Horror: The 100 Best Books Read online

  Table of Contents

  DEDICATION

  Foreword by Ramsey Campbell

  Introduction

  1-25

  1: [c. 1592] CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE - The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus

  2: [1606] WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE - The Tragedy of Macbeth

  3: [1612] JOHN WEBSTER - The White Devil

  4: [1794] WILLIAM GODWIN - Things As They Are; or: The Adventures of Caleb Williams

  5: [1796] MATTHEW GREGORY LEWIS - The Monk: A Romance

  6: [1814-16] E. T. A. HOFFMANN - The Best Tales of Hoffmann

  7: [1817] JANE AUSTEN - Northanger Abbey

  8: [1818] MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY - Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus

  9: [1820] CHARLES MATURIN - Melmoth the Wanderer

  10: [1824] JAMES HOGG - The Private Memoirs And Confessions Of A Justified Sinner

  11: [1833-47] EDGAR ALLAN POE - Tales of Mystery and Imagination

  12: [1837, expanded 1842] NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE - Twice-Told Tales

  13: [1842] JEREMIAS GOTTHELF - The Black Spider

  14: [1844-5] EUGENE SUE - The Wandering Jew

  15: [1857] HERMAN MELVILLE - The Confidence Man: His Masquerade

  16: [1864] J. SHERIDAN LE FANU - Uncle Silas: A Tale of Bertram-Haugh

  17: [1886] ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

  18: [1887] H. RIDER HAGGARD - She

  19: [1895] ROBERT W. CHAMBERS - The King in Yellow

  20: [1896] H. G. WELLS - The Island of Dr. Moreau

  21: [1897] BRAM STOKER - Dracula

  22: [1898] HENRY JAMES - The Turn of the Screw

  23: [1902] JOSEPH CONRAD - Heart of Darkness

  24: [1903] BRAM STOKER - The Jewel of Seven Stars

  25: [1904] M. R. JAMES - Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

  26-50

  26: [1906] ARTHUR MACHEN - The House of Souls

  27: [1908] ALGERNON BLACKWOOD - John Silence, Physician Extraordinary

  28: [1908] G. K. CHESTERTON - The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

  29: [1908] WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON - The House on the Borderland

  30: [1909] AMBROSE BIERCE - The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce

  31: [1911] OLIVER ONIONS - Widdershins

  32: [1912-34] E. F. BENSON - The Horror Horn: The Best Horror Stories of E. F. Benson

  33: [1920] DAVID LINDSAY - A Voyage to Arcturus

  34: [1925] FRANZ KAFKA - The Trial

  35: [1927] JAMES BRANCH CABELL - Something About Eve

  36: [1929] E. H. VISIAK - Medusa

  37: [1933] GUY ENDORE - The Werewolf of Paris

  38: [1933] MARJORIE BOWEN - The Last Bouquet: Some Twilight Tales

  39: [1934] ALEXANDER LAING - The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck

  40: [1937] SIR HUGH WALPOLE (Editor) - A Second Century of Creepy Stories

  42: [1939] DALTON TRUMBO - Johnny Got His Gun

  43: [1939] H. P. LOVECRAFT - The Outsider and Others

  44: [1942] CLARK ASHTON SMITH - Out of Space and Time

  45: [1943] FRITZ LEIBER - Conjure Wife

  46: [1945] CORNELL WOOLRICH - Night Has a Thousand Eyes

  47: [1945] H. P. LOVECRAFT AND AUGUST DERLETH - The Lurker at the Threshold

  48: [1946] PAUL BAILEY - Deliver Me From Eva

  49: [1946] BORIS KARLOFF (Editor) - And the Darkness Falls

  50: [1947] AUGUST DERLETH (Editor) - The Sleeping and the Dead

  51-75

  51: [1949] WALTER VAN TILBURG CLARK - Track of the Cat

  52: [1952] SARBAN - The Sound of His Horn

  53: [1954] WILLIAM GOLDING - Lord of the Flies

  54: [1954] RICHARD MATHESON - I am Legend

  55: [1955] RAY BRADBURY - The October Country

  56: [1958] JOSEPH PAYNE BRENNAN - Nine Horrors and a Dream

  57: [1959] ROBERT BLOCH - Psycho

  58: [1959] NIGEL KNEALE - Quatermass and the Pit

  59: [1959] H. P. LOVECRAFT - Cry Horror!

  60: [1959] SHIRLEY JACKSON - The Haunting of Hill House

  61: [1964] PHILIP K. DICK - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

  62: [1965] JERZY KOSINSKI - The Painted Bird

  63: [1966] J. G. BALLARD - The Crystal World

  64: [1968] ROBERT AICKMAN - Sub Rosa

  65: [1969] KINGSLEY AMIS - The Green Man

  66: [1969] ANTHONY BOUCHER - The Compleat Werewolf, and Other Stories of Fantasy and SF

  67: [1971] JOHN GARDNER - Grendel

  68: [1971] WILLIAM PETER BLATTY - The Exorcist

  69: [1972] JOHN BRUNNER - The Sheep Look Up

  70: [1973] MANLY WADE WELLMAN - Worse Things Waiting

  71: [1973] ROBERT MARASCO - Burnt Offerings

  72: [1975] STEPHEN KING - ‘Salem’s Lot

  73: [1975] HARLAN ELLISON - Deathbird Stories

  74: [1977] HUGH B. CAVE - Murgunstrumm and Others

  75: [1977] BERNARD TAYLOR - Sweetheart, Sweetheart

  76-100

  76: [1977] JOHN FARRIS - All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By

  77: [1977] STEPHEN KING - The Shining

  78: [1978] WILLIAM HJORTSBERG - Falling Angel

  79: [1978] WHITLEY STRIEBER - The Wolfen

  80: [1979] DAVID MORRELL - The Totem

  81: [1979] PETER STRAUB - Ghost Story

  82: [1980] JONATHAN CARROLL - The Land of Laughs

  83: [1980] RICHARD LAYMON - The Cellar

  84: [1981] THOMAS HARRIS - Red Dragon

  85: [1981] F. PAUL WILSON - The Keep

  86: [1982] DENNIS ETCHISON - The Dark Country

  87: [1983] KARL EDWARD WAGNER - In a Lonely Place

  88: [1983] TIM POWERS - The Anubis Gates

  89: [1983] ROBERT IRWIN - The Arabian Nightmare

  90: [1984] IAIN BANKS - The Wasp Factory

  91: [1984] T. E. D. KLEIN - The Ceremonies

  92: [1984] ROBERT HOLDSTOCK - Mythago Wood

  93: [1984] MICHAEL BISHOP - Who Made Stevie Crye?

  94: [1985] DAN SIMMONS - Song of Kali

  95: [1985] CLIVE BARKER - The Damnation Game

  96: [1985] PETER ACKROYD - Hawksmoor

  97: [1986] LISA TUTTLE - A Nest of Nightmares

  98: [1986] CHARLES L. GRANT - The Pet

  99: [1987] ROBERT McCAMMON - Swan Song

  100: [1987] RAMSEY CAMPBELL - Dark Feasts

  List of Recommended Reading

  Notes on the Contributors

  ABOUT THE EDITORS

  Index to the Books, Authors and Contributors

  HORROR: THE 100 BEST BOOKS edited by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman

  flyleaf:

  INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED HORROR: THE 100 BEST BOOKS

  WINNER OF THE HORROR WRITERS ASSOCIATION BRAM STOKER AWARD

  SELECTED BY THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION AS THE EDITOR’S CHOICE OF ONE OF THE OUTSTANDING BOOKS OF THE YEAR

  SELECTED FOR THE LOCUS RECOMMENDED READING LIST OF THE YEAR

  “The format is simple: 100 well-known horror and fantasy writers have each selected a favourite horror story and written a short essay about it. All the classics are cited — Dracula , Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , of course — but the flexibility of the genre is reflected in the choice of stories by Herman Melville, William Golding and Kingsley Amis … This is an excellent guide to the classics of genre fiction from 1592 until today, and a spur to make readers want to read the stories described.” — The Times

  “This collection intrigues on two levels. First off, you can be drawn to it because of the books, but you can also be drawn to it because of the writers. Horror: 100 Best Books also includes a list of recommended reading stretching back to 458 B.C. and a suc
cinct foreword by Ramsey Campbell. And no, you can’t borrow mine.” — Fangoria

  “An inspired concept well realized … One hundred best classic and contemporary horror novels, ranging from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Stephen King’s The Shining, have been chosen and discussed by leading writers of the genre. An excellent overview of both the gruesome and the subtle.” — ALA Booklist

  “A brimming encyclopedia of horror with short essays on everything from Marlowe’s Faust to the moderns … This is a marvellous book, doubling as a handy reference work for anyone who wants to feast on the shockers of yesterday and today.” — South Wales Echo

  “This is a book which offers insights on its contributors as well as causing the reader to desperately scribble down lists of fascinating titles to read and re-read … Even the most jaded and/or knowledgeable horror fan will find new material or insights here. Essential.” — Vector

  “With contributions from virtually everybody who’s anybody in horror fiction, the book is by turns enlightening, exasperating, funny and useful as a reference tool.” — The Dark Side

  “Quite simply, the best book of its type ever published … enough to keep even the most voracious horror devotee busy for a decade or so.” — Castle Rock

  “This is one of those rare reference works that is also an entertaining read in itself.” — Science Fiction Chronicle

  “Quite simply this book is a delight and offers many hours of browsing pleasure.” — Samhain

  “Unique … No true fan should be without this book.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune

  “A marvellous gathering … Highly recommended.” — Locus

  “Fascinating and a delight to look through.” — Starburst

  “Editors Jones and Newman should take a bow.” — Time Out

  “Genuinely provocative.” — Washington Post Book World

  HORROR: The 100 Best Books

  edited by Stephen Jones & Kim Newman

  with a foreword by Ramsey Campbell

  CARROLL & GRAF PUBLISHERS, INC. NEW YORK

  This revised and updated edition copyright (c) 1988, 1992 and 1998 by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman. Acknowledgment pages constitute an extension of this copyright page. All rights reserved.

  First Carroll & Graf hardcover edition 1988 First Carroll & Graf paperback edition 1990 Second Carroll & Graf paperback edition 1998

  Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc. 19 West 21st Street New York, NY 10010-6805

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request

  ISBN: 0-7867-0552-3

  DEDICATION

  For Mum and Dad, for all their love and continued support — Steve

  For Meg, much love — Kim

  Foreword by Ramsey Campbell

  Horror fiction is the branch of literature most often concerned with going too far. It is the least escapist form of fantasy. It shows us sights we would ordinarily look away from or reminds us of insights we might prefer not to admit we have. It makes us intimate with people we would cross the street to avoid. It shows us the monstrous and perhaps reveals that we are looking in a mirror. It tells us we are right to be afraid, or that we aren’t afraid enough. It also frequently embraces, or at least is conterminous with, the ghost story. It flourishes here and there in the fields of science fiction and crime fiction, and not infrequently it bobs up in the mainstream, whatever that is. Despite its name, it is often most concerned to produce awe and terror in its audience, but it is not unusual for a horror story to encompass a wider emotional range. Some of what I’ve said so far (even when it is understood as seeking to define good horror fiction) will doubtless prove controversial. For instance, not only ignorant critics but some horror writers (generally bad ones) will dismiss the notion that this field has anything to do with literature. However, there are remarkably few mainstream writers (especially of short fiction) who have not attempted the horror story. A good many mainstream writers are best known, or remembered only, for their horror fiction, and some of these examples are among the classics of the field. The present book will go some way toward displaying the scope of the field and the diversity of its creators. Diversity breeds conflict, in this field as in any other. Both M. R. James and Montague Summers deplored the Not at Night series, as Robert Aickman did the later Pan Books of Horror Stories. Algernon Blackwood found Lovecraft’s work “lacking in spirituality”, Russell Kirk convicted Blackwood’s of a lack of Christianity. H. Russell Wakefield, nearly at the end of his career, was disappointed enough to foresee no future at all for the ghost story (a knell frequently tolled during this century). Skirmishes most often flare between practitioners of the graphically gruesome and the subtle, as if they were mutually exclusive or even mutually destructive but, oddly enough, until recently almost all the public statements came from the second camp. Not long ago a writer of gruesomely violent horror fiction was dismissed by someone subtler as having nothing to do with horror. This nonsensical suggestion provoked a defence, whose voicing I take to be a healthy sign. I cannot see that a field, often blamed for causing what it has the courage to examine, can call itself honest if it rushes to make scapegoats of its own less respectable writers. Let them be allowed to make themselves clear and be seen for what they are. For these and other reasons, I welcome the range of subjects and contributors which the list of contents promises. May it broaden the reading of whoever uses it.

  Introduction

  It seemed like a simple idea at the time …

  There are plenty of critical guides clogging the shelves, particularly in the science fiction and fantasy categories. Some are interesting, idiosyncratic selections, others are narcissist tomes. The problem is that the titles chosen and dissected can only reflect the author’s own tastes, and even genre specialists cannot always embrace the entirety of a complex and varied field. Thus, a devotee of the Classic English Ghost Story will decline to include anything written after the First World War, while a disciple of the Cthulhu Mythos might omit any mention of the 18th-Century Gothic novel. Even worse, an editor might include works not to his personal taste simply in order to be “representative”. How many times have you come across: “The Castle of Otranto is turgid and unreadable, but we wouldn’t be here without it, so here’s an in-depth analysis of how important it is … “? Our solution was to invite one hundred of the world’s top horror, science fiction and fantasy authors and critics to contribute a brief essay on his or her favourite horror book. This, we thought, would make for a genuinely representative, though eclectic and controversial selection. Writers could acknowledge a debt of gratitude to those titles or authors that first inspired them to reach for the pen or switch on the word-processor. Or put forward a case for an unjustly neglected work, or even for an out-of-genre book that struck them as too horrific to escape our categorisation. We sent out rough guidelines, and they could pick any book from any date. It might have been long out-of-print or a recent bestseller. We expected people to suggest novels, anthologies or collections, we didn’t mind plays or published screenplays, and we would have accepted poetry if anyone had lighted on Coleridge, Beaudelaire or Poe (no one did). We forgot to include the word “fiction” in our original letter, and so one cleverclogs (it was John M. Ford) tried to slip in Herman Kahn’s On Thermonuclear War. We are pleased that our final representation includes Jacobean Revenge Tragedies, Gothic novels, literary classics, science fiction, detective stories, westerns, war novels, surrealist fantasies, pulp horror and major works of modern fiction. William Shakespeare, Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad, William Golding, John Brunner, C. S. Lewis and Peter Ackroyd may be surprised to find themselves in company with Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Arthur Machen, Richard Matheson, Stephen King, Richard Laymon, and Clive Barker, but read the pieces and you’ll see how they earned their places there. We started by approaching considerably more than the 100 contributors we needed, and got predictably mixed results. Many never replied. Others were too busy to contribute. Some wrote polite letters thanking
us for the invitation, but declining on the basis that they knew nothing about horror (a number of those will find their own novels discussed in the text). A couple were just plain rude. If your favourite horror writer isn’t here, we’re sorry. But the majority of people did get back to us, and that’s when the real problems began. It’s surprising to learn just how many authors retain a lifelong affection for the stories of M. R. James or H. P. Lovecraft, or such books as Dracula and The Haunting of Hill House. We could easily have put out a volume containing ten different appreciations of each of these. Also, there were contributors who hinted — often not too subtly — that perhaps their books should have been included in our preliminary list of suggestions. One American writer was terribly enthusiastic about the project until he discovered we didn’t want him to write about his own best book. Harlan Ellison re-read his childhood favourite novel (The Edge of Running Water by William Sloane) and now blames us for destroying his beautiful memory of a book that he now thinks is pretty rotten. Robert Holdstock kept rereading books that influenced him and finding they weren’t that horrific after all. We learned that being an editor also involves a working knowledge of diplomacy. Then, putting aside such mundane considerations as contracts, sub-clauses and deadlines, there was the problem of those classics of the genre that none of our 100 wanted to write about. As you might expect, the random method of asking people for their favourites meant that a number of books everyone would put in their Top Ten didn’t quite make it. So major books like Rosemary’s Baby, The Vampire Tapestry and Fevre Dream, and prominent authors like James Herbert, Thomas Tryon and Michael McDowell sadly don’t get a look in. It’s also why we’ve compiled a Recommended Reading list and fairly inclusive notes on the works of our contributors. Once you’ve finished reading all 100 of the books discussed in the main text, you should start working your way through our secondary list. Then you’ll be an expert. You can be excused The Castle of Otranto if you’ve got a note from your mother. We hope this book is informative, and fun. It should offer a guide for the relative newcomer to the subject, but also some meat for the veteran afficionado. It was a logistical nightmare to compile, but we hope we’ve succeeded in giving a working overview of an often-maligned field of literature. Anyway, the real problem was updating and revising all the entries for this new, Tenth Anniversary edition …