Horror Writer Sheridan Le Fanu on This Day in History

This Day in History: Sheridan Le Fanu was born on this day in 1814. Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was an Irish writer of Gothic tales, mystery novels, and horror fiction. He was a leading ghost story writer of his time, central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era. M. R. James described Le Fanu as "absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories". Three of his best-known works are the locked-room mystery Uncle Silas, the lesbian vampire novella Carmilla, and the historical novel The House by the Churchyard.

Le Fanu worked in many genres but remains best known for his horror fiction. He was a meticulous craftsman and frequently reworked plots and ideas from his earlier writing in subsequent pieces. Many of his novels, for example, are expansions and refinements of earlier short stories. He specialised in tone and effect rather than "shock horror" and liked to leave important details unexplained and mysterious. He avoided overt supernatural effects: in most of his major works, the supernatural is strongly implied but a "natural" explanation is also possible. The demonic monkey in "Green Tea" could be a delusion of the story's protagonist, who is the only person to see it; in "The Familiar", Captain Barton's death seems to be supernatural but is not actually witnessed, and the ghostly owl may be a real bird. This technique influenced later horror artists, both in print and on film (see, for example, the film producer Val Lewton's principle of "indirect horror"). Though other writers have since chosen less subtle techniques, Le Fanu's finest tales, such as the vampire novella Carmilla and the short story "Schalken the Painter", remain some of the most powerful in the genre. He had an enormous influence on one of the 20th century's most important ghost story writers, M. R. James, and although his work fell out of favour in the early part of the 20th century, towards the end of the century interest in his work increased and remains comparatively strong.

Read: An Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

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Curator of the Supernatural, Dorothy Scarborough, on This Day in History

Humorous Ghost Stories by Dorothy Scarborough

This Day in History: Dorothy Scarborough was born on this day in 1878. She is best known for her 1917 dissertation "The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction" which "was so widely acclaimed by her professors and colleagues that it was published and it has become a basic reference work." ~Sylvia Ann Grider

This work is certainly valuable in finding old ghost stories that many may have forgotten about. This, alongside HP Lovecraft's "Supernatural Horror in Literature" are some of the best early works dealing with this topic.

Listen to Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Fiction

Read The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction

As stated in the Introduction: THE supernatural is an ever-present force in literature. 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. If all the elements of the unearthly were removed from our books, how shrunken in value would seem the residue, how forlorn our feelings! Lafcadio Hearn in the recently published volume, Interpretations of Literature, says:

'There is scarcely any great author in European literature, old or new, who has not distinguished himself in his treatment of the supernatural. In English literature I believe there is no exception from the time of the Anglo-Saxon poets to Shakespeare, and from Shakespeare to our own day. And this introduces us to the consideration of a general and remarkable fact, a fact that I do not remember to have seen in any books, but which is of very great philosophical importance: there is something ghostly in all great art, whether of literature, music, sculpture, or architecture. It touches something within us that relates to infinity.'

This continuing presence of the weird in literature shows the popular demand for it and 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 elements in literature perhaps because they dignify him by giving his existence a feeling of infinity otherwise denied. They grant him a sense of being the center of powers more than earthly, of conflicts supermortal. His own material life may be however circumscribed and trivial yet he can loose his fancy and escape the petty tragedies of his days by flight beyond the stars. He can widen the tents of his mortal life, create a universe for his companionship, and marshal the forces of demons and unknown gods for his commands. To his narrow rut he can join the unspaced firmament; to his trivial hours add eternity; to his finite, infinity. He is so greedy of power, and has so piteously little that he must look for his larger life in dreams and in the literature of the supernatural.

But, whatever be the reasons, there has been a continuity of the ghostly in literature, with certain rise and fall of interest. There is in modern English fiction, as likewise in poetry and the drama, a great extent of the supernatural, with wide diversity of elements. Beginning with the Gothic romance, that curious architectural excrescence that yet has had enormous influence on our novel, the supernatural is found in every period and in every form of fiction. The unearthly beings meet us in all guises, and answer our every mood, whether it be serious or awed, satiric or humoresque.

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 a-ghosting now in public places, and a specter may glide up to give us an apologia pro vita sua any day in Grand Central or on Main Street of Our-Town. We chat with fetches across the garden fence and pass the time of day with demons by way of the dumb-waiter. That gray-furred creature that glooms suddenly before us in the winter street is not a chauffeur, but a were-wolf questing for his prey. Yon whirring thing in the far blue is not an aeroplane but a hippogriff that will presently alight on the pavement beside us with thundering golden hoofs to bear us away to distant lovely lands where we shall be untroubled by the price of butter or the articles lost in last week’s wash. That sedate middle-aged ferry that transports us from Staten Island is a magic Sending Boat if only we knew its potent runes! The old woman with the too-pink cheeks and glittering eye, that presses August bargains upon us with the argument that they will be in style for early fall wear, is a witch wishful to lure away our souls. We may pass at will by the guardian of the narrow gate and traverse the regions of the Under-world. 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 would write a new Inferno if he could see the subway at the rush hour, but that is another issue.

We might have more psychal experiences than we do if we would only keep our eyes open, but most of us do have more than we admit to the neighbors. We have an early-Victorian reticence concerning ghostly things as if it were scandalous to be associated with them. But that is all wrong. We should be proud of being singled out for spectral confidences and should report our ghost-guests to the society columns of the newspaper. It is hoped that this discussion of comparative ghost-lore may help to establish a better sense of values.

In this book I deal with ghosts and devils by and large, in an impressionistic way. I don’t know much about them; I have no learned theories of causation. I only love them. I only marvel at their infinite variety and am touched by their humanity, their likeness to mortals. I am fond of them all, even the dejected, dog-eared ghosts that look as if they were wraiths of poor relations left out in the rain all night, or devils whose own mothers wouldn’t care for them. It gives me no holier-than-thou feeling of horror to sit beside a vampire in the subway, no panic to hear a banshee shut up in a hurdy-gurdy box. I give a cordial how-do-you-do when a dragon glides up and puts his paw in mine, and in every stray dog I recognize a Gladsome Beast. Like us mortals, they all need sympathy, none more so than the poor wizards and bogles that are on their own, as the Scotch say.

While discussing the nineteenth century as a whole, I have devoted more attention to the fiction of 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. I have not attempted, even in my bibliography, to include all the fiction of the type, since that would be manifestly impossible. I have, however, mentioned specimens of the various forms, and have listed the more important examples. The treatment here is meant to be suggestive rather than exhaustive and seeks to show that there is a genuine revival of wonder in our time, with certain changes in the characterization of supernatural beings. It includes not only the themes that are strictly supernatural, but also those which, formerly considered unearthly, carry on the traditions of the magical. 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?

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Horror Writer Dorothy Scarborough on This Day in History

Humorous Ghost Stories by Dorothy Scarborough

This Day in History: Dorothy Scarborough was born on this day in 1878. She is best known for her 1917 dissertation "The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction" which "was so widely acclaimed by her professors and colleagues that it was published and it has become a basic reference work." ~Sylvia Ann Grider
This work is certainly valuable in finding old ghost stories that many may have forgotten about. This, alongside HP Lovecraft's "Supernatural Horror in Literature" are some of the best early works dealing with this topic.

Listen to Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Fiction

Read The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction

As stated in the Introduction: "There is scarcely any great author in European literature, old or new, who has not distinguished himself in his treatment of the supernatural. In English literature I believe there is no exception from the time of the Anglo-Saxon poets to Shakespeare, and from Shakespeare to our own day. And this introduces us to the consideration of a general and remarkable fact, a fact that I do not remember to have seen in any books, but which is of very great philosophical importance: there is something ghostly in all great art, whether of literature, music, sculpture, or architecture. It touches something within us that relates to infinity."

This Kindle book, 70 Forgotten Ghost Stories is now available on Amazon by clicking here...and it is only 99 cents

See a local listing for this book here

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The Devil in English Fiction by Dorothy Scarborough 1917

The Devil in English Fiction by Dorothy Scarborough 1917

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"GHOSTS are few but devils are plenty," said Cotton Mather, but his saying would need to be inverted to fit present-day English fiction. Now we have ghosts in abundance but devils are scarce. In fact, they bid fair to become extinct in our romances, at least in the form that is easily recognizable. Satan will probably soon be in solution, identified merely as a state of mind. He has been so Burbanked of late, with his daemonic characteristics removed and humanities added that, save for sporadic reversion to type, the old familiar demon is almost a vanished form. The modern mind seems to cling with a new fondness to the ghost but has turned the cold shoulder to the devil, perhaps because many modernists believe more in the human and less in the supernatural —and after all, ghosts are human and devils are not. The demon has disported himself in various forms in literature, from the scarlet fiend of monkish legend, the nimble imp and titanic nature-devil of folk-lore to Milton's epic, majestic Satan, and Goethe's mocking Mephistopheles, passing into allegoric, symbolic, and satiric figures in later fiction. He has been an impressive character in the drama, the epic, the novel, in poetry, and the short story. We have seen him as a loathly, brutish demon in Dante, as a superman, as an intellectual satirist, and as a human being appealing to our sympathy. He has gradually lost his epic qualities and become human. He is not present in literature now to the extent to which he was known in the past, is not so impressive a figure as heretofore, and at times when he does appear his personality is so ambiguously set forth that it requires close literary analysis to prove his presence.

Here the devil will be discussed with reference to his appearances on earth, while in a later division he will be seen in his own home. It would be hard to say with certainty when and where the devil originated, yet he undoubtedly belongs to one of our first families and is said to have been born theologically in Persia about the year 900 B.C. He has appeared under various aliases, as Ahriman of the Zoroastrian system, Pluto in classical mythology, Satan, Beelzebub, Prince of Darkness, and by many other titles. In his Address to the De'il Burns invokes him thus:

"Oh, Thou! whatever title suit thee,—
 Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick or Cloutie!"

He has manifested himself in fiction under diverse names, as Demon, Lucifer, Satan, Mephistopheles, Prince Lucio, The Man in Black, and so forth, but whatever the name he answers to, he is known in every land and has with astonishing adaptability made himself at home in every literature.

The devil has so changed his form and his manner of appearance in later literature that it is hard to identify him as his ancient self. In early stories he was heralded by supernatural thunder and lightning and accompanied by a strong smell of sulphur. He dressed in character costume, sometimes in red, sometimes in black, but always indubitably diabolic. He wore horns, a forked tail, and cloven hoofs and was a generally unprepossessing creature whom anyone could know for a devil. Now his ro1e is not so typical and his garb not so declarative. He wears an evening suit, a scholar's gown, a parson's robe, a hunting coat, with equal ease, and it is sometimes difficult to tell the devil from the hero of a modern story. He has been deodorized and no longer reeks warningly of the Pit.

The mediaeval mind conceived of the devil as a sort of combination of mythologic satyr and religious dragon. It is interesting to note how the pagan devil-myths have been engrafted upon the ideas of Christianity, to fade out very slowly and by degrees. In monkish legends the devil was an energetic person who would hang round a likely soul for years, if need be, on the chance of nabbing him. Many monkish legends have come down to us.

The diabolic element in English folk-lore shows a rich field for study. The devil here as in the monkish legendry appears as an enemy of souls, a tireless tempter. He lies in wait for any unwary utterance, and the least mention of his name, any thoughtless expletive, such as "The devil take me if—" brings instant response from him to clinch the bargain. Yet the devil of rustic folk-lore is of a bucolic dullness, less clever than in any phase of literature, more gullible, more easily imposed on. English folk-lore, especially the Celtic branches, shows the devil as very closely related to nature. He was wont to work off his surplus energy or his wrath by disturbing the landscape, and many stories of his prankish pique have come down to us. If anything vexed him he might stamp so hard upon a plain that the print of his cloven hoof would be imprinted permanently. He was fond of drinking out of pure springs and leaving them cursed with sulphur, and he sometimes showed annoyance by biting a section out of a mountain, Devil's Bit Mountain in Ireland being one of the instances. In general, any peculiarity of nature might be attributed to the activities of Auld Hornie.

The devil has always been a pushing, forward sort of person, so he was not content with being handed round by word of mouth in monkish legend or rustic folk-lore, but must worm his way into literature in general. Since then many ink-pots have been emptied upon him besides the one that Luther hurled against his cloister wall. The devil is seen frequently in the miracle plays, showing grotesquerie, the beginnings of that sardonic humor he is to display in more important works later. In his appearance in literature the devil is largely anthropomorphic. Man creates the devil in his own image, one who is not merely personal but racial as well, reflecting his creator. In monkish tradition an adversary in wait for souls, in rustic folk-lore a rollicking buffoon with waggish pranks, in miracle plays reflecting the mingled seriousness and comic elements of popular beliefs, he mirrors his maker. But it is in the great poems and dramas and stories that we find the more personal aspects of devil-production, and it is these epic and dramatic concepts of the devil that have greatly influenced modern fiction. While the Gothic romance was but lightly touched by the epic supernaturalism, the literature since that time has reflected it more, and the Satanic characters of Dante, Milton, Calderon, Marlowe, and Goethe have cast long shadows over modern fiction. The recent revival of interest in Dante has doubtless had its effect here.

Burns in his _Address to the De'il_ shows his own kindly heart and honest though ofttimes misdirected impulses by suggesting that there is still hope for the devil to repent and trusting that he may do so yet. Mrs. Browning, in her _Drama of Exile_, likewise shows in Lucifer some appeal to our sympathies, reflecting the pitying heart of the writer,—showing a certain kinship to Milton's Satan yet with weakened intellectual power. She makes Gabriel say to him:

                             "Angel of the sin,
Such as thou standest,—pale in the drear light
Which rounds the rebel's work with Maker's wrath—
Thou shalt be an Idea to all souls,
A monumental, melancholy gloom,
Seen down all ages whence to mark despair
And measure out the distances from good."

Byron's devil in _A Vision of Judgment_ is, like Caliban's ideas of Setebos, "altogether such an one" as Byron conceived himself to be. He is a terrible figure, whose

"Fierce and unfathomable thoughts engraved
 Eternal wrath on his immortal face."

He shows diabolical sarcasm when he says, "I've kings enough below, God knows!" And how like Oscar Wilde is the devil he pictures to us in his symbolic story, _The Fisherman and his Soul_. The prince of darkness who appears to the young fisherman that wishes to sell his soul to the devil is "a man dressed in a suit of black velvet cut in Spanish fashion. His proud face was strangely pale, but his lips were like a proud red flower. He seemed weary and was leaning back toying in a listless manner with the pommel of his saddle." When the fisherman unthoughtedly utters a prayer that baffles the fiend for the time, the demon mounts his jennet with the silver harness and rides away, still with the proud, disdainful face, sad with a blase weariness unlike the usual alertness of the devil. He has a sort of Blessed Damozel droop to his figure, and the bored patience of a lone man at an afternoon tea. Wilde shows us some little mocking red devils in another of his stories, and _The Picture of Dorian Grey_ is a concept of diabolism.

Scott in _The Talisman_ puts a story of descent from the Evil One in the mouth of the Saracen, the legend of the spirits of evil who formed a league with the cruel Zohauk, by which he gained a daily sacrifice of blood to feed two hideous serpents that had become a part of himself. One day seven sisters of wonderful beauty are brought, whose loveliness appeals to the immortals. In the midst of supernatural manifestations the earth is rent and seven young men appear. The leader says to the eldest sister:

"I am Cothreb, king of the subterranean world. I and my brethren are of those who, created out of elementary fire, disdained even at the command of Omnipotence, to do homage to a clod of earth because it is called man. Thou mayest have heard of us as cruel, unrelenting, and persecuting. It is false. We are by nature kind and generous, vengeful only when insulted, cruel only when affronted. We are true to those that trust us; and we have heard the invocations of thy father the sage Mithrasp, who wisely worships not only the Origin of Good, but that which is called the Source of Evil. You and your sisters are on the eve of death; but let each give to us one hair from your fair tresses in token of fealty, and we will carry you many miles to a place of safety where you may bid defiance to Zohauk and his ministers."

The maidens accept the offer and become the brides of the spirits of evil.

The devil in Scott's _Wandering Willie's Tale_, also speaks a good word for himself. When the gudesire meets in the woods the stranger who sympathizes with his obvious distress, the unknown offers to help him, saying, "If you will tell me your grief, I am one that, though I have been sair miscaa'd in the world, am the only hand for helping my freends." The gudesire tells his woes and says that he would go to the gates of hell, and farther, to get the receipt due him, upon which the hospitable stranger conducts him to the place mentioned. The canny Scot obtains the document, outwits the devil, and wins his way back to earth unscathed.

One marked aspect of recent devil-fiction is the tendency to gloze over his sins and to humanize him. This is shown to a marked degree in Marie Corelli's sentimental novel, _The Sorrows of Satan_, where she expends much anxious sympathy over the fiend. To Miss Corelli's agitated mind Satan is a much maligned martyr who regretfully tempts mortals and is grieved when they yield to his beguilements. Her perfervid rhetoric pictures him as a charming prince, handsome, wealthy, yet very lonesome, who warns persons in advance that he is not what he seems and that they would do well to avoid him. But the fools rush in crowds to be damned. According to her theory, the devil is attempting to work out his own salvation and could do so save for the weakness of man. He is able to get a notch nearer heaven for every soul that resists his wiles, though in London circles his progress is backward rather than forward. How is Lucifer fallen! To be made a hero of by Marie Corelli must seem to Mephisto life's final indignity! Her characterization of the fiend shows some reminiscence of a hasty reading of Milton, Goethe, and the Byronic Cain.

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The devil has a human as well as daemonic spirit in Israel Zangwill's _They that Walk in Darkness_, where he appears as Satan Maketrig, a red-haired hunchback, with "gigantic marble brow, cold, keen, steely eyes, and handsome, clean-shaven lips." He seems a normal human being in this realistic Ghetto setting, though he bears a nameless sense of evil about with him. In his presence, or as he passes by, all the latent evil in men's souls comes to the surface. He lures the rabbi away from his wife, from God, and from all virtue, yet to see him at the end turn away again in spirit to the good, spurning the tempter whom he recognizes at last as daemonic. There is a human anguish in the eyes of Satan Maketrig, that shows him to be not altogether diabolic, and he seems mournful and appealing in his wild loneliness. His nature is in contrast to that of the fiend in Stanley J. Weyman's _The Man in Black_. Here his cold, sardonic jesting that causes him to play with life and death, so lightly, his diabolic cunning, his knowledge of the human heart and how to torture it, remind us of Iago. The dark shade extends to the skin as well as to the heart in the man in black in Stevenson's _Thrawn Janet_, for he exercises a weird power over his vassal, the old servant, and terrifies even the minister. And _War Letters from a Living Dead Man_, written by Elsa Parker but said to be dictated by a correspondent presumably from somewhere in hell, shows us His Satanic Majesty with grim realism up to date.

The devil appears with mournful, human dignity, yet with superhuman gigantism in Algernon Blackwood's _Secret Worship_, where the lost souls enter into a riot of devil-worship, into which they seek to draw living victims, to damn them body and soul. One victim sees the devil thus:

"At the end of the room where the windows seemed to have disappeared so that he could see the stars, there rose up into view, far against the sky, grand and terrible, the outline of a man. A kind of gray glory enveloped him so that it resembled a steel-cased statue, immense, imposing, horrific in its distant splendor. The gray radiance from its mightily broken visage, august and mournful, beat down upon his soul, pulsing like some dark star with the powers of spiritual evil."

Here, as in many instances elsewhere, the sadness of the diabolic character is emphasized, a definite human element. The Miltonic influence seems evident in such cases.

Kipling has a curious daemonic study in _Bubble Well Road_, a story of a patch of ground filled with devils and ghosts controlled by an evil-minded native priest, while in _Haunted Subalterns_ the imps terrorize young army officers by their malicious mischief.

The allegorical and symbolic studies of diabolism are among the more impressive creations in later fiction, as in Tolstoi's _Ivan, the Fool_, where the demons are responsible for the marshaling of armies, the tyranny of money, and the inverted ideas of the value of service. The appearance of the devil in later stories is more terrible and effective in its variance of type and its secret symbolism than the crude enginery of diabolism in Gothic fiction, as the muscular fiend1 that athletically hurls the man and woman from the mountain top, or the invisible physical strength manifested in _Melmoth, the Wanderer_. The crude violence of these novels is in keeping with the fiction of the time, yet modern stories show a distinct advance, as such instances as J. H. Shorthouse's _Countess Eve_, where the devil appears differently to each tempted soul, embodying with hideous wisdom the form of the sin that that particular soul is most liable to commit. He bears the shape of committed sin, suggesting that evil is so powerful as to have an independent existence of its own, apart from the mind that gave it birth, as the devil appears as evil thought materialized in Fernac Molnar's drama, _The Devil_. Fiona McLeod's strange Gaelic tale, _The Sin-Eater_ introduces demons symbolically. The sin-eater is a person that by an ancient formula can remove the sins from an unburied corpse and let them in turn be swept away from him by the action of the pure air. But if the sin-eater hates the dead man, he has the power to fling the transgressions into the sea, to turn them into demons that pursue and torment the flying soul till Judgment Day.

One aspect of the recent stories of diabolism is the subtleness by which the evil is suggested. The reader feels a miasmatic atmosphere of evil, a smear on the soul, and knows that certain incidents in the action can be accounted for on no other basis than that of daemonic presence, as in Barry Pain's _Moon Madness_, where the princess is moved by a strange irresistible lure to dance alone night after night in the heart of the secret labyrinth to mystic music that the white moon makes. But one night, after she is dizzy and exhausted but impelled to keep on, she feels a hot hand grasp hers; someone whirls her madly round and she knows that she is not dancing alone! She is seen no more of men, and searchers find only the prints of her little dancing slippers in the sand, with the mark of a cloven hoof beside them. The most revolting instances of suggestive diabolism are found in Arthur Machen's stories, where supernatural science opens the way for the devil to enter the human soul, since the biologist by a cunning operation on the brain removes the moral sense, takes away the soul, and leaves a being absolutely diabolized. Worse still is the hideousness of _Seeing the Great God Pan_, where the daemonic character is a composite of the loathsome aspects of Pan and the devil, from which horrible paternity is born a child that embodies all the unspeakable evil in the world.

In pleasant contrast to dreadful stories are the tales of the amusing devils that we find frequently. The comic devil is much older than the comic ghost, as authors showed a levity toward demons long before they treated the specter with disrespect,—one rather wonders why. Clownish devils that appeared in the miracle plays prepared the way for the humorous and satiric treatment of the Elizabethan drama and late fiction. The liturgical imps were usually funny' whether their authors intended them as such or not, but the devils in fiction are quite conscious of their own wit, in fact, are rather conceited about it. Poe shows us several amusing demons who display his curious satiric humor,—for instance, the old gentleman in _Never Bet the Devil your Head_. When Toby Dammit makes his rash assertion, he beholds

"the figure of a little lame old gentleman of venerable aspect. Nothing could be more reverend than his whole appearance; for he not only had on a full suit of black, but his shirt was perfectly clean and the collar turned down very neatly over a white cravat, while his hair was parted in front like a girl's. His hands were clasped pensively over his stomach, and his two eyes were carefully rolled up into the top of his head."

This clerical personage who reminds us of the devil in _Peer Gynt_, who also appears as a parson, claims the better's head and neatly carries it off. This is a modern version of an incident similar to Chaucer's _Friar's Tale_, where the devil claimed whatever was offered him in sincerity. The combination of humor and mystery in Washington living's _The Devil and Tom Walker_ shows the black woodsman in an amusing though terrifying aspect, as he claims the keeping of the contracts made with him by Tom and his miserly wife. When Tom goes to search for his spouse in the woods, he fails to find her.

"She had probably attempted to deal with the black man as she had been accustomed to deal with her husband; but though the female scold is generally considered a match for the devil, yet in this instance she appears to have had the worst of it. She must have died game, however, for it is said Tom noticed many prints of cloven feet deeply stamped about the tree, and found handsful of hair that looked as if they had been plucked from the coarse shock of the black woodsman. Tom knew his wife's prowess by experience. He shrugged his shoulders as he looked at the fierce signs of clapper-clawing. 'Egad!' he said to himself, 'Old Scratch must have had a tough time of it!'"

The devil amuses himself in various ways, as is seen by the antics of the mysterious stranger in Poe's _The Devil in the Belfry_, who comes curvetting into the old Dutch village with his audacious and sinister face and curious costume, to upset the sacred time of the place. The visitant in _Bon Bon_ is likewise queer as to dress and habits. He wears garments in the style of a century before, having a queue but no shirt, a cravat with an ecclesiastic suggestion, also a stylus and black book. His facial expression is such as would have struck Uriah Heap dumb with envy, and the hint of hoofs and a forked tail is cleverly given though not obtruded. The most remarkable feature of his appearance, however, is that he has no eyes, simply a dead level of flesh. He declares that he eats souls and prefers to buy them alive to insure freshness. He has a taste for philosophers, when they are not too tough.

The satiric devil, like the satiric ghost, is seen in modern fiction. Eugene Field has a story of a demon who seems sympathetic, weeping large, gummy tears at hearing a mortal's woes, and signing the conventional contract on a piece of asbestos paper. He agrees to do everything the man wishes, for a certain term of years, in return for which he is to get the soul. If the devil forfeits the contract, he loses not only that victim but the souls of two thousand already in his clutches. The man shrewdly demands trying things of him, but the demon is game, building and endowing churches, carrying-on philanthropic and reform work without complaint, but balking when the man asks him to close the saloons on Sunday. Rather than do that, he releases the two thousand and one souls and flies away twitching his tail in wrath.

The most recent, as perhaps the most striking, instance of the satiric devil is in Mark Twain's posthumous novel, _The Mysterious Stranger_. A youth, charming, courtly, and handsome appears in a medieval village, confessing to two boys that he is Satan, though not the original of that name, but his nephew and namesake. He insists that he is an unfallen angel, since his uncle is the only member of his family that has sinned. Satan reads the thoughts of mortals, kindles fire in his pipe by breathing on it, supplies money and other desirable things by mere suggestion, is invisible when he wills it so, and is generally a gifted being. This perennial boy—only sixteen thousand years old—makes a charming companion. He says to Marget that his papa is in shattered health and has no property to speak of,—in fact, none of any earthly value,— but he has an uncle in business down in the tropics, who is very well off, and has a monopoly, and it is from this uncle that he drew his support. Marget expresses the hope that her uncle and his would meet some day, and Satan says he hoped so, too. "May be they will," says Marget. "Does your uncle travel much?"

"Oh, yes, he goes all about,—he has business everywhere."

The book is full of this oblique humor, satirizing earth, heaven, and hell. The stranger by his comments on theological creeds satirizes religion, and Satan is an intended parody of God. He sneers at man's "mongrel moral sense," which tells him the distinction between good and evil, insisting that he should have no choice, that the right to choose makes him inevitably choose the wrong. He makes little figures out of clay and gives them life, only to destroy them with casual ruthlessness a little later and send them to hell. In answer to the old servant's faith in God, when she says that He will care for her and her mistress, since "not a sparrow falleth to the ground without His Knowledge," he sneers, "But it falls, just the same! What's the good of seeing it fall?" He is a new diabolic figure, yet showing the composite traits of the old, the daemonic wisdom and sarcasm, the superhuman magnetism to draw men to him, and the human qualities of geniality, sympathy, and boyish charm.

One of the most significant and frequent motifs of the diabolic in literature is that of the barter of the human soul for the devil's gift of some earthly boon, long life or wealth or power, or wisdom, or gratification of the senses. It is a theme of unusual power,—what could be greater than the struggle over one's own immortal soul?—and well might the great minds of the world engage themselves with it. Yet that theme is but little apparent in later stories. We have no such character in recent literature that can compare with Marlowe's Dr. Faustus or Goethe's Mephistopheles or Calderon's wonder-working magician. Hawthorne's Septimius Felton makes a bargain with the devil to secure the elixir of life, there is a legend in Hardy's _Tess of the D' Urbervilles_ of a man that sold himself to the minister of evil, and the incident occurs in various stories of witchcraft, yet with waning power and less frequence. The most significant recent use of it is in W. B. Yeats's drama. This is a drama of Ireland, where the peasants have been driven by famine to barter their souls to the devil to buy their children food, but their Countess sells her own soul to the demon that they may save theirs. This vicarious sacrifice adds a new poignancy to the situation and Yeats has treated it with power. This is the only recent appearance of the devil on the stage for he has practically disappeared from English drama, where he was once so prominent. The demon was a familiar and leading figure on the miracle and Elizabethan stage, but, like the ghost, he shows more vitality now in fiction. The devil is an older figure in English drama than is the ghost, but he seems to have played out.

The analysis and representation of the devil as a character in literature have covered a great range, from the bestiality of Dante's Demon in the _Inferno_ to Milton's mighty angel in ruins, with all sorts of variations between, from the sneering cynicism of Goethe's Mephisto to the pinchbeck diabolism of Marie Corelli's sorrowful Satan, and the merry humor and blasphemous satire of Mark Twain's mysterious stranger. We note an especial influence of Goethe's Mephistopheles in the satiric studies of the demon, an echo of his diabolic climax when in answer to Faust's outcry over Margaret's downfall and death, he says, "She is not the first!" One hears echoing through all literature Man Friday's unanswerable question, "Why not God kill debbil?" The uses of evil in God's eternal scheme, the soul's free choice yet pitiful weakness, are sounded again and again. The great diabolic figures, in their essential humanity, their intellectual dignity, their sad introspection, their pitiless testing of the human soul to its predestined fall, are terrible allegorical images of the evil in man himself, or concepts of social sins, as in _Ivan, the Fool_. The devils of the great writers, reflecting the time, the racial characteristics, the personal natures of their creators, are deeply symbolic. Each man creates the devil that he can understand, that represents him, for, as Amiel says, we can comprehend nothing of which we have not the beginnings in ourselves. As each man sees a different Hamlet, so each one has his own devil, or is his own devil. This is illustrated by the figure in Julian Hawthorne's _Lovers in Heaven_, where the dead man's spirit meets the devil in the after life,—who is his own image, his daemonic double. Some have one great fiend, while others keep packs of little, snarling imps of darkness. A study of comparative diabolics is illuminating and might be useful to us all.

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Over 100 of the Freakiest, Creepiest and Scariest Books to Download

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Contents:

A Book Written by the Spirits of the So-called Dead with their own materialized hands, by the process of independent slate-writing 1883 (Communications with Washington, Lincoln, Swedenborg, etc)

Phantasms of the Living, Volume 1 by Edmund Gurney 1886

Phantasms of the Living, Volume 2 by Edmund Gurney 1886

An Authenticated History of the Famous Bell Witch by Martin Van Buren Ingram 1894

Bell Witch Article in McClures Magazine 1922

The Trials of Betsy Bell, Poem

Talks with the Dead, Luminous Rays from the Unseen World, Illustrated with Spirit Photographs by John Lobb 1907

True Ghost Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle 1919

An Adventure by (pseudonyms) Miss Morison and Miss Lamont 1911 (this book made quite a splash in its time. It was written by 2 Oxford academics who claimed to have seen the ghost of Marie Antoinette)

THE WRECK OF THE TITAN - Futility, by Morgan Robertson 1888 (this is the book that was written decades before the Titanic, a fictional story a maiden voyage of a transatlantic luxury liner named the Titan. Although it was promoted as being unsinkable, it strikes an iceberg and sinks with much loss of life. Sound familiar?)

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allen Poe 1838
"Another eerie coincidence: One scene in this fictional book visits a whaling ship lost at sea, taking with it all but 4 crewmen. Out of food, the men drew lots to see who would be eaten, the unfortunate decision landing on a young cabin boy named Richard Parker (and here it gets really weird)....46 years later there was an actual disaster at sea involving the Mignonette wherein the men drew lots and decided to eat their cabin boy...a boy named Richard Parker."

Fasting for the Cure of Disease by Linda Burfield Hazzard 1908 (this book attracted many to Hassard's retreat in Washington state, where her patients were starved, and then subsequently died. Linda Hazzard is the subject of many true crime books, including _Starvation Heights by Gregg Olsen_.)

On Murder as a Fine Art by Thomas De Quincey 1887

The Unknown Guest by Maurice Maeterlinck 1914

Ghosts in Solid Form - An Experimental Investigation of Certain Little-known Phenomena (materializations) Gambier Bolton 1919

Poltergeists by Frank Podmore 1897

Realms of the Living Dead: A Brief Description of Life After Death by Harriette Augusta Curtiss 1919

Where are the Dead - Proof that the Dead are Still Alive, by Frederick Altona Binney 1873

The Haunted House, a true ghost story by Walter Hubbell 1879

How to Speak to the Dead - a practical handbook by Sciens, 1918

Haunted Houses - Tales of the Supernatural with some account of hereditary curses and family legends by Charles Harper 1907

More Haunted Houses of London by Elliott O'Donnell 1920

Some Haunted Houses of England by Elliott O'Donnell 1908

Myths and Legends beyond our borders by Charles Skinner 1899

Inferences from haunted houses and haunted men by John Harris 1901

The Coming of the Fairies by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 1922 (has photographs of fairies)

The Existence of Evil Spirits Proved by Walter Scott 1853

Spirit World and Spirit Life - Automatic Writing, by Charlotte Dresser 1922

Proofs of the Spirit World by Leon Chevreuil 1920

Signs before Death. A Record of Strange Apparitions by John Timbs 1875

Cock Lane and common-sense by Andrew Lang 1894 (Haunted houses, Apparitions, ghosts, and hallucinations, Scrying or crystal-gazing, The second sight, Ghosts before the law, A modern trial for witchcraft, Presbyterian ghost hunters, The logic of table turning, The ghost theory of the origin of religion)

The Religion of the Spirit World written by the spirits themselves (Seances in the Bible) by George Henslow 1920

Occultism and Common-sense by B Willson 1908 (Science's attitude towards the "supernatural," The hypnotic state, Phantasms of the living, Dreams, Hallucinations, Phantasms of the dead, On "hauntings" and kindred phenomena, The dowsing or divining rod, Mediumistic phenomena, The materialisation of "ghosts," Spirit photography, Clairvoyance)

Psychic Research in the Animal Field (The Elberfeld Horses), article in The American journal of Psychology 1914

Psychic Research and Gospel Miracles - a study of the evidences of the gospel's superphysical features in the light of the established results of modern psychical Research by Edward Duff 1902

Remarkable Apparitions and Ghost Stories, Or Authentic Histories of Communications with the Unseen World by Clarence Day 1846

Psychical Investigations - some personally-observed proofs of survival by JA Hill 1917

Adventurings in the Psychical by HA Bruce 1914 (Ghosts, Telepathy, Clarivoyance and crystal-gazing, Automatic speaking and writing, Poltergeists, mediums)

A Book of Ghosts by S. Baring-Gould 1904

The Books on this disk are also included on a larger collection I sell called _The Paranormal and Supernatural - 400 Books on DVDrom_

Apparitions and Thought-transference by Frank Podmore 1894

The Naturalisation of the Supernatural by Frank Podmore 1908

Letters from the Spirit World by C Petersilea 1905

Ghosts I have met and some others by John K Bangs 1899

Contact with the Other World - the latest evidence as to communication with the dead by James Hyslop 1919

Modern Ghosts by GW Curtis 1890

Phenomena of materialisation: a contribution to the investigation of Mediumistic Teleplastics by Albert Schrenck-Notzing 1922
(A lost of Strange pictures of Ectoplasms during Seances)

Masterpieces of Mystery, Volume 1 by Joseph French 1922

Masterpieces of Mystery, Volume 2 by Joseph French 1922

Masterpieces of Mystery, Volume 3 by Joseph French 1922

Masterpieces of Mystery, Volume 4 by Joseph French 1922 (About 36 tales in all)

True Ghost Stories by H Carrington 1915

Real Ghost Stories by WT Stead 1921

Four Ghost Stories by Mrs Molesworth 1888

The Best Psychic Stories by Joseph Lewis French 1920 *

The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (Can Such Things Be?) 1909

Border Ghost Stories by Howard Pease 1919

True Irish Ghost Stories by St John Seymour 1914

Scottish Ghost Stories by Elliott O'Donnell 1911

St Andrews Ghost Stories by WT Linskill 1921

The Haunted Hour - an Anthology by M Widdemer 1920

Sea-Faring Superstitions (The Flying Dutchman, Sirens), article in The English illustrated magazine 1906

Great Ghost Stories by K Girard 1913

Famous Ghost Stories JW McSpadden 1918

Mysteries of the Sea, article in Munsey's Magazine 1905

Greek and Roman ghost stories BY Lacy Collison-Morley 1912

Seeing Things, article in Pearson's magazine 1909

The Empty House and other Ghost Stories by A Blackwood 1915

Black Spirits and White - a book of Ghost stories by Ralph Cram 1895

The Old English Baron a Gothic story. Also The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (The Castle of Otranto is a 1764 novel by Horace Walpole that is generally regarded as the first gothic novel)

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe 1836

In a Glass Darkly by Joseph Le Fanu. Volume 1 1872

In a Glass Darkly by Joseph Le Fanu. Volume 2 1872

In a Glass Darkly by Joseph Le Fanu. Volume 3 1872

Real Ghost Stories, in Pearson's magazine 1899

True Tales of the Weird - a record of personal experiences of the supernatural by S Dickinson 1920

A Relation of Apparitions of Spirits in the County of Monmouth and the Principality of Wales by Edmund Jones 1813

Too Strange not to be True, Volume 1, by Lady Georgiana Fullerton 1864

Too Strange not to be True, Volume 2, by Lady Georgiana Fullerton 1864

Too Strange not to be True, Volume 3, by Lady Georgiana Fullerton 1864

Modern Family Skeletons, article in The Harmsworth monthly pictorial magazine 1899

Posthumous Humanity - a study of phantoms 1887

Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness by Selma Lagerlöf 1922 (has its own wikipedia entry and was made into a movie called The Phantom Carriage)

The Evidence for Communication with the Dead by Anna Hude 1931

A Mysterious Experience, article in The Strand magazine 1896

Not Yet Solved (true ghost story), article in The Argosy 1886

Little Manuel - A True Ghost Story, article in The Overland monthly 1894

The Shape of Fear, and Other Ghostly Tales by Elia Wilkinson Peattie 1898

Ghostly Phenomena by Elliot O'Donnell 1910

Byways of ghost-land by Elliot O'Donnell 1911

The History of Burke and Hare and of the Resurrectionist times by George MacGregor 1884 (Burke and Hare were infamous graverobbers/body snatchers)

Burke and Hare by William Burke 1921

Observations on the Phrenological Development of Burke and Hare & other Atrocious Murderers by Thomas Stone 1829

Where Ghosts Walk - the Haunts of familiar characters in history and literature by Maron Harland 1898

The Banshee by Elliot O'Donnell 1920

Twenty years' Experience as a Ghost Hunter by Elliot O'Donnell 1917

WERWOLVES BY ELLIOTT O'DONNELL 1912

Ghostly Visitors, a Series of Authentic Narrations by "Spectre Stricken" 1882

The Supernatural in Modern English fiction by Dorothy Scarborough 1917

The History of Magic, Volume 1 by Joseph Ennemoser 1854

The History of Magic, Volume 2 by Joseph Ennemoser 1854

Spirit Life, or Do We Die by William Dunseath Eaton 1920 (The Ghost of Philip's Mother, The Ghost of Mrs. Conwell, The Spectre Monk, The Indignant Ghost, A Ghost of Tragic Memory, The Banshee of the O'Neills, Lady Fanshawe Sees a Banshee, The Beresford Ghost, The Famous Wynyard Ghost, The Ghost that Killed Marshal Bliicher etc)

Devils, by JC Wall 1904 (Legends, Exorcisms, etc)

The Watcher and other Weird Stories by JS Le Fanu 1894

Tales of Men and Ghosts by Edith Wharton 1910

Tales of fantasy and Fact By Brander Matthews 1896

Historic Oddities and Strange Events by S Baring-Gould 1891

Freaks of fanaticism and other strange events by S Baring-Gould 1891

The Problems of Psychical Research; experiments and theories in the realm of the Supernormal by H Carrington 1921

Spiritual Manifestations by Charles Beechers 1879

Our Hidden Forces - an experimental study of the Psychic Sciences 1917 by Emile Boirac

Shakespeare's Revelations by Shakespeare's Spirit, Through a Medium by Sarah Shatford 1919

A Strange Story - The Haunted and the Haunters (1857) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

The Diary of a Resurrectionist by James Bailey 1896

The Two Magics: The Turn of the Screw, Covering End by Henry James 1898

House on the Borderland (1908) by William Hope Hodgson (The book is a milestone that signals a radical departure from the typical gothic supernatural fiction of the late 19th century. Hodgson creates a newer more realistic/scientific cosmic horror that left a marked impression on the people who would become the great writers of the weird tales of the middle of the 20th century, most notably Clark Ashton Smith, and H. P. Lovecraft. ~wikipedia)

THE STORY OF THE MOOR ROAD - A Flaxman Low Story - Pearson's Magazine (1898)

The Story of the Spaniards - A Flaxman Low Story, Pearson's Magazine (1898)

The Story of Baelbrow -A Flaxman Low Story, Pearson's Magazine (April 1898)

The Story of Yand Manor House -A Flaxman Low Story, Pearson's Magazine (1898)

The Story of Konnor Old House -A Flaxman Low Story, Pearson's Magazine (1899) [Flaxman Low is a psychic detective, the Sherlock Holmes of the Supernatural]

John Silence by Algernon Blackwood 1908 (psychic investigator)

THE GHOST FINDER by William Hope Hodgson 1912 (Detective stories in which the great Thomas Carnacki investigates the supernatural using scientific tools such as photography)

The Case of Mr. Lucraft, and other Tales 1876 by Sir Walter Besanet, Volume 1

The Case of Mr. Lucraft, and other Tales 1876 by Sir Walter Besanet, Volume 2

For a list of all of my books click here

Supernatural Horror in Fiction Literature - 350 Books to Download (Lovecraft)

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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

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