issues.
......................
21.Bram Stoker: Excerpt from Dracula
Dr. Seward, narrates in his diary the last moments of Lucy Westenra, Arthur’s fiancee who is sick in bed in a professor’s room. John Van Helsing is a friend of the couple and is helping to take care of her.
The next day, when she is in her tomb, Dr. Seward relates that John Van Helsing, Quincey Morris, the Professor and Arthur go to her tomb surreptitiously, after a funeral has taken place. This is to ensure that she can rest peacefully.
.....................
22.Whitley Strieber: Excerpt from The Wolfen
A man smelling of alcohol and sleeping on a bench is attacked in Central Park.
Dr. Carl Fergerson is reading about werewolves in the Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library.
Fergerson reads an ancient story by Montague Summers in his book: The Werewolf. Legends about werewolf legends died out in the nineteenth century.
Fergerson wants to read a book by Beauvoys de Chauvincourt who was considered an authority on werewolves and vampires in his day.
Detective Wilson thinks a pack of werewolves were involved in the incident in Central Park.
Coming across an engraving in de Chaurvincourt’s book, Dr. Fergerson recalled a childhood memory when he was staying in the Catskills near New Paltz of a creature leaning in his ground floor bedroom window.
The library thinks that Dr. Fergerson is getting upset with his reading material.
................
23.Oscar Wilde: The Canterville Ghost …next 9/23/2023…
Sir Simon de Canterville had murdered his wife in 1575 and appears as a ghost in his house, Canterville Chase.
Canterville Chase is seven miles from Ascot
Canterville Chase is bought from the current Lord Canterville, and subsequently lived in by an American family, Mr. Hiram B. Otis, his wife, three sons and a daughter.
Mr. Otis is the United States Minister. Virginia is engaged to the Duke of Cheshire who is related by marriage to the ghost.
There are interactions between the ghost and the Otis family members, and stories about the ghost’s antics in the past.
These come to a head one day, when Virginia goes up the backstairs and meets the ghost in the Tapestry Chamber and learns about his fate at the hands of his wife’s two brothers.
................
24.Chelsea Quinn Yarbro: Disturb Not My Slumbering Fair
Diedre, a calculating ghoul, leaves her grave on Thursday and she encounters a night watchman, a woman, and a man in a morgue with gruesome results.
...................
25.Jane Yolen: Green Messiah
Lupe de Diega is the first girl to be genetically changed into a wolf with unsettling consequences for the science community.
August 4, 2013
I haven't read all the stories in this one, but I read one every once in a while when the mood strikes. So far, I really enjoyed E.F. Benson's "The Room in the Tower." I also enjoyed reading Fritz Leiber's, "The Girl With the Hungry Eyes," since "Conjure Wife" is my favorite horror novel, but I'd never read anything else by Leiber until now. I was glad to get the chance to read Angela Carter's "The Company of Wolves" since I have seen Neil Jordan's film version of it, but never read the actual story.
January 7, 2015
Stories by Men: 16
Stories by Women: 9
Stories pre-1900: 6
Stories 1900-1949: 5
Stories 1950-2000: 10
Stories post-2000: 4
The collection could be more balanced, especially considering the number of M to F writers. I also wished the stories were published in chronological order. It was weird to start with Woody Allen (1966) and follow up with E.F. Benson (1912). Going in order would have shown some progression in the genre, rather than bouncing all over history.
Stories by Women: 9
Stories pre-1900: 6
Stories 1900-1949: 5
Stories 1950-2000: 10
Stories post-2000: 4
The collection could be more balanced, especially considering the number of M to F writers. I also wished the stories were published in chronological order. It was weird to start with Woody Allen (1966) and follow up with E.F. Benson (1912). Going in order would have shown some progression in the genre, rather than bouncing all over history.
August 10, 2016
3.5
Some stories were very, very good. Some were very bad. Some were just ... baffling.
Some stories were very, very good. Some were very bad. Some were just ... baffling.
March 23, 2012
good mix of modern and classic stories
March 4, 2020
”How otherwise to know what power we wield, except to see it in another’s eyes?”
Holy cow this introduction is BEAUTIFUL. I'd probably read an entire book based around the introduction if I could! The authors do a fantastic job dissecting three very well known literary horror monsters in a way that's fun and informative.
The book is also pretty comprehensive. Although it's a little dated now, I can't think of another anthology that covers a broader spectrum of authors, decades, or types of stories than this one did. There was a little bit of everything in here, which made for a lengthy but rewarding read.
Favorites include: The Room in the Tower, The Man Upstairs, 20th Century Ghost, Cool Air, For the Good of All, Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly, The Master of Rampling Gate, and Disturb Not my Slumbering Fair.
My biggest issue with this anthology was the way the titles were arranged. They were done in alphabetical order, but I felt it would’ve been more effective to place them in chronological order or categorize them. It felt more than a little odd to transition from Joyce Carol Oates to Kim Paffenroth, but once you moved past those details into the stories, it was easily forgotten.
Holy cow this introduction is BEAUTIFUL. I'd probably read an entire book based around the introduction if I could! The authors do a fantastic job dissecting three very well known literary horror monsters in a way that's fun and informative.
The book is also pretty comprehensive. Although it's a little dated now, I can't think of another anthology that covers a broader spectrum of authors, decades, or types of stories than this one did. There was a little bit of everything in here, which made for a lengthy but rewarding read.
Favorites include: The Room in the Tower, The Man Upstairs, 20th Century Ghost, Cool Air, For the Good of All, Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly, The Master of Rampling Gate, and Disturb Not my Slumbering Fair.
My biggest issue with this anthology was the way the titles were arranged. They were done in alphabetical order, but I felt it would’ve been more effective to place them in chronological order or categorize them. It felt more than a little odd to transition from Joyce Carol Oates to Kim Paffenroth, but once you moved past those details into the stories, it was easily forgotten.
October 28, 2020
There are so many great writers in this collection. Before each story, there's a bit of an introduction with previous work and also the years that the writer was alive which is a nice addition. If you're looking for a nightly read, you could probably pick this as an October book with one story a night. You'd need to make up for the other 6 days with something else, but 25 stories is quite a few for one book.
June 9, 2019
i was really hoping this book would have some decent stories as i know with compilations you're gonna get some good and some bad but this really was not that good at all. out of 25 stories i only liked maybe 5. here are the ones worth reading:Benson,Bradbury,James,Stoker,Wilde
October 24, 2025
The name of this collection is not creative — instead it is absolutely informative. 25 classic shorts that are curated from respected authors across the years. This was perfect to read individually throughout October — each supernatural creature set to offer spookiness and entertainment.
October 21, 2020
Very good. A variety of different types of stories to keep me interested.
September 15, 2021
A nice selection of classic and more current horror and supernatural stories. I was definitely introduced to some new-to-me authors.
September 25, 2021
Entertaining
25 short stories, that range from very good to not so good. They are will written with interesting characters. I would recommend give it a try, you may be surprised. Enjoy reading 2018
25 short stories, that range from very good to not so good. They are will written with interesting characters. I would recommend give it a try, you may be surprised. Enjoy reading 2018
April 11, 2025
I enjoyed reading the different stories in this book. Some of the stories were entertaining, a few interesting, and others just bizarre.
October 5, 2025
Some of the stories were weird.
October 12, 2025
I loved every single story! great collection
December 3, 2022
I am happy to say this choice of excerpts from books written about horror and the supernatural offer polished mental enjoyments for those who already like the genres it concerns.
Want to read
November 5, 2025Didn't have time to really get into this. Read maybe the first two stories? Future Matt - if you pick this one back up, I think you had finished the Ramsey Campbell story.
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2025 Update: Still enjoying this collection along with some other short fiction collections. Glad to have run across Hill's "20th Century Ghost;" I like that story and don't own the book it's in any more.
Future Matt - when you pick this one up next year, you stopped at the Joyce Carol Oates story. I think "House of Bly" was part of the title.
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2025 Update: Still enjoying this collection along with some other short fiction collections. Glad to have run across Hill's "20th Century Ghost;" I like that story and don't own the book it's in any more.
Future Matt - when you pick this one up next year, you stopped at the Joyce Carol Oates story. I think "House of Bly" was part of the title.
September 25, 2015
A decent collection of catch-all horror stories, including a number I'd never read before. There are several "products of their time" tales but overall, there several I enjoyed by authors I might not have read otherwise. I particularly liked the ones by Carter, Yolen, Sexton, Navarro and Hill. And Wilde is always charming. Worth your time if you're looking for an intro horror collection with a range of writing styles.
October 27, 2011
Sadly, just a disappointing and uneven selection of stories. I was interested because these were primarily stories that I had never read before...apparently there was a reason for that. There were about five awesome short stories tucked in between pieces of dreck. Definitely check out the Joe Hill and the Chelsea Yarborough stories
July 6, 2015
I've never been into horror stories, just recently I read Dracula and Frankenstein, but, I have to admit, I really enjoyed it.Some of them were very interesting and I would like to read something else from some of the authors.
June 14, 2013
It was the same stories that are typically anthologized.
October 26, 2013
Great compilation of stories. Excellent authors. Hard to rate as some stories are vastly better than others.
November 3, 2013
Not every story was amazing but this is a very short, classic solid ghost stories collection, much better than most!
September 30, 2015
Some great classics with a fair mix of more contemporary works.
January 10, 2014
Short stories. Finally finished it! Most were good, some not so much.
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