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Celebrated horror genius HP Lovecraft wrote a paper 90 years ago called _Supernatural Horror in Literature_ considered by some to be "one of the finest historical analyses of horror literature." Many of those works are included on this disk.
Contents:
The Two Magics: The Turn of the Screw, Covering End by MR James 1898
The Upper Berth by Frank R Stockton 1894
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman 1894
Elsie Venner by Oliver Wendell Holmes 1894
The Monkey's Paw by WW Jacobs 1910
The Book of Enoch by RH Charles 1894
Clavicula Salomonis by Hermann Gollancz 1903
The Bride of Corinth by Anatole France 1920
Beowulf, by WJ Sedgefield 1910
Lay of the Nibelung by Alfred G Foster-Barham 1887
Le Morte d'Arthur Sir Thomas Malory's Book of King Arthur and of his noble knights of the Round Table 1919
The Apparition of Mrs Veal by Daniel Defoe 1745
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole 1883
Tam O'Shanter by Robert Burns 1908
Faust by Goethe 1908
Gothic stories - Sir Bertrand 1800
The Recess, Volume 1 by Sophia Lee 1787
The Recess, Volume 2 by Sophia Lee 1787
The Recess, Volume 3 by Sophia Lee 1787 ("The Recess...though devoid of the supernatural, employs the Walpole scenery and mechanism with great dexterity." ~Lovecraft)
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe 1836
The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne by Ann Radcliffe 1793
The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe 1847
Edgar Huntly - Memoirs of a Sleep-walker, Volume 1 by Charles Brockden Brown 1799
Edgar Huntly - Memoirs of a Sleep-walker, Volume 2 by Charles Brockden Brown 1799
Wieland - The Transformation by Charles Brockden Brown 1887
The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis 1907
Tales of Terror and Wonder by Matthew Gregory Lewis 1887
Fatal Revenge - The Family of Montorio, Volume 1 by Dennis Jasper Murphy (really Charles Maturin) 1807
Fatal Revenge - The Family of Montorio, Volume 2 by Dennis Jasper Murphy 1807
Fatal Revenge - The Family of Montorio, Volume 3 by Dennis Jasper Murphy 1807
Melmoth the Wanderer, Volume 1 by Charles Maturin 1820
Melmoth the Wanderer, Volume 2 by Charles Maturin 1820
Melmoth the Wanderer, Volume 3 by Charles Maturin 1820
Melmoth the Wanderer, Volume 4 by Charles Maturin 1820
The Arabian Nights Entertainments by Andrew Lang 1898
St. Leon - a Tale of the Sixteenth Century by William Godwin 1831
Wagner, the Wehr-wolf By George William M. Reynolds 1884
Frankenstein - The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley 1869
Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft by Sir Walter Scott 1885
The Phantom Ship by Captain Marryat 1839
A Book of Short Stories 1914 (has The Signalman by Dickens, The fall of the house of Usher by Poe plus more)
A Strange Story - The Haunted and the Haunters - The House and the Brain by Edward Bulwer Lytton 1865
The Merry Men and other Tales and Fables (has Markheim and Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) by Robert Louis Stevenson 1895
The Body-Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson 1905
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte 1911 ("Quite alone both as a novel and as a piece of terror-literature stands the famous Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, with its mad vista of bleak, windswept Yorkshire moors and the violent, distorted lives they foster." Lovecraft)
Undine by Friedrich Heinrich Karl, Baron de la Motte Fouqué 1909 ("Most artistic of all the Continental weird tales is the German classic Undine. In this story of a water-spirit who married a mortal and gained a human soul there is a delicate fineness of craftsmanship which makes it notable in any department of literature, and an easy naturalness which places it close to the genuine folk-myth. It is, in fact, derived from a tale told by the Renaissance physician and alchemist Paracelsus in his Treatise on Elemental Sprites." Lovecraft)
The Amber Witch Wilhelm by Meinhold 1888
Hans of Iceland by Victor Hugo 1891
The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant - Ten Volumes in One, 1903 (over 200 stories, including, Diary of a Madman, The White Wolf, On the River, the Devil, A Dead Woman's Secret, After Death, Countess Satan, The Specter, The Horrible etc)
Edgar Allan Poe in One Volume, 1922 (70 Stories)
A Wonder Book by Nathaniel Hawthorne 1920
Tanglewood tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne 1913
Doctor Grimshawe's Secret by Nathaniel Hawthorne 1883
The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne 1900
Septimius Felton by Nathaniel Hawthorne 1899
The Dolliver Romance-The Ancestral Footstep by Nathaniel Hawthorne 1883
In Colonial Days - Edward Randolphs Portrait by Nathaniel Hawthorne 1906
Twice Told Tales-The Minister's Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne 1837
Little Masterpieces by Nathaniel Hawthorne 1897 (Dr. Heidegger's Experiment, The Birthmark, Ethan Brand, Wakefield, Drowne's Wooden Image, The Ambitious Guest, The Great Stone Face, The Gray Champion)
The House of the Seven Gables by by Nathaniel Hawthorne 1883
The Collected Works of Ambrose Pierce, Volume 1, 1909
The Collected Works of Ambrose Pierce, Volume 2, 1909
The Collected Works of Ambrose Pierce, Volume 3, 1909
The Collected Works of Ambrose Pierce, Volume 4, 1909
The Collected Works of Ambrose Pierce, Volume 5, 1909
The Collected Works of Ambrose Pierce, Volume 6, 1909
The Collected Works of Ambrose Pierce, Volume 7, 1909
The Collected Works of Ambrose Pierce, Volume 8, 1909
The Collected Works of Ambrose Pierce, Volume 9, 1909
The Collected Works of Ambrose Pierce, Volume 10, 1909
The Collected Works of Ambrose Pierce, Volume 11, 1909
The Collected Works of Ambrose Pierce, Volume 12, 1909 ("Virtually all of Bierce’s tales are tales of horror; and whilst many of them treat only of the physical and psychological horrors within Nature, a substantial proportion admit the malignly supernatural and form a leading element in America’s fund of weird literature." HPL)
Wandering Ghosts by F Marion Crawford 1911
The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers 1895 ("a series of vaguely connected short stories having as a background a monstrous and suppressed book whose perusal brings fright, madness, and spectral tragedy, really achieves notable heights of cosmic fear" HPL)
Trilby by George du Maurier 1895
The Maker of Moons by Robert W Chambers 1902
Song of the Sirens by Edward Lucas White 1919
The Phantom Rickshaw by Rudyard Kipling 1909
Fantastics and other Fancies by Lafcadio Hearn 1914
The Temptation of St. Anthony by Gustave Flaubert 1910
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde 1891
Dracula by Bram Stoker 1897
The Beetle by Richard Marsh 1917
The Door of the Unreal by Gerald Biss 1920
The Were-Wolf by Clemence Housman 1896
The Return by Walter De La Mare 1922
Thirty Strange Stories by HG Wells 1898
The Captain of the Polestar by Arthur Conan Doyle 1912
Round the red lamp by Arthur Conan Doyle 1910 (_Lot No. 249_, "wherein the reanimated mummy theme is used with more than ordinary skill." HPL)
The Celestial Omnibus by EM Forster 1912
The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson 1921
The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen 1894 ("Of Mr. Machen’s horror-tales the most famous is perhaps “The Great God Pan” [1894], which tells of a singular and terrible experiment and its consequences." HPL)
The Three Impostors by Arthur Machen 1895
John Silence - Physician Extraordinary by Algernon Blackwood 1905
Incredible Adventures by Algernon Blackwood 1914 ("Of the quality of Mr. Blackwood's genius there can be no dispute; for no one has even approached the skill, seriousness, and minute fidelity with which he records the overtones of strangeness in ordinary things and experiences, or the preternatural insight with which he builds up detail by detail the complete sensations and perceptions leading from reality into supernormal life or vision." HPL)
The Centaur by Algernon Blackwood 1911
Jimbo by Algernon Blackwood 1909
A Dreamer's Tales by Lord Dunsany 1917
A Thin Ghost by MR James 1919
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by MR James 1905
The Five Jars by MR James 1922
The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral by MR James 1920
Plus you Get:
The Book of the Damned by Charles Fort
The Book of the Damned was the first published nonfiction work of the author Charles Fort (Fortean Organization named after him). Dealing with various types of anomalous phenomena including strange falls of both organic and inorganic materials from the sky, odd weather patterns, the possible existence of creatures generally held to be mythological, disappearances of people under strange circumstances, and many other phenomena, the book is historically considered to be the first written in the specific field of anomalistics.
The title of the book referred to what he termed the "damned" data - data which had been damned, or excluded, by modern science because of its not conforming to accepted guidelines. The way Fort sees it, mainstream scientists are trend followers who believe in what is accepted and popular, and never really look for a truth that may be contrary to what they believe. He also compares the close-mindedness of many scientists to that of religious fundamentalists, implying that the supposed "battle" between science and religion is just a smokescreen for the fact that, in his view, science is, in essence, simply a de facto religion.
Fort was one of the first major writers to deal extensively with paranormal phenomena, and in that aspect at least, The Book of the Damned should be considered an important work. It should be viewed as a formulative work, perhaps understandably, as it is his first major book. Though Fort's uniquely acerbic writing style is already in evidence, and there are plenty of interesting phenomena to read about, Fort's theories (as such) are only beginning to be developed, and Fort tends to ramble in this book more so than his later ones. Still, it's a very readable book for those interested in this subject, and a solid introduction to Fort and his works.
The first few chapters of the book deal largely with explaining Fort's thesis (as mentioned above). As a particular instance, he cites the strange glowing in the sky worldwide, which supposedly resulted due to the 1883 eruption of the volcano Krakatoa. Fort shows that such phenomenon had in fact preceded the eruption by several months, and suggests that the scientists, who had been puzzled by the phenomenon initially, used Krakatoa as a convenient explanation to something that they could not previously explain.
Lives of the Necromancers: Or, An Account of the Most Eminent Persons
by William Godwin - 1876 - 282 pages
Spirits and spooks 1922
True Irish Ghost Stories by JD Seymour 1914
Abraham Lincoln the practical mystic by Francis Grierson 1918
Pestered by a Poltergeist, article in The Hibbert journal 1921
The Supernatural, its Origin, Nature and Evolution, Volume 1 by John H King 1892
The Supernatural, its Origin, Nature and Evolution, Volume 2 by John H King 1892
The Great Amherst Mystery, a true Narrative of the Supernatural by Walter Hubbell 1916 (The Great Amherst Mystery was a notorious case of reported poltergeist activity in Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada between 1878 and 1879.)
Natural Causes and Supernatural Seemings by Henry Maudsley 1886
An Investigation of the Supernatural and Other Phenomena, article in Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 1922
The Supernatural by Lyman Abbott 1898
Supernatural Illusions by P. I. Begbie 1851
Fallacy of Ghosts, Dreams, and Omens by Charles Ollier 1848
Supernatural in Romantic Fiction by Edward Yardley 1880
Nature and the Supernatural by Horace Bushnell 1880
Shakespeare and the Supernatural by J Paul SR Gibson 1908
Magic and fetishism by Alfred Haddon 1916
Supernatural Stories, article in the New Monthly Magazine 1849
The Wind in the Rose-bush and other Stories of the supernatural by Mary E Wilkins 1903
The Supernatural in Tragedy by Charles E Whitmore 1915
The Naturalisation of the Supernatural by Frank Podmore 1908
The History of the Supernatural in all ages and nations and in all churches Christian and pagan, Volume 1 by William Howitt 1863
The History of the Supernatural in all ages and nations and in all churches Christian and pagan, Volume 2 by William Howitt 1863
Footprints through nature to the supernatural by Adam Miller 1899
The secret of the successful use of the Ouija Board by Nellie Walters 1919
An essay towards a theory of apparitions by John Ferriar 1813
The Black Patch by Randolph Hartley 1919
The Stolen Bacillus by H.G. Wells 1904 (has: The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes)
Tales of fantasy and fact by Brander Matthews - 1896
The Mystery of Joseph Laquedem, story in The Cornish magazine 1898
Dr. Heidegger's experiment & The birthmark by N Hawthorne 1897
The Emigrant Banshee, story in Everybody's magazine 1901
The Lord of the Dark Red Star being the story of the supernatural influences in the life of an Italian despot in the 13th century by Eugene Lee-Hamilton 1903
The Ghost-ship & other Stories by Richard Middleton 1912 (The ghost-ship, On the Brighton Road, A tragedy in little, The passing of Edward, The story of a book, The coffin merchant, The conjurer, Fate and the artist etc)
The legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving 1900
Yorkshire oddities, Incidents, and Strange events by Sabine Baring-Gould, Volume 1, 1877
Yorkshire oddities, Incidents, and Strange events by Sabine Baring-Gould, Volume 2, 1877*
Devonshire Characters and Strange Events by Sabine Baring-Gould 1908
Cornish characters and strange events by Sabine Baring-Gould 1909
Curious myths of the middle ages by Sabine Baring-Gould 1869
Freaks of fanaticism and other strange events by Sabine Baring-Gould 1891
British Goblins - Welsh folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, legends and traditions by Wirt Sikes 1880
Historic oddities and strange events by Sabine Baring-Gould 1891
Oddities of History and Strange Stories by John Timbs 1872
The Old Maiden's Talisman and other Strange Tales. Volume 1, by James Dalton 1834
The Old Maiden's Talisman and other Strange Tales. Volume 2, by James Dalton 1834
The Old Maiden's Talisman and other Strange Tales. Volume 3, by James Dalton 1834
Witch Winnie in Venice and the alchemist's story by Elizabeth Williams Champney - 1911
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson 1909
The Mysteries of all Nations, rise and progress of superstition, laws against and trials of witches, ancient and modern delusions; together with strange customs, fables, and tales by James Grant 1880
Thoughts on Seeing Ghosts, article in The American miscellany 1840
Confessions of an English opium-eater by Thomas De Quincey 1877
In Ghostly Japan by Lafcadio Hearn 1899
Ghostly Visitors - a series of authentic narratives by Spectre stricken (pseud.) 1882
The History of the Supernatural Volume 1 by William Howitt 1863
The History of the Supernatural Volume 2 by William Howitt 1863
The New Black Magic and the Truth about the Ouija-board
Light from Beyond As Taken Over the Ouija Board by Katherine Davis 1919
Tales of the Fairies and of the Ghost World by J Curtin 1895
Ghost Stories Collected with a Particular View to Counteract the Vulgar Belief in Ghosts 1854
The Spiritual Magazine Volume 1, 1860, with articles such as:
Demoniac Possession, The Ghost's Warning, A Mysterious Circumstance, Mediumship of Infants, A Seance, The Supernatural Element in the Waverly Novels, Spiritism and Re-incarnation, An Extraordinary Case of Spiritual Disturbanse, Supernatural Religion Considered and 500 more pages of interesting articles
The Spiritual Magazine Volume 2 1876, with articles such as:
Dear Seances, Corpse Candles, Death, Divination, A Ghost in a Mining Shaft, Shakespeare's Body, Reincarnation Theories, Sham Ghosts and 500 more pages of interesting articles
The Spiritual Magazine Volume 3 1877, with articles such as:
Ann Frost's Ghost, A Strange Noise in the Air, Concerning Geists, Ghost Power, Evilized Mediums, Phrenology, Prosecution of Mediums, Seance and the Queen of Holland, Spirit Power, Spirit Photography, The Limits of Natural Knowledge, What is a Spirit?, and 500 more pages of interesting articles
The Supernatural in Modern English fiction by Dorothy Scarborough 1917
The Case of Mr. Lucraft and Other Tales Volume 1 1876 by Walter Besant
The Case of Mr. Lucraft and Other Tales Volume 1 1876 by Walter Besant
Devil Worship -the sacred books and traditions of the Yezidiz by Joseph Isya 1919
THE Haunters and the Haunted 1921 -
Contains over 50 Ghost Stories, such as The Ghost of Lord Clarenceaux, The Haunted Cove, the Ghost of RoseWharne etc
Some haunted houses of England by Elliott O'Donnell 1908
The Wind in the RoseBush and 5 Other Tales of the Supernatural by Mary Wilkins
The Philosophy of the Supernatural by William Platt 1886
The Evidence for the Supernatural by IL Tuckett 1911
The Haunted Hour: An Anthology (over 80 Spooky Stories)
Fiends, Ghosts, and Sprites by Margaret Widdemer 1920
Demon Possession and Allied Themes being an inductive study of phenomena of our own times by J Nevius 1896
Ghosts I Have Seen and other psychic experiences by Violet Tweedale 1919
Real Ghost Stories by William Stead 1921
The Haunted Homes and family traditions of Great Britain by John Ingram 1886
Telepathic Hallucinations - the new view of Ghosts by Frank Podmore 1909
Greek and Roman Ghost Stories 1912
Sheykh Hassan the Spiritualist. A View of the Supernatural by SA Hillam 1888
Luciferianism or Satanism in English freemasonry by L. Fouquet Volume 1 1897
Luciferianism or Satanism in English freemasonry by L. Fouquet Volume 2 1897
Trilby - A novel by George du Maurier 1895
Trilby is a gothic horror novel by George du Maurier and one of the most popular novels of its time, perhaps the second best selling novel of the Fin de siècle period after Bram Stoker's Dracula. Trilby is set in the 1850s in an idyllic bohemian Paris. Though it features the hijinks of three lovable English artists — especially the delicate genius Little Billee — its most memorable character is Svengali, a Jewish rogue, a masterful musician, and an irresistible hypnotist.
Serial Killer H. H. Holmes was quite taken with the book.
Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
by Charles Mackay - 1852
Medicine and Astrology - A Paper read before the Numismatic and Antiquarian society 1866
Jap Herron; a Novel Written from the Ouija Board; with an introduction, The coming of Jap Herron by Emily Hutchings 1917
Matthias and His Impostures: Or, The Progress of Fanaticism. Illustrated in the Extraordinary Case of Robert Matthews by by William Leete Stone 1835
A World of Wonders: With Anecdotes and Opinions Concerning Popular Superstitions 1853
An Historical and Critical Account of the So-called Prophecy of St. Malachy Regarding the Succession of Popes by M. J. O'Brien - 1880
Haunted Houses: Tales of the Supernatural, with Some Account of Hereditary
by Charles George Harper 1907
Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland
by Thomas Crofton Croker 1828
Star Lore of All Ages: A Collection of Myths, Legends, and Facts Concerning the Constellations
by William Tyler Olcott 1911
Index to Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends
by Mary Huse Eastman 1915
The Humbugs of the World by Phineas Taylor Barnum 1866
Strange Occurrences by Leopold Davis 1877
Psychomancy: Spirit-rappings and Table-tippings Exposed
by Charles Grafton Page 1853
The new conspiracy against the Jesuits detected and briefly exposed
by Robert Charles Dallas - 1815
Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans
by Franz Valery Marie Cumont 1912
The Mysteries of Astrology, and the Wonders of Magic
by Charles W. Roback 1854
Tales of Mystery and Horror
by Maurice Level - 1920 - 300 pages
Thesaurus of horror; or, The charnel-house explored!!
by John Snart - 1817
True Ghost Stories
by Hereward Carrington - 1915 - 240 pages
Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters
by Henry Addington Bruce - 1908 - 230 pages
Haunted Houses: Tales of the Supernatural, with Some Account of Hereditary ...
by Charles George Harper - 1907 - 173 pages
Some Chinese Ghosts
by Lafcadio Hearn - 1906 - 180 pages
Wandering Ghosts
by Francis Marion Crawford - 1911 - 290 pages
The Ghosts of Piccadilly
by George Slythe Street - 1907 - 280 pages
The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia
by Reginald Campbell Thompson - 1903
Where Ghosts Walk: The Haunts of Familiar Characters in History and Literature
by Marion Harland - 1900 - 300 pages
Tales of Men and Ghosts
by Edith Wharton - 1910 - 430 pages
Ghosts: A Samuel Lyle Mystery Story
by Arthur Crabb - 1921 - 251 pages
The Night-side of Nature; Or, Ghosts and Ghost-seers
by Catherine Crowe - 1850 - 441 pages
The mysterious man, by the author of Ben Bradshawe
by Frederick Chamier - 1844 (THE HAUNTED HOUSE, A TRUE GHOST STORY)
Ghosts I Have Met and Some Others
by John Kendrick Bangs - 1898 - 170 pages
Mysteries, Or, Glimpses of the Supernatural, Containing Accounts
by Charles Wyllys Elliott - 1852 - 263 pages
Apparitions: Or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed
by Joseph Taylor - 1815 - 232 pages
Fiends, ghosts and sprites
by John Netten Radcliffe - 1854
Ghost Stories: Collected with a Particular View to Counteract the Vulgar
by Felix Octavius Carr Darley - 1854 - 182 pages
The Ghosts of Their Ancestors
by Weymer Jay Mills - 1906 - 132 pages
Ghosts and family legends: A Volume for Christmas
by Catherine Crowe - 1859
Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men
by John William Harris - 1901 - 80 pages
The phantom ship
by Frederick Marryat - 1857
Plus you also get:
"A Bottomless Grave" by Ambrose Pierce
Wilkie Collins
"A Terribly Strange Bed"
A Thin Ghost, and others by M.R. James 1919
Claimants to Royalty
by John Henry Ingram 1882
Memoirs of the Northern Imposter; Or Prince of Swindlers: Being a Faithful Narrative of James George Semple 1786
The Mythology and Fables of the Ancients, Explain'd from History
by Banier (Antoine), M. l'abbé Banier - 1739
Brand's Popular Antiquities of Great Britain: Faiths and Folklore
by John Brand 1905
Magicon: Wonderful Prophecies Concerning Popery and Its Impending Overthrow and Fall together with Precictions Relative to America and the Formation of the New World
by M. Paulus - 1869
The Prophecies of the Brahan Seer: (Coinneach Odhar Fiosaiche)
by Alexander Mackenzie, Kenneth Mackenzie, Alexander Macgregor 1882
A Summary View of the Millennial Church, Or United Society of Believers (Commonly called Shakers)
A Summary View of the Millennial Church, Or United Society of Believers ...
by Calvin Green, Shakers, Seth Youngs Wells - 1823
Ancient pagan and modern Christian symbolism exposed and explained
by Thomas Inman - 1875
An apostate exposed: or, George Keith contradicting himself and his brother Bradford
by John Penington, George Keith - 1695
Horrors of Vaccination Exposed and Illustrated
by Charles Michael Higgins 1920
Famous Modern Ghost Stories
J.S. LeFanu's Ghostly Tales
The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins 1878
The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley 1919
The Great Amherst Mystery: A True Narrative of the Supernatural - Walter Hubbell 1915
The Haunted House, a true ghost story, being an account of the mysterious manifestations that have taken place in the presence of Esther Cox, the young girl who is possessed of devils, and has become known throughout the entire Dominion as the great Amherst mystery 1879 by Walter Hubbell 1915
THE HAUNTED HOUSE by H. A. STRONG 1872
Haunted places in England by Eliot O'Donnell 1919
Ghostly phenomena by Eliot O'Donnell 1910
True tales of the Weird by Sidney Dickinson 1920
Fun for Doctors and their Patients; 50 authentic Ghost Stories by 50 experienced physicians 1901 by John Short
Stranger than Fiction, being tales from the byways of Ghosts and Folk-lore (1911) by Mary Lewes
The Book of Dreams and Ghosts by Andrew Lang 1897
The Alleged Haunting of B-House by Adela M. Goodrich -Freer 1899
Scottish Ghost Stories by Elliot O'Donnell
The Best Ghost Stories by Arthur Reeve 1919
The Lock and Key Library - Classic Mystery Stories (Kipling, Doyle, Wilkie Collins) 1909
True Ghost Stories by Hereward Carrington
The Canterville Ghost - Oscar Wilde
The World's Best Mystery Stories 1907
Tales of Mystery and Horror
by Maurice Level - 1920 - 300 pages
Thesaurus of horror; or, The charnel-house explored!!
by John Snart - 1817
True Ghost Stories
by Hereward Carrington - 1915 - 240 pages
Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters
by Henry Addington Bruce - 1908 - 230 pages
Haunted Houses: Tales of the Supernatural, with Some Account of Hereditary ...
by Charles George Harper - 1907 - 173 pages
Some Chinese Ghosts
by Lafcadio Hearn - 1906 - 180 pages
Wandering Ghosts
by Francis Marion Crawford - 1911 - 290 pages
The Ghosts of Piccadilly
by George Slythe Street - 1907 - 280 pages
The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia
by Reginald Campbell Thompson - 1903
Where Ghosts Walk: The Haunts of Familiar Characters in History and Literature
by Marion Harland - 1900 - 300 pages
Tales of Men and Ghosts
by Edith Wharton - 1910 - 430 pages
Ghosts: A Samuel Lyle Mystery Story
by Arthur Crabb - 1921 - 251 pages
The Night-side of Nature; Or, Ghosts and Ghost-seers
by Catherine Crowe - 1850 - 441 pages
The mysterious man, by the author of Ben Bradshawe
by Frederick Chamier - 1844 (THE HAUNTED HOUSE, A TRUE GHOST STORY)
Ghosts I Have Met and Some Others
by John Kendrick Bangs - 1898 - 170 pages
Mysteries, Or, Glimpses of the Supernatural, Containing Accounts
by Charles Wyllys Elliott - 1852 - 263 pages
Apparitions: Or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed
by Joseph Taylor - 1815 - 232 pages
Fiends, ghosts and sprites
by John Netten Radcliffe - 1854
Ghost Stories: Collected with a Particular View to Counteract the Vulgar
by Felix Octavius Carr Darley - 1854 - 182 pages
The Ghosts of Their Ancestors
by Weymer Jay Mills - 1906 - 132 pages
Ghosts and family legends: A Volume for Christmas
by Catherine Crowe - 1859
Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men
by John William Harris - 1901 - 80 pages
The phantom ship
by Frederick Marryat - 1857
Death: a poetical essay by Beilby Porteus - 1772
Death by Maurice Maeterlinck 1911
Famous Mysteries: Curious and Fantastic Riddles of Human Life
by John Elfreth Watkins 1919
"Jack the Ripper There was a reign of terror in London's Whitechapel district
during the late eighties."
The History of Burke and Hare and of the Resurrectionist Times
by George MacGregor 1884
A Defense of Edgar Allan Poe by John J. Moran - 1885
Phantasmata: Or, Illusions and Fanaticisms of Protean Forms (Volume 1)
Sample: CHAPTER XI. MANIACAL EPIDEMICS. LYCANTHROPY, OR WOLF TRANSFORMATION MANIA.
THE prevalence of particular forms of insanity at particular epochs has been noticed in various countries, and was first treated of scientifically in France by Docteur Calmeil, the very able and enlightened physician.* At different periods in the middle ages, we find large masses of people moved at the same time by the same exciting influence, seized by a nervous affection of an epidemic nature, that soon merged into a state of mental exaltation and terminated in monomania, if it were not timely checked. These forms of mental insanity are very apt to assume a religious character. Those which assume that character are classed by Calmeil under the head of " Theomania," the opposite of this character under that of Demonomania, which he divides into two kinds — Demonolatria, devil worship, and Demonopathy, a belief in possession by evil spirits.
Friendship in Death: In Twenty Letters from the Dead to the Living by Elizabeth Rowe 1783
The Phantom World by Augustin Calmet 1850
DEATH AND ITS MYSTERY AT THE MOMENT OF DEATH - Manifestations and Apparitions of the Dying; "Doubles;" Phenomena
of Occultism by Camille Flammarion 1922 (first 368 pages only)
A Study of Death by Henry Mills Alden 1895
The Vampyre: A Tale by John William Polidori 1819
Reflections on War and Death by Sigmund Freud 1918
The Monkey's Paw by Louis Napoleon Parker, William Wymark Jacobs - 1910
(this story is probably where Stephen King got his idea for Pet Semetary)
AFTER DEATH - AN EXAMINATION OF THE TESTIMONY OF PRIMITIVE TIMES RESPECTING THE STATE OF THE FAITHFUL DEAD, AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO THE LIVING BY HERBERT MORTIMER LUCKOCK, D.D. 1880
The mezzotint by M.R. James 1904 (great little ghost story in text format)
Death-bed Scenes: Or, Dying with and Without Religion by Davis Wasgatt Clark 1851
Death and Sudden Death by Paul Brouardel, F. Lucas Benham 1902
The Eminent Dead: Or, The Triumphs of Faith in the Dying Hour by Bradford Kinney Peirce 1851
The Book of Pity and of Death by Pierre Loti 1892
Death--and After? by Annie Besant 1906
The State of the Dead and the Destiny of the WickeD by Uriah Smith 1873
The phantom ship by Frederick Marryat 1857
The Spirits in Prison and Other Studies on the Life After Death by Edward Hayes Plumptre 1894
Bucholz and the Detectives by Allan Pinkerton 1880
The Great Crime of 1860 by Joseph Whitaker Stapleton, Constance Emilie Kent, Elizabeth Gough 1861
The Maurice Mystery by John Esten Cooke 1885
The Hunt Ball Mystery by William Magnay 1918
The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux in wordpard and text format
(In 1898, Elisabeth, Empress of Austria-Hungary, was on the quay at Lake Geneva awaiting the steam ferry to Montreux when, without warning or apparent motive, the anarchist Luigi Lucheni plunged a needle file into her heart. Because of the very thin nature of the wound, the Empress did not realise that she had been fatally injured and walked unaided to her cabin, where she collapsed and soon died.[citation needed] It is not known whether she locked the cabin door behind her - which would have created the appearance of a locked room murder. At least one prominent French locked room expert, Roland Lacourbe, believes that this notorious event was the inspiration for Gaston Leroux's The Mystery of the Yellow Room)
Hide and Seek; Or, The Mystery of Mary Grice: A Novel by Wilkie Collins 1898
The mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens 1870
Famous Mysteries: Curious and Fantastic Riddles of Human Life by John Elfreth Watkins - 1919
(The Strange Case of Marie Lafarge - The most baffling of all French murder mysteries involved the daughter of one of Napoleon's favorite officers, Colonel Cappelle, of the Old Guard. This beautiful girl was also the granddaughter of the famous Duke of Orleans (Philippe Egalite) and of his companion and housekeeper, Mme. de Genlis.)
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins 1893
(The Woman in White is an epistolary novel written by Wilkie Collins in 1859, serialized in 1859-1860, and first published in book form in 1860. It is considered to be among the first mystery novels and is widely regarded as one of the first (and finest) in the genre of 'sensation novels'.)
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins 1874 (considered the first detective novel in the English language)
No Name by Wilkie Collins 1893
(The story begins in 1846, at Combe-Raven in West Somersetshire, the country residence of the happy Vanstone family. When Andrew Vanstone is killed suddenly in an accident and his wife follows shortly thereafter, it is revealed that they were not married at the time of their daughters' births, making their daughters "Nobody's Children" in the eyes of English law and robbing them of their inheritance. Andrew Vanstone's elder brother Michael gleefully takes possession of his brother's fortune, leaving his nieces to make their own way in the world. Norah, the elder sister, accepts her misfortune gracefully, but the headstrong Magdalen is determined to have her revenge. Using her dramatic talent and assisted by wily swindler Captain Wragge, Magdalen plots to regain her rightful inheritance.)
The Ghost's Touch by Wilkie Collins (part of "I Say No"; Or, The Love-letter Answered: And Other Stories by Wilkie Collins) 1893
Tales of Terror; Or, The Mysteries of Magic 1848
Great ghost stories by Joseph Lewis French 1918
Modern Ghosts by Guy de Maupassant 1890
The Best Ghost Stories by Joseph Lewis French 1919
The Best Psychic Stories edited by Joseph Lewis French 1920
Humorous Ghost Stories by Dorothy Scarborough 1921
Masterpieces of Mystery by Joseph Lewis French 1920
Accredited Ghost Stories by T. M. Jarvis 1823
Ghosts and family legends by Catharine Crowe, Stevens Crowe 1859
Strikers, Communists, Tramps and Detectives by Allan Pinkerton, Marian S. Carson Collection 1878
Mysteries of Police and Crime: A General Survey of Wrongdoing and Its Pursuit by Arthur Griffiths 1899
Twenty-five Years of Detective Life by Jerome Caminada 1895
Fifty Years a Detective by Thomas Furlong 1912
Why Some Men Kill; Or, Murder Mysteries Revealed by George A. Thacher 1919
THE EMPTY HOUSE AND OTHER GHOST STORIES (includes, THE EMPTY HOUSE, A HAUNTED ISLAND, A CASE OF EAVESDROPPING, KEEPING HIS PROMISE, WITH INTENT TO STEAL, THE WOOD OF THE DEAD, SMITH: AN EPISODE IN A LODGING-HOUSE, A SUSPICIOUS GIFT, THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PRIVATE SECRETARY IN NEW YORK, SKELETON LAKE: AN EPISODE IN CAMP
Three Ghost Stories by Charles Dickens (includes The Signal-Man, The Haunted-House, The Trial For Murder)
Honest Money: "Coin's" Fallacies Exposed
by Stanley Waterloo, William Hope Harvey 1895
Facts Worth Knowing: Falsehoods Exposed : the Truth about Patent Medicines ...
by Proprietary Association - 1908
Free Masonry: Its Pretensions Exposed in Faithful Extracts
by Henry Dana Ward 1828
The Beetle (1897) tells the story of a fantastical creature, "born of neither god nor man," with supernatural and hypnotic powers, who stalks British politician Paul Lessingham through fin de siècle London in search of vengeance for the defilement of a sacred tomb in Egypt. In imitation of various popular fiction genres of the late nineteenth century, Marsh unfolds a tale of terror, late imperial fears, and the "return of the repressed," through which the crisis of late imperial Englishness is revealed. This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and a rich selection of historical documents that situate the novel within the contexts of fin de siècle London, England's interest and involvement in Egypt, the emergence of the New Woman, and contemporary theories of mesmerism and animal magnetism.
ReplyDelete"The Beetle has it all: it's at once a ripping gothic yarn, a fin de siècle melodrama, and a document of the fears and obsessions of late imperial culture. Julian Wolfreys' introduction is excellent, bringing lots of fascinating material to bear on the novel and doing so clearly and persuasively. He makes you want to read it." - Jonathan Dollimore, author of Sexual Dissidence and Death, Desire and Loss in Western Culture
"The Beetle is a great read. As Julian Wolfreys' admirably learned, perceptive, and comprehensive introduction, appendices, and notes show, it is also a wonderful assemblage of many motifs from popular culture at the fin de siècle. I enthusiastically recommend this book." - J. Hillis Miller, University of California, Irvine
"For far too long we have had to do without an edition of one of the key best-selling novels of the fin de siècle, Richard Marsh's The Beetle. Broadview has once again come to the rescue with a new edition of this lurid classic that at one time outsold Dracula. Featuring useful appendices and with an extensive introduction by Julian Wolfreys, this edition will be coveted by everyone interested in late Victorian fiction." - Nicholas Daly, Trinity College, Dublin --Nicholas Daly, Trinity College, Dublin
THE OCCULT IN FICTION. article in the Theosophical Outlook 1917
ReplyDeleteThe supernatural is an ever-present force in literature, says Dr. Dorothy Scarborough, Ph. D., of Columbia University, in her preface to "The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction," just published by G. P. Putnam's Sons. It colors our poetry, shapes our epics and dramas, and fashions our prose till we are so wonted to it that we lose sense of its wonder and magic.
The work is a remarkable one both for its scope and its sympathy. There seem to be no omissions, and it is with a sense almost of surprise that we realize to what an extent the novelist has called upon the occult and the extent to which it has received the approbation of readers. But it in the preface that Dr. Scarborough reveals her own commendable standpoint. There is a popular demand, she says, for the occult literature, and it must have some basis in human psychosis:
"The night side of the soul attracts us all. The spirit feeds on mystery. It lives, not by fact alone, but by the unknowable, and there is no highest mystery without the supernatural. Man loves the frozen touch of fear, and realizes pure terror only when touched by the unmortal. The hint of spectral sounds or presences quickens the imagination as no other suggestion can do, and no human shapes of fear can awe the soul as those from beyond the grave. Man's varying moods create heaven, hell, and faery wonder lands for him, and people them with strange beings."
Man loves the supernatural because it dignifies him, because it raises him beyond the limitations of his personal self. By it the universe becomes his companion and its unseen denizens his servants:
"Literature, always a little ahead of life, has formed our beliefs for us, made us free with spirits, and given us entrance to immortal countries. The sense of the unearthly is ever with us, even in the most commonplace situations—and there is nothing so natural to us as the supernatural. Our imagination, colored by our reading, reveals and transforms the world we live in. We are aware of unbodied emotions about us, of discarnate moods that mock or invite us. We go aghosting now in public places, and a spectre may glide up to give us an apologia pro sua vita any day in Grand Central, or on Main Street of Our Town. . . . We may pass at will the guardian of the narrow gate and traverse the regions of the underworld. True, the materialist may argue that the actual is more marvelous than the imagined, that the aeroplane is more a thing of wonder than was the hippogriff, that the ferry is really the enchanted boat, after all, and that Dante could write a new Inferno if he could see the subway at the rush hour, but that is another issue."
We might have more psychical experiences than we do, says the author, if we would only keep our eyes open, but most of us do have more than we admit to our neighbors. We have an early-Victorian reticence concerning ghostly things as if it were scandalous to be associated with them.
Contrary to usual assurances that the mists of "superstition" have been cleared away by the sun of science, the author tells us that she has devoted more space to the supernatural in the last thirty years or so, because there has been much more of it in that time than before:
There is now more interest in the occult, more literature produced dealing with psychal powers than ever before in our history. It is apparent in poetry, in the drama, the novel, and the short story. . . . Much of our material of the weird has been rationalized, yet without losing its effect of wonder for us in fact or in fiction. If now we study a science where once men believed blindly in a Black Art, is the result really less mysterious?
It will be interesting in a subsequent issue to glance rapidly through the author's well-filled pages in order to see to what extent the more essential ideas of Theosophy have been expressed in modern fiction.