Customer Reviews

The 13 Best Horror Stories of All Time

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You won't find a better line-up in any other book of short tales. Here are the Masters, the true "Old Ones", who paved the horror-ridden walkways that deranged souls love to walk upon. If someone says, "I don't like horror", or rejects the newer splatter horror, this book is the perfect gift to introduce them to what horror is really about.

It's not about blood; it's about dread. That sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, that feeling that forces your from your chair at night to turn on all the houselights and peek cautiously out into the night through curtains that flutter in unseen winds. You lock the door and you lock the windows, but the feeling will not leave.

Table Of Contents:

The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe

Green Tea by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Bottle Imp by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen

Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker

The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs

Oh, Whistle And I'll Come To You, My Lad by M.R. James

The Country Of The Blind by H.G. Wells

The Willows by Algernon Blackwood

The Beckoning Fair One by Oliver Onions

The Call Of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

From the languid, flowing prose from 'The Willows' by Algernon Blackwood, the terror of insanity in 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, houses haunted by madness in 'The Beckoning Fair One' by Oliver Onions, and classic tales by Poe, Stevenson, Machen, Stoker, H.G. Wells, Lovecraft, and Jackson, this truly is the best of the best of horror. It's nice to have this classic pieces available in one book. Any horror fan of course has read and/or owns these works, but the convenience of perusing your midnight pleasures in a single collection is more than worth the price of the book. I would give it 10 stars if I could, this is a "must have" book for horror fans. Enjoy!

Note: I made some Mormon reader angry over my negative reviews of books written by Mormons out to prove the Book of Mormon, and they have been slamming my reviews as soon as they are posted. Oh, well.

Your "helpful" votes are appreciated. Thanks.

This book is worth it for one story alone--the "Willows," by Algernon Blackwood. Just imagine camping on a willowy island in the Danube River. I hope the following first lines will make you feel that my little review was worth reading.

"After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, the Danube enters a region of singular loneliness and desolation, where its waters spread away on all sides regardless of a main channel, and the country becomes a swamp for miles upon miles, covered by a vast sea of low willow bushes."

A great collection of other stories, too.

When an author has a name like "Algernon Blackwood," you know the story has to be good.

I enjoyed most of the stories because like the "Willows," they set up a mood of mystery. A great collection for a rainy day read.

"The 13 Best Horror Stories of All Time" compiles true classics of the horror genre, though I would have preferred a larger compendium with more works. The tales included here are atmospheric, dark, and macabre. It makes a great introduction to the classic horror genre (note: not the gore-fest that is so characteristic of latter day works of horror) especially for those beginning to explore the genre, and also for adolescent readers. I have used many of these stories in my Language Arts classes and received favorable responses.

The tales represented here are:

The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

Green Tea - by J.Sheridan Le Fanu

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Bottle Imp by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen

Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker

The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs

Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad by M.R. James

The Country of the Blind by H.G. Wells

The Willows by Algernon Blackwood

The Beckoning Fair One by Oliver Onions

The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Amongst my favorites in this collection are M.R. James' Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad (MR James also happens to be one of my all-time favorite horror writers, who has the ability to chill my soul through his descriptive, fluid prose), "The Willows", "Dracula's Guest" (which interestingly had been cut out of the original manuscript of "Dracula" because of the length of the novel and only published in 1914, two years after Bram Stoker's death), and "The Lottery" (one of those pieces of writing that starts off on a languid note, and builds up tension slowly but surely towards a horrifying and chilling climax).

For those whose appetite for the genre has increased after reading these tales of the macabre, I'd suggest exploring the following:

Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories (The Complete Ghost Stories of M. R. James, Vol. 1)

The Haunted Doll's House and Other Ghost Stories (The Complete Ghost Stories of M.R. James, Vol. 2)

The Essential Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu Collection (55 works)

Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood

The Lottery and Other Stories

This collection of stories was very enjoyable. Of course, you must realize that some of these stories were written quite a while ago and that their style is different than that of modern works. If you do not like reading classical works, then you probably won't want this book. Other than that, it is a great read.

I purchased this book to read as part of a book club. The book is a compilation of "horror" stories. I say "horror" because the stories are not at all scary. Some of the stories are written in old English-type style which makes it hard to follow. Some are quite suspenseful and build you up only to let you down with no monster or demon or murder to follow. I am trying to get through the book but it is tough because none of the stories are holding my attention.

The very title of the book strikes one immediately as a bit arrogant; how can there be a mere thirteen BEST? Especially when the contents read more as a primer for the totally uninitiated? Conspicuously absent from the included authors are true all-time-greatest horror titles: 'Bianca's Hands' by Theodore Sturgeon; 'Gray Matter' (or nearly anything from Night Shift, actually), by Stephen King; 'Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory' by Orson Scott Card; 'The Human Chair' by Edogawa Rampo; 'Call First' by Ramsey Campbell; 'Sticks' by Karl Edward Wagner..........I mean, the list could go on for several of these internet pages, folks. Where, in this list of grand masters, is Richard Matheson? Nathaniel Hawthorne? Ray Russell?! Robert Bloch?!?!?!? Jesus, these are not just anybody! They are an enormous part of what horror has become, and, in many ways, what it should be. This review in no way should be taken as a slam against the included writers in this anthology---Poe, Lovecraft, Jackson, all of them--- have masterful voices, and should never be forgotten; but I rail at the idea that anything short of a wall-filling encyclopedic collection of horror could ever hope to capture all of the wonderfully dark nightmares put to paper. Please.