Anthologies and Collections
of Gothic Fiction (selected)

Internet Resources:

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79. Anthologies and Story Collections of Gothic Fiction

BAINES, Paul, ed. “Introduction” (pp. vii-xlvi). To Five Romantic Plays, 1768-1821. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Among the five plays are two Gothic dramas, Horace Walpole’s The Mysterious Mother and Joanna Baillie’s De Monfort. The other plays are Robert Southey’s Wat Tyler, Elizabeth Inchbald’s Lovers’ Vows, and Lord Byron’s The Two Foscari. The five plays are discussed in separate sections of the introduction which also offers “The Playhouses of London, 1768-1821,” notes on the texts, a select bibliography of secondary sources, and a chronology. Noteworthy for its inclusion of Walpole’s Mysterious Mother, the first Gothic drama. Although some of the plays are Romantic but not Gothic, this collection is a valuable anthology.

BALDICK, Chris, ed. The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales. [GGII: 1449]. 

BALDICK, Chris, ed. The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Fourteen tales by John Polidori and others including James Hogg, Joseph Sheridan  Le Fanu,  Letitia Landon, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and  William Carleton. An appendix  prints  Byron’s prose fragment “Augustus Darvell. 

BALDICK, Chris and Robert MORRISON, eds. Tales of Terror from Blackwood’s Magazine. Oxford: Oxford  University Press,  1995. The introduction emphasizes the role played by Blackwood’s in developing the Gothic short story. “The Blackwood’s authors differ markedly from the Gothicists not just in their concise scope but also in their sharper and more explicit rendering of terror . . . [T]he vague suggestions of Radcliffean Gothic give way in Blackwood’s to a greater precision of description in scenes of terror and horror, reaching an almost scientific degree of accuracy.” Contents: Patrick Fraser-Tytler, “Sketch of a Tradition Related by a Monk in Switzerland”; Walter Scott, “Narrative of a Fatal Event”; John Wilson, “Extracts from Gosschen’s Diary”; Daniel Keate Sandford, “A Night in the Catacombs”; John Galt, “The Buried Alive”; John Howison, “The Floating Beacon”;  William Maginn, “The Man in the Bell:” Anonymous, “The Last Man”; Henry Thomson, “Le Revenant”; Catherine Sinclair, “The Murder Hole”; Michael Scott, “Heat and Thirst,––A Scene in Jamaica”; William Mudford, “The Iron Shroud”; James Hogg, “The Mysterious Bride”; William Godwin the Younger, “The Executioner”; Samuel Warren, “A ‘Man About Town’”; Samuel Warren, “The Spectre-Smitten”; Samuel Warren, “The Thunder-Struck and the Boxer.” Biographical notes, explanatory notes, select bibliography, chronology of Blackwood’s Magazine.

BENDIXEN, Alfred, ed. Haunted Women: The Best Supernatural Tales by American Women Writers. [GGII: 1450]. 

BISSETT, Alan, ed. Damage Land: New Scottish Gothic Fiction. Edinburgh: Polygon. 2001. Contents: Alan Bissett, “‘The Dead Can Sing’: An Introduction”; Brian McCabe, “The Host”; Helen Lamb, “Letters from a Well-Wisher”; Toni Davidson, “Like a Pendulum in Glue”; Laura Hird, “Meat”; Ali Smith, “Gothic”;  Michel Faber, “A Hole with Two Ends”; Maggie O’Farrell, “You are here”; Jackie Kay, “The Woman with Fork and Knife Disorder”; Andrew Murray Scott, “Serving the Regent”; Alison  Armstrong, “Lana”; James Robertson, “Mouse”; Dilys Rose, “Mazzard’s Coop”; Magi Gibson, “Dream Lover”; Linda Cracknell, “Kiss of Life”; Sophie Cooke, “At the Time”; Chris Dolan, “The Land of Urd”; Christopher Whyte,   “Stifelio”; Raymond Soltysek, “The House Outside the Kitchen”; John Burnside, “The Final Weight of all that Disappears”; Janice Galloway, “Mons Meg: A Fluid Fairy-tale.” 

BROWNWORTH, Victoria A. and Judith M. REDDING, eds. Night Shade: Gothic Tales by Women. Seattle, WA: Seal Press; Distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West, 1999. The 17 short stories take place in everyday settings––contemporary houses, a bar, a veterinary hospital. Yet in this collection, the familiar is subverted. This follow-up to the anthology features stories of the supernatural, all but one of which (Wilkins-Freeman’s “Luella Miller”) are by contemporary authors. As the subtitle suggests, many of these stories have a feminist slant. One, Jean Stewart’s “Feeding the Dark,” has a strong anti-male, prolesbian theme, but this extremist view is not prevalent in most of the collection. Several selections, such as Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse’s “Femme Coverte” and Lisa D. Williamson’s “Existential Housewife,” show the difficulties faced by women as the result of society’s restrictions and expectations. Others, like Joanne Dahme’s “Creepers” and Victoria A. Brownworth’s “Day of the Dead,” are wonderfully scary stories. Toni Brown’s “The Acolyte” gives a neat twist to the tale of Little Red Riding Hood. For the most part, this is an excellent anthology of well-written stories, many of which would appeal to readers of either sex. 

CAIN, Stephen. “Introduction” (pp. 6-7). To Antipodean Tales: Stories from the Dark Side. Wellington, NZ: IPL Books. 1996.  From the Introduction: “New Zealand literature has long suffered from a mysterious malady, a condition perhaps most visible in the distinct scarcity of Gothic writing published locally. It is for this peculiar literary anæmia then, this disturbing thinness of blood, that this volume––New Zealand’s first anthology of Gothic tales––is prescribed.” Contents: Oliver Nicks, “The House”; Vivienne Plumb, “Angel Eye”; Craig Harrison, “A Fine and Private Place”; Bronwyn Civil, “Woman on the Ledge”; Mike Johnson, “The Föhn Effect”; Alyson Cresswell-Moorcock, “Never Go Tramping Alone”; Valerie Matuku, “Wired for Sound”; Neroli Cottam, “A Cry of Neglect”; Laurie Mantell, “Turehu”; Janette Sinclair, “Temporarily Misplaced”; Jill Poulston, “Water Rats”; Lorraine Williams, “The Phonecard from Hell”; Maxwell Powell, “The Homecoming”; Joan Sowter, “Stakes and Stones”; Rosemary Britten, “Collecting”; Patrick Hudson, “Prodigy”; Peter Friend, “Giving”; Rosemary Britten, “The Transplant”; Bernard Gadd, “Sting”; Lyn McConchie, “Little Girl Lost”; Civil Bronwyn, “The Witch”; Jon Thomas, “How Old Is Matieu Vezich?” 

COX, Jeffrey, ed. Seven Gothic Dramas, 1789-1825. [GGII: 0638]. 

COX Jeffrey, ed. Seven Gothic Dramas, 1789-1825. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1994. Paperback reprint of the original anthology. Includes Lewis’s The Castle Spectre. 

COX, Michael, ed. “Introduction” (pp. 3-11). To Twelve Tales of the Supernatural. Oxford University Press, 1997. The introduction (pp. vii-ix) observes of these stories: “The supernatural appears, at the moment of crisis, to be entangled with the natural; the tangible is intermixed with the intangible in a way that is utterly inexplicable.” Contents: 1. J.S. Le Fanu, “Wicked Captain Walshawe, of Wauling”; 2. Mrs. J.H. Riddell, “A Terrible Vengeance”; 3. M.R. James, “Number 13”; 4. Perceval Landon, “Railhead”; 5. W.W. Jacobs, “The Toll House”; 6. E.F. Benson, “The Face”; 7. W.F. Harvey, “The Tool”; 8. Russell Wakefield, “‘Look Up There’”; 9. Majorie Bowen, “The Last Bouquet”; 10. Sir Andrew Caldecott, “In Due Course”; 11. A.N.L. Munby, “A Christmas Game”; 12. Shamus Frazer, “Florinda." 

COX, Michael. ed. Twelve Victorian Ghost Stories. Oxford University Press, 1997. Includes tales by Henry James, Le Fanu, Amelia Edwards, Vincent O’Sullivan, Rhoda Broughton, and Margaret Oliphant. 

COX, Michael and R.A. GILBERT, eds. Victorian Ghost Stories: An Oxford Anthology. Reissued in  2003 under the title The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories. [GGII: 1451]. 

CROW, Charles, ed. “Introduction” (pp. 1-2). American Gothic: An Anthology, 1787-1916. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. This anthology is timely and well-selected. As the short introduction states: in America, the Gothic “has been used by talented artists to explore serious issues. . . .  American writers understood, quite early, that the Gothic offered a way to explore areas otherwise denied them. The Gothic is a literature of opposition.” Contents: “Abraham Panther”; “An Account of a Beautiful Young Lady”; Charles Brockden Brown, “Somnambulism”; Washington Irving, “Rip Van Winkle”; John Neal, “Idiosyncrasies”; George Lippard, from The Quaker City; or, The Monks of Monk Hall; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Skeleton in Armor”; James Fenimore Cooper, from The Prairie; Henry Clay Lewis, “A Struggle for Life”; Edgar Allan Poe, “Hop-Frog”; “The Cask of Amontillado”; “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar”; “The Fall of the House of Usher”; “The Raven”; “The City in the Sea”; “Ulalume”; “Annabel Lee”; “Dream-Land”; Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Alice Doane’s Appeal”; “Young Goodman Brown”; Herman Melville, “The Bell-Tower”; Alice Cary, “The Wildermings”; Louisa May Alcott, “Behind a Mask; or, a Woman’s Power”; Harriet Prescott Spofford, “The Amber Gods”; Emily Dickinson,”Through Lane It Lay –– Through Bramble”; “Tis So Appalling –– It Exhilarates”; “‘Twas Like a Mælström, with a Notch”; “The Soul Has Bandaged Moments”; “Did You Ever Stand in a Cavern’s Mouth”; “One Need Not Be a Chamber –– To Be Haunted”; “What Mystery Pervades a Well!”; “In Winter in My Room”; Samuel L. Clemens [Mark Twain], from Life on the Mississippi; Sarah Orne Jewett, “The Foreigner”; Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, “Old Woman Magoun”; “Luella Miller”; Henry James, The Turn of the Screw; Kate Chopin, “Desiree’s Baby”; Charles W. Chesnutt, “Po’ Sandy”; “The Sheriff’s Children”; George Washington Cable, “Jean-Ah Poquelin”; Stephen Crane, “The Monster”; Ambrose Bierce, “The Death of Halpin Frayser”; Frank Norris, “Lauth”; Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Giant Wisteria”; Paul Laurence Dunbar, “From The Sport of the Gods; Edwin Arlington Robinson, “Luke Havergal”; “Lisette and Eileen”; “The Dark House”; “The Mill”; “Souvenir”; “Why He Was There”; Lafcadio Hearn, “The Ghostly Kiss”; Edith Wharton, “The Eyes”; Jack London, “Samuel.” Has a bibliography and an index of authors, titles, and first lines. 

DALBY, Richard, ed. Twelve Gothic Tales. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Contents: Charles Robert Maturin, “Leixlip Castle”; Mary Shelley,  “The Dream”; Edgar Allan  Poe, “Metzengerstein”;  Sabine Baring-Gould, “Master Sacristan Eberhart”; J. Sheridan Le Fanu, “Dickon the Devil”; Bram Stoker, “The Secret of the Growing Gold”; Ralph Adams Cram, “In Kropfsberg Keep”; F. Marion Crawford, “The Dead Smile”; Stephen Hall,  “By One, by Two, and by Three”; L.A.G. Strong, “The Buckross Ring”; Basil Copper, “The Knocker at the Portico”; Gerald Durrell, “The Entrance.” Dalby’s two-page introduction (pp. vii-viii) is an unpretentious minihistory of the form. “The phrase ‘Gothic fiction’ immediately conjures up a vision of wild desolate landscapes, haunted abbeys, windswept graveyards, and ancient grand houses with secret rooms, treacherous stairways, creepy vaults––and purple passages––all essential ingredients in antiquarian tales of the macabre, fantastic, and supernatural.”

FAYOT, André, ed. Le Revenant et autres contes de terreur du Blackwood’s Magazine. Paris: José Corti, 1999. [The Revenant and Other Tales of Terror from Blackwood’s Magazine.] A collection of Gothic tales published in Blackwood’s Magazine between 1817 and 1832. 

HAINING, Peter, ed. The Gentlewomen of Evil: An Anthology of Rare Supernatural Stories from the Pens of Victorian Ladies. [GGI: 2171].

HAINING, Peter, ed. The Penny Dreadful; or Strange, Horrid, and Sensational Tales. [GGI: 2175].

JOAQUIN, Nick, ed. Tropical Gothic. St. Lucia, New Zealand: University of Queensland Press, 1972. The Introduction (pp. vv-x) gives a brief biography of Filipino writer Nick Joaquin accompanied by a summary of his published work. “From 1950 he was a staff member of the Philippines Free Press Magazine, beginning as a proof reader and becoming famous as a journalist under the anagrammatic pseudonym Quijano de Manila.” Story content: “Candido’s Apocalypse”; “Dona Jeronima”; “The Legend of the Dying Wanton”;  “May Day Eve”;  “The Summer Solstice”; “Guardia de Honor”; “The Mass of St. Sylvestre”; “The Woman Who Had Two Navels”; “The Order of Melkizedek.”

KELLY, Gary, ed. Varieties of Female Gothic. London and Brookfield, VT: Pickering and Chatto, 2002. Volume 1; Enlightenment and Gothic Terror: Clara Reeve, The Champion of Virtue (1777). Mary Butt, The Traditions (1775). Volume 2; Street Gothic: Female Gothic Chapbooks: Anna Lætitia Barbauld, Sir Bertrand’s Adventures in a Ruinous Castle; Sophia Lee, The Recess; Charlotte Smith, Rayland Hall; Ann Radcliffe, The Midnight Assassin, The Southern Tower; Sarah Wilkinson, The Spectres, The White Pilgrim, The White Cottage. Volume 3: Erotic Gothic: Charlotte Dacre, The Libertine (1807). Volume 4: Historical Gothic: Jane Porter, The Scottish Chiefs (1810). Volume 5: Historical Gothic; Jane Porter, The Scottish Chiefs, part 2 (1810). Volume 6: Orientalist Gothic; Sidney Owenson, Lady Morgan, The Missionary. 

KESSLER, Joan C., ed. Demons of the Night: Tales of the Fantastic, Madness, and the Supernatural from Nineteenth Century France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Contents: The introduction (pp. xi-li) notes that “The French public of the late 1790s thrilled to the English Gothic novels of Ann Radcliffe and ‘Monk’ Lewis” but interest declined under Napoleon and the Gothic entered a period of dormancy, only to emerge with renewed vigor after 1815.” Contents: Charles Nodier, “Smarra, or The Demons of the Night”; Honoré de Balzac, “The Red Inn; Prosper Mérimée, “The Venus of Ille”; Théophile Gautier, “The Dead in Love,” “Arria Marcella”; Alexandre Dumas, “The Slap of Charlotte Corday”; Gerard de Nerval, “Aurélia, or Dream and Life”; Jules Verne, “Master Zacharius”; Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, “The Sign,” “Véra”; Guy de Maupassant, “The Horla,” “Who Knows”; Marcel Schwob, “The Veiled Man.”  

KLEIN, Victor C. Soul Shadows. Metaire, LA: Lycanthrope Press, 1997. A pastiche of stories, biographies, poems, by Victor Klein that deal with two salient existential themes: death and alienation. Contained within the book’s pages are stories about real vampires (Elizabeth Bathory and Gilles De Rais), Gothic horror, a serial killer’s genesis, various beasts, and uncertainty and dread. The blurb sums up the contents as “a revelation about the dark side of humanity’s quest for meaning.” Contents: “Return”; “Der Geist”; “Broken Quest”; “A True Story”; “Equal Fate”; “The Roach”; “Green Knight”; “Theridium”; “The Ant and the Grasshopper”; “One Saturday Morning”; “The Light”; “The Light (a One Act Play)”; “Amelia: The Little Girl Who Never Wanted to Grow Up”; “Old Gods Never Die . . . They Just . . . “: “Elizabeth Ba’thory”;  “Nether Shore”; Gilles de Laval”; “Necromancer’s Endeavor”; “Waste”; “The House on Huso Street”;  “Victim”; “Azreal." 

LUNDIE, Catherine A., ed. Restless Spirits: Ghost Stories by American Women, 1872-1926. Amherst, MA: Massachusetts University Press, 1996. The authors selected for inclusion are described as having “contributed a uniquely feminist chapter to the annals of supernatural literature. American women’s ghost stories revolve very much around a female world. . . .  Male characters are generally peripheral because the show themselves to be antipathetic to the very possibility of the supernatural.” The tales cover the period from 1872 to 1926. Contents: I. Until Death Do Us Part . . . and After: Marriage. Edith Wharton, “The Lady’s Maid’s Bell”; Mary Austin, “The Readjustment”; Olivia Howard Dunbar, “The Shell of Sense”; Zora Neale Hurston, “Spunk”; Hildegarde Hawthorne, “A Legend of Sonora.” II. The Tie That Binds: Motherhood. Josephine Daskam Bacon, “The Children”; Georgia Wood Pangborn, “Broken Glass”; Cornelia A.P. Comer, “The Little Gray Ghost”; Katherine Holland Brown, “Hunger”;  Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Giant Wistaria.” III. The “Other” Woman: Sexuality. M.E.M. Davis, “At La Glorieuse”; Ellen Glasgow, “The Past”; Mrs. Wilson Woodrow, “Secret Chambers”; Kate Chopin, “Her Letters.”   IV. Madwoman or Madwomen? The Medicalization of the Female. Mary Heaton Vorse, “The Second Wife”; Harriet Prescott Spofford, “Her Story”;  Josephine Daskam Bacon, “The Gospel”; Helen R. Hull, “Clasy-Shuttered Doors.” V. Shades of Discontent: Widows and Spinsters. Anne Page, “Lois Benson’s Love Story”; Annie Trumbull Slosson, “A Dissatisfied Soul”; Gertrude Morton, “Mistress Marian’s Light”; Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, “Luella Miller.”  

MCGRATH, Patrick and Bradford MORROW, eds. The New Gothic: A Collection of Contemporary Gothic Fiction. [GGII: 1453]. 

OATES, Joyce Carol, ed. “Introduction” (pp. 1-9). To American Gothic Tales. Plume/Penguin, 1996. Forty-six tales covering the American Gothic spectrum from Charles Brockden Brown to such moderns as Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Peter Straub, Ann Rice, and Harlan Ellison. Many of these stories are anthologized for the first time. Contents: Charles Brockden Brown, from Wieland; or, The Transformation; Washington Irving, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”; Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Man of Adamant” and “Young Goodman Brown”; Herman Melville, “The Tartarus of Maids”; Edgar Allan Poe, “The Black Cat”; Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”; Henry James, “The Romance of Certain Old Clothes”; Ambrose Bierce, “The Damned Thing”; Edith Wharton, “Afterward”; Gertrude Atherton, “The Striding Place”; Sherwood Anderson, “Death in the Woods”; H.P. Lovecraft, “The Outsider”; William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily”; August Derleth, “The Lonesome Place”; E.B. White, “The Door”; Shirley Jackson, “The Lovely House”; Paul Bowles, “Allal”; Isaac Bashevis Singer, “The Reencounter”; William Goyen, “In the Icebound Hothouse”; John Cheever, “The Enormous Radio”; Ray Bradbury, “The Veldt”; W.S. Merwin, “The Dachau Shoe,” “The Approved,” “Spiders I Have Known,” and “Postcards from the Maginot Line”; Sylvia Plath, “Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams”; Robert Coover, “In Bed One Night”; Ursula K. Le Guin, “Schrödinger’s Cat”; E.L. Doctorow, “The Waterworks”; Harlan Ellison, “Shattered Like a Glass Goblin”; Don De Lillo, “Human Moments in World War III”; John L’heureux, “The Anatomy of Desire”; Raymond Carver, “Little Things”; Joyce Carol Oates, “The Temple”; Anne Rice, “Freniere”; Peter Straub, “A Short Guide to the City”; Steven Millhauser, “In the Penny Arcade”; Stephen King, “The Reach”; Charles Johnson, “Exchange Value”; John Crowley, “Snow”; Thomas Ligotti, “The Last Feast of Harlequin”; Breece D’j Pancake, “Time and Again”; Lisa Tuttle, “Replacements”; Melissa Pritchard, “Spirit Seizures”;  Nancy Etchemendy, “Cat in Glass”; Bruce McAllister, “The Girl Who Loved Animals”; Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg, “Ursus Triad, Later”; Katherine Dunn, “The Nuclear Family: His Talk, Her Teeth”; Nicholson Baker, “Subsoil.”

SEON, Manley and Gogo LEWIS. Ladies of the Gothic: Tales of Romance and Terror Told by the Gentle Sex. [GGI: 2187]. 

SHELBY, Eugene F., ed. Gothic Alaskan and Other Stories: Bad Horror from the Dark Subcontinent. Foreword by B.J. Shelby. San Jose, CA, New York, Lincoln, NE, Shanghai: Writers Club Press/iUniverse.com., 2000. In the foreword, the sister of the author introduces the stories with this comment: “In this book, my brother has combined horror, humor and a very different form of science fiction, creating a collection of unique and diverse stories that frequently include the Alaskan theme he loves so much.” Those who can imagine Jack London as a rock star or Robert W. Service singing the blues should relish this volume. Contents all by Eugene Forrest Shelby): 1. “Sleeping with the Squirrels”; 2. “Worst-Case Scenario”; 3. “Night Diver”; 4. “Stampede”; 5. “One of One”; 6. “The Antisanta”; 7. “River Sharks”; 8. “Camp Siberia”; 9. “Wolf-poodles”; 10. “Snuggles”; 11. “The Frankenplant”; 12. “Some Enchanted Evening." 

SIMPSON, Lewis P., ed. 3 by 3: Masterworks of the Southern Gothic. [GGII: 1454]. 

SINGER, Kurt D., ed. The Gothic Reader: Outstanding Tales of Menace, Mystery, and Romantic Suspense. New York: Ace Books, 1966. From the back cover: “These  tales of Gothic romance and suspense, brilliantly executed by the foremost writers of the genre, are for those discerning readers who dare to venture into the world of star-crossed lovers and living nightmares; a world where evil hides in the shadowy corners of the dark old houses it inhabits. Contents: 1. Dorothy Eden, “Shadow in Beige”; 2. Marie Belloc Lowndes, “The Duenna”; 3. Daphne du Maurier, “The Alibi”; 4. Clemence Dane, “Spinsters’ Rest”; 5. August Derleth, “Mrs. Lanisfree”; 6. May Sinclair, “The Villa Désirée”; 7. Hugh Walpole, “Mrs. Lunt”;  8. Enid Bagnold, “The Amorous Ghost”; 9. Algernon Blackwood, “Chemical”; 10. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, “Schalken the Painter.” Singer edited a second collection in 1974 under the title Kurt Singer’s Gothic Horror Book (London and New York: W. H. Allen, 1974). Contents: Edgar Allan Poe, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar”; Joseph Conrad, “Amy Foster”; Rudyard Kipling, “They”; J.S. Le Fanu, “Green Tea”; G.B.Tuttle, “The Roc Raid”; A.H. Verrill, “The Plague of the Living Dead.”

SKARDA, Patricia L. and Nora Crow JAFFE., eds. The Evil Image: Two Centuries of Gothic Short Fiction. [GGI: 1094]. 

SPECTOR, Robert D., ed. Seven Masterpieces of Gothic Horror. [GGI: 1096]. 

SPECTOR, Robert D. ed. The Candle and the Tower. [GGII: 1455]. 

SULLIVAN, Jack, ed. Lost Souls: A Collection of English Ghost Stories.[GGII: 1458]. 

SUMMERS, Montague, ed. The Supernatural Omnibus, Being a Collection of Stories of Apparitions, Witchcraft, Werewolves, Diabolism, Necromancy, Satanism, Divination, Sorcery, Goetry, Possession, Occult Doom and Destiny. London: Victor Gollancz, 1931; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1932. Reprinted by Victor Gollancz in 1982. A provocatively arranged anthology collected by one of the masters of the Gothic. From the introduction (pp. 7-36): “The ghost story should be short, simple, and direct. . . .  The best way to appreciate a ghost story is to believe in ghosts. Yet, if one cannot, at least imitate the wittily truthful Madame du Deffand, who, when asked, ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ replied: ‘No, but I am afraid of them.’” Contents: PART I. HAUNTINGS AND HORROR; MALEFIC HAUNTINGS: MIXED TYPES: 1. J. Sheridan Le Fanu, “Narrative of the Ghost of a Hand”; 2. J. Sheridan Le Fanu, “An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street”; 3. Evelyn Nesbit, “Man-Size in Marble”; 4. Bram Stoker, “The Judge’s House”; 5. Perceval Landon, “Thurnley Abbey.” HAUNTING AND DISEASE: 6. E. and H. Heron, “The Story of the Spaniards, Hammersmith.” MALEVOLENT MYSTERY: 7. Amelia B. Edwards, “The Phantom Coach”; 8. Amyas Northcote, “Brickett Bottom.” FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE:  9. Miss Braddon, “The Cold Embrace”; 10. Amelia B. Edwards, “How the Third Floor New the Potteries”; 11. Rosa Mulholland, “Not to be Taken at Bed-time”; 12. Charles Dickens, “To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt”; 13. Charles Dickens, “The Signalman”; 14. Charles Collins, “The Compensation House”; 15. Amelia B. Edwards, “The Engineer.” THE UNDEAD DEAD: 16. Vincent O’Sullivan, “When I Was Dead”; 17. E. and H. Heron, “The Story of Yand Manor House.” THE DEAD RETURN IN RETRIBUTION: 18. Vincent O’Sullivan, “The Business of Madame Jahn.” THE DEAD RETURN IN LOVE OR PASSION: 19. Vernon Lee, “Amour Dure”; 20. Vernon Lee, “Oke of Okehurst”; 21. Miss Braddon, “Eveline’s Visitant.” THE DEAD RETURN: A VOW FULFILLED: 22. Evelyn Nesbit, “John Carrington’s Wedding.” A SOUL FROM PURGATORY: 23. Roger Pater, “De Profundis.” SHADOWED DESTINY: 24. Wilkie Collins, “The Dream Woman.” PART II: DIABOLISM, WITCHCRAFT, AND EVIL LORE; BLACK MAGIC: 25. Richard Barham, “Singular Passage in the Life of the Late Henry Harris, Doctor in Divinity”; 26. Jasper John, “The Spirit of Stonehenge”; 27. Jasper John, “The Seeker of Souls.” SATANISM: 28. Roger Pater, “The Astrologer’s Legacy.” WITCHCRAFT: 29. Amelia B. Edwards, “My Brother’s Ghost Story.” CONTRACTS WITH THE DEMON: 30. J. Sheridan  Le Fanu, “Sir Dominick’s Bargain”; 31. Vincent O’Sullivan, “The Bargain of Rupert Orange.” THE VAMPIRE: 32. J. Sheridan Le Fanu, “Carmilla.” THE WEREWOLF: 33. Frederick Marryat, “The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains.” POSSESSION: 34. Roger Pater, “A Porta Inferi.” OBSESSION: 35. Richard Barham, Jery Jarvis’s Wig”; 36. John Guinan, “The Watcher o’ the Dead.” VOODOO: 37. E. and H. Heron, “The Story of Konnor Old House”; 38. W.B. Seabrook, “Toussel’s Pale Bride." 

SUMMERS, Montague, ed. The Grimoire and Other Supernatural Stories. London: Fortune Press, 1936. A sort of companion volume to Summers’s Supernatural Omnibus. Contains Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s, “Schalken the Painter,” Charles Ollier’s “The Haunted House of Paddington,” Alexander Pushkin”s “The Queen of Spades,” and Mrs. Hartley’s “Chantry Manor-House.” 

TERRY, Elizabeth and Terri HARDIN, eds. American Gothic: Tales from the Dark Heart of the Country. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1997. Has an introduction, “Landscapes of Darkness” (pp. ix-xiv) that remarks that “American fiction reflects the need to assign tangibility to the intangible. . . .  [Just] about any of the scenarios in American Gothic could really happen.” Contents: PART I; BEING WATCHED AND WATCHING; Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Giant Wistaria”; Joanna E. Wood, “Malhalla’s Revenge”; Ambrose Bierce, “The Eyes of the Panther”; Anonymous, “The Right-Hand Road”; John G. Whittier, “The Haunted House”; J. Warren Newcomb, Jr., “Three Nights in a Haunted House”; George Lippard, “A Night in Monk Hall” (from The Quaker City); E.P. King, “A Story of the White Mountain Notch.” PART II; BLURRED VISIONS; Kate Chopin, “Désirée’s Baby”; Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown”; Stephen Crane, “An Illusion in Red and White”; Philander Deming, “Lost”; George Washington Cable, “Jean-Ah Pocquelin”; Washington Irving, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”; PART III: MIRROR IMAGES; Robert Chambers, “The Yellow Sign”; Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Hollow of the Three Hills”; William Dean Howells, “Though One Rose from the Dead”; Rebecca Harding Davis, “A Story of a Shadow”; Edgar Allan Poe, “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains.” PART IV: THE INWARD GAZE; Edith Wharton, “Mrs. Manstrey’s View”; Stephen Crane, “Manacled”; Anonymous, “A Strange Death”; Fitz-James O’Brien, “The Diamond Lens”; Harriet Prescott Spofford, “Her Story”; Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wall-Paper." 

THOMPSON, G.R., ed. Romantic Gothic Tales, 1790-1840. [GGI: 0190]. 

TROTT, Nicola, ed. Gothic Novels: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997. Nine hundred pages of Gothic fiction supplemented by reviews, headnotes and introductions. Presents six key texts spanning the evolution of the Gothic genre: Walpole’s Castle of Otranto, Reeve’s Old English Baron, Beckford’s Vathek, Radcliffe’s Romance of the Forest, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Maturin’s “Tale of the Spaniard” from Melmoth the Wanderer. Since the anthology is designed for undergraduate courses, the omission of Lewis’s Monk (or at least excerpts from it) is a marked flaw. 

UNSIGNED. A Gothic Treasury of the Supernatural; The Castle of Otranto, Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dracula, The Turn of the Screw. London: Leopard Books, 1996. The dust cover serves as an introduction with brief remarks on the six novels. “These six Gothic  classics of the supernatural, by great writers who are masters of the macabre, provide new insights––and heightened terrors––with each reading. 

VARMA, Devendra P., ed. Voices from the Vaults: Authentic Tales of Vampires and Ghosts. [GGII: 1459]. 

WAGENKNECHT, Edward, ed. Six Novels of the Supernatural. [GGI: 2195]. 

WEBB, Wendy and Charles L. GRANT, eds.  Gothic Ghosts. New York: Tor Books, 1997. Contents: Carrie Richerson, “Nuestra Señora”; Jessica Amanda Salmonson, “A Mirror for Eyes of Winter”; Brad Strickland, “In the Clearing”; Stuart Palmer, “Cinder Child”; Thomas S. Roche, “The Place of Memories”; Thomas Smith, “The Hart is a Determined Hunter”; Rick Hautala, “Worst Fears”; Paul Collins and Rick Kennet, “The Willcroft Inheritance”;  Brian Stableford “Seers”; Matthew J. Costello, “Unexpected Attraction”; Kathryn Ptacek, “Mi Casa”; Nancy Holder, “Syngamy”; Thomas E. Fuller, “Haunted by the Living (Opelike, 1928)”; P.D. Cacek, “Dust Motes”; Robert E. Vandeman, “Spectral Line”; Russell J. Handelman, “And the City Unfamiliar”; Esther M. Friesner, “Won’t You Take Me Dancing?” Lucy Taylor, “Visitation”; James S. Door, “Victorians.” From Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 1997: “Anthology of nineteen new ghostly tales, although few whomp up any sort of Gothic atmosphere or induce shivers. The more effective tales: Brian Stableford’s ‘Seers,’ about an old woman imprisoned by the ghosts she sees even though they can’t physically affect her; ‘Unexpected Attraction,’ a rather waggish tale of a duped lover gaining his revenge upon a conniving ghost; and the one genuinely haunting piece here, Russell J. Handelman’s ‘And the City Unfamiliar,’ about the motives and perceptions of a ghost who, pathetically, doesn’t realize that he is a ghost. Elsewhere the offerings are more or less standard. 

WETZEL, George T., ed. Gothic Horror and Other Weird Tales. [GGII: 1460]. 

WHEATLEY, Dennis, ed. A Century of Horror Stories. London: Hutchinson, 1935. Long out-of-print, but still an excellent array of selections. Contents: Algernon Blackwood, “Ancient Sorceries”; Margaret Oliphant, “The Open Door”; Saki [H.H. Munro], “The Music on the Hill”; Arthur Machen, “The Great God Pan”;  H.G. Wells, “The Red Room”;  Thomas Inglesby, “The Leech of Folkestone”; Edgar Allan Poe, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar”;  F. Marion Crawford, “The Dead Smile”; M.R. James, “The Treasure of Abbot Thomas”; Ambrose Bierce, “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”;  Hugh Walpole, “The Silver Mask”;  Bram Stoker, “The Judge’s House”; Walter de la Mare, “All Hallows”;  W.H. Hodgson, “The Whistling Room”;  Dennis Wheatley, “The Snake”;  Ex-Private x [A.M. Burrage], “Smee”; Ex-Private x, “One Who Saw”;  Martin Armstrong, “The Pipe-Smoker”;  John Metcalfe, “Mr. Meldrum’s Mania”;  Theodore Dreiser, “The Hand”;  H.T.W. Bousfield, “The Unknown Island”; Margaret Irwin, “The Earlier Service”;  Guy Endore, “Lazarus Returns”; F. Tennyson Jesse, “The Canary”;  William Younger, “The Angelus”;  Blanche Bane Kuder, “From What Strange Land?” Sir Hugh Clifford, “The Ghoul”; T.F. Powys, “The House with the Echo”;  Mark Channing, “The Feet”;  Louis Golding, “The Call of the Hand”;  Bernard Bromage, “The House”; Thomas Burke, “The Bird”; W.H. Hodgson, “The Derelict." 

WILLIAMSON, J.N., ed. Masques: All New Works of Horror and the Supernatural. [GGII: 1461]. 

WISCHHUSEN, Stephen, ed. The Hour of One: Six Gothic Melodramas. [GGI: 1082]. 

WISE, Herbert A. and Phyllis FRASER. eds. Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural. [GGI: 1100]. 

WOLF, Jack C. and Barbara H. WOLF, eds. Tales of the Occult. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Crest, 1975. The introduction (pp. 13-17) explains the grouping of the stories into four categories and notes that “The current surge of interest in the occult is not just a turn of the wheel in the cycles of literary taste.” Contents: I. Secret Societies and Cults; Rudyard Kipling, “The Mark of the Beast”; Algernon Blackwood, “Secret Worship”; Henry S. Whitehead, “The People of Pan”; Margaret Irwin, “Earlier Service”; Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown”; Arthur Machen, “Strange Occurrence in Clerkenwell.” II. Witchcraft and Magic; Montague R. James, “Casting the Runes”; Sax Rohmer, “In the Valley of the Sorceress”; Henry James, “De Grey: A Romance”; Washington Irving, “The Legend of the Arabian Astrologer.” III. Spiritualism; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “Playing with Fire”; Guy de Maupassant, “Was it a Dream?” Arthur Quiller-Couch, “Not Here, O Apollo! A Christmas Story Heard at Midsummer.” IV. Prophecy: O. Henry, “Phoebe”; H.G. Wells, “The Door in the Wall”; Robert Chambers, “The Yellow Sign”; H.H. Munro (“Saki”), “The Cobweb”; Karel Kapek, “The Fortune Teller.”

WOLF, Leonard, ed. Blood Thirst: 100 Years of Vampire Fiction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. From the introduction: “[I]n mainstream horror, the reader’s interest is focused on the variety of gruesome ways  in which human lives are threatened, tormented, or ended. But vampire fiction . . . exerts an amazing pull on readers for a reason that we may find disturbing . . . [A]ny vampire fiction has blood as its primary metaphor.” Contents: I. THE CLASSIC ADVENTURE TALE: 1. Lafcadio Hearn, “The Story of Chugoro”; 2. M.R. James, “Count Magnus”; 3. F. Marion Crawford, “For the Blood Is the Life”; 4. August Derleth, “The Drifting Snow”; 5. Stephen King, “‘Salem’s Lot.” II, THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VAMPIRE: 6. Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman, “Luella Miller”; 7. Algernon Blackwood, “The Transfer”;  8. Fritz Leiber, “The Girl With Hungry Eyes”;  9. John Cheever, “Torch Song”;  10. Joyce Carol Oates, “Bellefleur (excerpt)”;  III. THE SCIENCE FICTION VAMPIRE: 11. C.L. Moore, “Shambleau”; 12. Whitley Strieber, “The Hunger (excerpt)”; 13. Richard Matheson, “I Am Legend (excerpt)”; 14. Leslie Roy Carter, “Vanishing Breed”;  15. Suzy McKee Charnas, “Unicorn Tapestry”; 16. Susan Casper, “A Child of Darkness.” IV. THE NON-HUMAN VAMPIRE: 17. Hanns Heinz Ewers, “The Spider”; 18. E.F. Benson, “Negotium Perambulans”;  19. Roger Zelazny, “The Stainless Steel Leech”; 20. Tanith Lee, “Bite-Me-Not or, Fleur de Feu.” V. THE COMIC VAMPIRE: 21. Frederic Brown, “Blood”; 22. Charles Beaumont, “Blood Brother”; 23. Woody Allen, “Count Dracula”;  VI. THE HEROIC VAMPIRE: 24. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, “Hotel Transylvania (excerpt)”; 25. Anne Rice, “The Master of Rampling Gate”; 26. Edward Bryant, “Good Kids”; 27. Laura Anne Gilman, “Exposure.”