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Classic Tales of Horror: A collection of spine-tingling short stories
Spooks and inexplicable things that go bump in the night have long exercised creative imaginations and provided source material for our greatest story-tellers. Eerily vivid and yet never devoid of the beat of the human heart, Classic Tales of Horror presents the work of some of the world's most celebrated authors in a compilation designed to provide both a gripping read and glimpses of life beyond the realm of the everyday, including Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker and Edith Nesbit.
- GenresHorrorFictionAnthologies
441 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 4, 2018
It feels like dejavu, reading these classic tales to the very last. My first year of reading English books were practically horror tales. Quite a great book, and the only thing that bothering was just tons of vampires stories. There are a lot of broader theme for horror than just vampires, right?
August 30, 2021
3/5 stars
It is not a bad book, but not that great of a book either. I like the "the bottle imp" which feels more like a classic fairy tales vibes but a lot of the stories in this book are about vampires, and reading about vampires one after another in a row is a little bit boring to me.
Some stories are very short and some are a little bit long, some authors wrote in an easy to understand language while some incorporate sophisticated words into their story (that's not a bad thing though).
Some of the stories I like are "The bottle imp"
"The upper berth" and "Thurlow's christmas story". The others were okay but not my favorite kind of stories (or writing styles).
My favorite out of these pile of vampire tales is "Clarimonde" as it tells a touching love story and the personalities of the characters are well conveyed .The tragic ending is heart-breaking imagining that these two lovers will never be together again for eternity.
Conclusion : the book is read worthy if you are curious enough. Since the words used in some of the stories are quite difficult, sometimes it can be tedious for some readers. I don't regret reading this book, but I think this book is a "one time only" read for me as I won't pick it up again for a very long time; not saying that it's a bad book, but it is that kind of book which if you already read it once then you cannot enjoy it that much the second time.
It is not a bad book, but not that great of a book either. I like the "the bottle imp" which feels more like a classic fairy tales vibes but a lot of the stories in this book are about vampires, and reading about vampires one after another in a row is a little bit boring to me.
Some stories are very short and some are a little bit long, some authors wrote in an easy to understand language while some incorporate sophisticated words into their story (that's not a bad thing though).
Some of the stories I like are "The bottle imp"
"The upper berth" and "Thurlow's christmas story". The others were okay but not my favorite kind of stories (or writing styles).
My favorite out of these pile of vampire tales is "Clarimonde" as it tells a touching love story and the personalities of the characters are well conveyed .The tragic ending is heart-breaking imagining that these two lovers will never be together again for eternity.
Conclusion : the book is read worthy if you are curious enough. Since the words used in some of the stories are quite difficult, sometimes it can be tedious for some readers. I don't regret reading this book, but I think this book is a "one time only" read for me as I won't pick it up again for a very long time; not saying that it's a bad book, but it is that kind of book which if you already read it once then you cannot enjoy it that much the second time.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 22, 2017
Some of these stories are very good (Stevenson's "The Bottle Imp", Bangs' "Thurlow's Christmas Story"). Some of the other stories, not so much!
All the stories are from a more confident age. The horrors are tidily dealt with. One vampire story talks about finding the monster "by the usual tests" and disposing of the beast "by the usual methods". There is no sense that the horrible is the true state of things, overlaid by a thin veneer of civilization, as would appear later on in Robert E. Howard's and H.P. Lovecraft's writing. World War I came between these earlier writers and those later ones...
All the stories are from a more confident age. The horrors are tidily dealt with. One vampire story talks about finding the monster "by the usual tests" and disposing of the beast "by the usual methods". There is no sense that the horrible is the true state of things, overlaid by a thin veneer of civilization, as would appear later on in Robert E. Howard's and H.P. Lovecraft's writing. World War I came between these earlier writers and those later ones...
November 17, 2017
DNF at like 47%
I didn't like it much and was forcing myself through stories which weren't super engaging and lacked tension. It was great at making me so bored I fell asleep but bad at making me feel creeped out. Maybe I shouldn't put the same expectations as modern horror which is scarier and more tense. I honestly could not give a damn while I was reading. I also disliked the writing styles, all of them (except maybe imp in a bottle, that was good.)
Honestly even the concepts weren't that scary, it was more paranormal than horror (because horror is meant to be scary not just supernatural) but it was probably just me and not the book so take my review with a grain of salt.
I didn't like it much and was forcing myself through stories which weren't super engaging and lacked tension. It was great at making me so bored I fell asleep but bad at making me feel creeped out. Maybe I shouldn't put the same expectations as modern horror which is scarier and more tense. I honestly could not give a damn while I was reading. I also disliked the writing styles, all of them (except maybe imp in a bottle, that was good.)
Honestly even the concepts weren't that scary, it was more paranormal than horror (because horror is meant to be scary not just supernatural) but it was probably just me and not the book so take my review with a grain of salt.
October 12, 2016
Excellent anthology of ghost and horror stories by classic authors.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews