This is a collection of eight ghost stories, written by the remarkably prolific husband and wife team of Claude and Alice Askew, centering on Aylmer Vance, an investigator of the supernatural. Dexter, the narrator, meets Vance during a fishing holiday and Vance tells him three ghost stories on successive nights, each story involving Vance more closely in the action. The fourth story brings Dexter himself into the action, and reveals him to have unsuspected clairvoyant powers. The remaining stories feature Vance and Dexter as a sort of Holmes-and-Watson team investigating incidents not all of which prove to have supernatural causes. The final story, "The Fear" is very effective, describing a house in which a general feeling of extreme fear grips the inhabitants at various times and locations; the emotion of fear is effectively evoked and an interesting tale is constructed as Vance and Dexter work to assign the fear "a local habitation and a name".

Even in the twenty-first century, the undead walk among us... Before Twilight and True Blood, vampires haunted the nineteenth century, when brilliant writers indulged their bloodthirsty imaginations, culminating in Bram Stoker's legendary 1897 novel, Dracula. Acclaimed author and anthologist Michael Sims brings together the finest vampire stories of the Victorian era in a unique collection that highlights their cultural variety. Beginning with the supposedly true accounts that captivated Byron and Shelley, the stories range from Aleksei Tolstoy's tale of a vampire family to Fitz James O'Brien's invisible monster to Mary Elizabeth Braddon's rich and sinister widow, Good Lady Ducayne. Sims also includes a nineteenth-century travel tour of Transylvanian superstitions, and finishes the collection with Stoker's own Dracula's Guest - a chapter omitted from his landmark novel. Vampires captivated Victorian society, and these wonderful stories demonstrate how Romantic and Victorian writers refined the raw ore of peasant superstition into a whole vampire mythology of aristocratic decadence and innocence betrayed.

Occult detectives—sometimes called psychic investigators—have been in vogue since the middle of the 19th century. This collection goes back to the roots of the occult detective story. The earliest story in this collection—Fitz-James O'Brien's "The Pot of Tulips"—originally appeared in 1855. Rare stories by Mary Fortune and Bayard Taylor, famous tales from the end of the 19th century by E. and H. Heron, plus 20th Century stories by Robert E. Howard, Edmond Hamilton, Manly Wade Wellman, Seabury Quinn, and many more round out the book...29 classic tales in all! Included are: THE POT OF TULIPS, by Fitz-James O'Brien WHAT WAS IT? by Fitz-James O'Brien THE HAUNTED SHANTY, by Bayard Taylor Dr. Martin Hesselius in "GREEN TEA," by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu MR JUSTICE HARBOTTLE, by J. Sheridan Le Fanu THE UNINHABITED HOUSE, by Mrs. J. H. Riddell THE PHANTOM HEARSE, by Mary Fortune AYLMER VANCE AND THE VAMPIRE, by Alice and Claude Askew THE DOOR INTO INFINITY, by Edmond Hamilton Carnacki in "THE GATEWAY OF THE MONSTER," by William Hope Hodgson Carnacki in "THE HOUSE AMONG THE LAURELS," by William Hope Hodgson Carnacki in "THE WHISTLING ROOM," by William Hope Hodgson Carnacki in "THE HORSE OF THE INVISIBLE," by William Hope Hodgson Carnacki in "THE SEARCHER OF THE END HOUSE," by William Hope Hodgson Carnacki in "THE THING INVISIBLE," by William Hope Hodgson Flaxman Low in "THE STORY OF SADDLER'S CROFT," by E. and H. Heron Flaxman Low in "THE STORY OF BAELBROW," by E. and H. Heron Flaxman Low in "THE STORY OF YAND MANOR HOUSE," by E. and H. Heron Flaxman Low in "THE STORY OF KONNOR OLD HOUSE," by E. and H. Heron Flaxman Low in "THE STORY OF THE SPANIARDS, HAMMERSMITH," by E. and H. Heron Flaxman Low in "THE STORY OF SEVENS HALL," by E. and H. Heron Steve Harrison in "FANGS OF GOLD," by Robert E. Howard Steve Harrison in "THE TOMB'S SECRET," by Robert E. Howard Steve Harrison in "NAMES IN THE BLACK BOOK," by Robert E. Howard Steve Harrison in "GRAVEYARD RATS," by Robert E. Howard THE HALF-HAUNTED, by Manly Wade Wellman Jules de Grandin in "THE JEST OF WARBURG TANTAVUL," by Seabury Quinn Jules de Grandin in "PLEDGED TO THE DEAD," by Seabury Quinn Jules de Grandin in "INCENSE OF ABOMINATION," by Seabury Quinn And don't forget to search this ebook store for "Wildside Megapack" to see more great entries in this great series, covering mysteries, ghost stories, westerns, science fiction, historical, and much, much more!

A superb collection of some of the greatest tales of the genre; many are classics while others are lesser-known gems unearthed from the vintage era of the supernatural.

The Vampire Archives is the biggest, hungriest, undeadliest collection of vampire stories, as well as the most comprehensive bibliography of vampire fiction ever assembled. Dark, stormy, and delicious, once it sinks its teeth into you there’s no escape. Vampires! Whether imagined by Bram Stoker or Anne Rice, they are part of the human lexicon and as old as blood itself. They are your neighbors, your friends, and they are always lurking. Now Otto Penzler—editor of the bestselling Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps—has compiled the darkest, the scariest, and by far the most evil collection of vampire stories ever. With over eighty stories, including the works of Stephen King and D. H. Lawrence, alongside Lord Byron and Tanith Lee, not to mention Edgar Allan Poe and Harlan Ellison, The Vampire Archives will drive a stake through the heart of any other collection out there. Other contributors include: Arthur Conan Doyle • Ray Bradbury • Ambrose Bierce • H. P. Lovecraft • Harlan Ellison • Roger Zelazny • Robert Bloch • Clive Barker

The detective genre has explored supernatural and paranormal themes throughout its colorful history. Stories of detectives investigating spiritualists, ghostly apparitions, the occult and psychics have spanned pulp fiction magazines, comic books, novels, film, television, animation and video games. This encyclopedia covers the history of the genre in its multiple forms and informs and adds to the knowledge of either the new or informed reader. Its A-Z format provides ready reference by title. Detective fans browsing for new discoveries will enjoy the entertaining style.

Meet the women writers who defied convention to craft some of literature’s strangest tales, from Frankenstein to The Haunting of Hill House and beyond. Frankenstein was just the beginning: horror stories and other weird fiction wouldn’t exist without the women who created it. From Gothic ghost stories to psychological horror to science fiction, women have been primary architects of speculative literature of all sorts. And their own life stories are as intriguing as their fiction. Everyone knows about Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein, who was rumored to keep her late husband’s heart in her desk drawer. But have you heard of Margaret “Mad Madge” Cavendish, who wrote a science-fiction epic 150 years earlier (and liked to wear topless gowns to the theater)? If you know the astounding work of Shirley Jackson, whose novel The Haunting of Hill House was reinvented as a Netflix series, then try the psychological hauntings of Violet Paget, who was openly involved in long-term romantic relationships with women in the Victorian era. You’ll meet celebrated icons (Ann Radcliffe, V. C. Andrews), forgotten wordsmiths (Eli Colter, Ruby Jean Jensen), and today’s vanguard (Helen Oyeyemi). Curated reading lists point you to their most spine-chilling tales. Part biography, part reader’s guide, the engaging write-ups and detailed reading lists will introduce you to more than a hundred authors and over two hundred of their mysterious and spooky novels, novellas, and stories.