List
Beginner's Guide to Horror: Staff-Favorite Classics
Staff recommend their favorite classic horror novels.
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Misery
2016 by King, StephenGet this itemInitially, I read Stephen King because a college friend told me he was a good writer. I doubted that I would like his books because I wasn't a fan of horror movies. I started with the psychological thriller Misery. King's vivid, detailed descriptions and well-developed characters hooked me. Main characters Paul and Annie are complicated and drowning in anger, obsession, and addiction; King carefully unfolds their trauma in gruesome and terrifying passages. Suggested by Michelle.
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The House Next Door
1995 by Siddons, Anne RiversGet this itemAnne River Siddons has a long and prolific literary career. This is the only horror novel she wrote, but it’s a doozy! Stephen King himself called this haunted house story one of the best genre novels of the 20th century. It's creepy and haunting, and 20 years after reading it, I still get shivers thinking about it. Suggested by Lynnanne.
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The Turn of the Screw: Authoritative Text, Contexts, Criticism
1999 by James, HenryGet this itemOne of the most iconic--and most adapted--of all haunted house stories is also the most divisive. 124 years later, people are still arguing about whether the "depraved" supernatural force menacing two children exists outside the mind of their unnamed governess, whose perspective is the only one the reader has. Intentionally or not, James created a distorted mirror where every generation sees its own ideas and preoccupations reflected. And if that isn't horror, what is? Suggested by Andrew.
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The Amityville Horror
2019 by Anson, JayGet this itemI read this one when I was younger and it really stuck with me. I think it especially stuck because it was based on alleged actual events. I started reading it one evening and was quick to discover that I could only finish it if I read it in the daylight! Suggested by Cheryl.
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The Haunting of Hill House
1984 by Jackson, ShirleyGet this itemThis book has the best opening paragraph in the history of the genre. But what has made The Haunting of Hill House withstand the test of time is the sustained dread that builds up as it becomes clear that everything from the architecture of the title mansion to the behavior of the characters sojourning there is somehow...off. Every adaptation has tried to clarify what Jackson left in shadow, and been poorer for it. Suggested by Andrew.
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Wait Till Helen Comes
1986 by Hahn, Mary DowningGet this itemAlongside Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and Goosebumps was Wait Till Helen Comes. I read this book more than 30 years ago, and I still think about it sometimes. It is the quintessential ghost book for me and was (probably) the first horror I ever read. Try not to judge this book by its truly terrible 1986 cover. Suggested by Becca.
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Something Wicked This Way Comes
2017 by Bradbury, RayGet this itemBradbury spawned whole subgenres of horror with this 1962 novel about two boys who see through the Faustian bargains a traveling carnival offers their town's adults. A classic of young adult literature that everyone from Stephen King to Neil Gaiman to R.L. Stine has acknowledged as a major influence on their work. Suggested by Andrew.
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Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: Collected from Folklore
2010 by Schwartz, AlvinGet this itemI started reading horror in elementary school when we would all take turns checking out Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories series with spooktastic illustrations by Stephen Gammell. "The Viper" remains a favorite to tell over the campfire. Suggested by Liz.
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Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
2010 by James, M. R. (Montague Rhodes)Get this itemI first encountered M.R. James when "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" was on the syllabus for a college course on Edwardian literature. James pretty much defined the "classic" English ghost story. He was a master of wrapping the genuinely unsettling in twee packaging. The supernatural creatures that haunt his work lose none of their shudder-inducing power for being only vaguely described. The eight tales collected here are well worth any horror lover's time--though those with arachnophobia might want to avoid "The Witch-elm". Suggested by Andrew.
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The Picture of Dorian Gray
2017 by Wilde, OscarGet this itemThere are those who will try to exclude this classic from the horror genre merely because it is not just a horror story. They are wrong. Dorian Gray offers up his soul in exchange for keeping his youth and beauty through a lifetime of cruel pleasure seeking, with his portrait showing the advancing physical and spiritual rot. An "uncensored" edition released in 2011 restored much of the queer subtext that Wilde's publisher had forced him to remove 120 years earlier. Suggested by Andrew.
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The Woman in Black: A Ghost Story
1986 by Hill, SusanGet this itemFears increase when a person is alone. Susan Hill makes excellent use of this truism by isolating the Victorian protagonist of her traditional ghost story in a spooky mansion that’s regularly cut off by the tide. What follows is a triumph of the less-is-more school of slowly building terror. Suggested by Steven.
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