Best Horror Novels

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTIONHorror is a genre of speculative fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, disgust, or startle its readers by inducing feelings of horror and terror. It shocks, or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing. It creates an eerie and frightening atmosphere. Horror is frequently supernatural, though it might also be non-supernatural. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for the larger fears of a society.

This book is a special collection of best horror novels of all time. Plunge into this frightening atmosphere in order to release your fear.

Here they are :

CARMILLA by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

CURIOUS, IF TRUE: STRANGE TALES by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

DRACULA by Bram Stoker

FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley

STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE by Robert Louis Stevenson

THE BURIAL OF THE RATS by Bram Stoker

THE DUNWICH HORROR by Howard Phillips Lovecraft

THE EMPTY HOUSE AND OTHER GHOST STORIES by Algernon Blackwood

THE GREAT GOD PAN by Arthur Machen

THE HOUSE OF THE VAMPIRE by George Sylvester Viereck

THE KING IN YELLOW by Robert William Chambers

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW by Washington Irving

THE MAGICIAN by W. Somerset Maugham

THE METAMORPHOSIS by Franz Kafka

THE NIGHT LAND by William Hope Hodgson

THE RAVEN by Edgar Allan Poe

THE SHADOW OUT OF TIME by Howard Phillips Lovecraft

THE TELL-TALE HEART by Edgar Allan Poe

THE VAMPIRE MAID by Hume Nisbet

THE YELLOW WALLPAPER by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A well-formatted, easy-to-read book suitable for any e-reader, tablet or computer. The reader will go from one section to another one as quick as possible.

Enjoy your reading!

CARMILLA by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

About Le Fanu

Sheridan Le Fanu was born at No. 45 Lower Dominick Steet,

Dublin, into a literary family of Huguenot origins. Both his

grandmother Alicia Sheridan Le Fanu and his great-uncle Richard

Brinsley Sheridan were playwrights. His niece Rhoda Broughton would

become a very successful novelist. Within a year of his birth his

family moved to the Royal Hibernian Military School in Phoenix

Park, where his father, an Anglican clergyman, was the chaplain of

the establishment. Phoenix Park and the adjacent village and parish

church of Chapelizod were to feature in Le Fanu's later stories.

Le

Fanu studied law at Trinity College in Dublin, where he was elected

Auditor of the College Historical Society. He was called to the bar

in 1839, but he never practised and soon abandoned law for

journalism. In 1838 he began contributing stories to the Dublin

University Magazine, including his first ghost story, entitled "A

Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter" (1839). He

became owner of several newspapers from 1840, including the Dublin

Evening Mail and the Warder. In 1844 Le Fanu married Susanna

Bennett, the daughter of a leading Dublin barrister. In 1847 he

supported John Mitchell and Thomas Meagher in their campaign

against the indifference of the Government to the Irish Famine. His

support cost him the nomination as Tory MP for County Carlow in

1852. His personal life also became difficult at this time, as his

wife Susanna suffered from increasing neurotic symptoms.

She died

in 1858 in unclear circumstances, and anguished excerpts from Le

Fanu's diaries suggest that he felt guilt as well as loss. However,

it was only after her death that, becoming something of a recluse,

he devoted himself full time to writing. In 1861 he became the

editor and proprietor of the Dublin University Magazine and he

began exploiting double exposure: serializing in the Dublin

University Magazine and then revising for the English market. The

House by the Churchyard and Wylder's Hand were both published in

this way. After the lukewarm reviews of the former novel, set in

the Phoenix Park area of Dublin, Le Fanu signed a contract with

Richard Bentley, his London publisher, which specified that future

novels be stories "of an English subject and of modern times", a

step Bentley thought necessary in order for Le Fanu to satisfy the

English audience.

Le Fanu succeeded in this aim in 1864, with the

publication of Uncle Silas, which he set in Derbyshire. In his very

last short stories, however, Le Fanu returned to Irish folklore as

an inspiration and encouraged his friend Patrick Kennedy to

contribute folklore to the D.U.M. Le Fanu died in his native Dublin

on February 7, 1873. Today there is a road in Ballyfermot, near his

childhood home in south-west Dublin, named after him.