Thursday, October 20, 2011

Informal Poll of the Best Horror Short Stories





Before I countdown the Top 10 ghost stories for the first half of the 19th century, I started a discussion at the Kindle forums for people's favorite horror short stories. Here is the list, in no particular order:

Edgar Allan Poe: The Black Cat (2), The Cask of Amontillado (4), The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, The Pit and the Pendulum
Washington Irving: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Algernon Blackwood: The Willows (2)
Robert Chambers: The King in Yellow, The Yellow Sign
Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Yellow Wallpaper
Neil Gaiman: Don't Ask Jack, October in the Chair
Clive Barker: The Body Politic, Hellbound Heart
Shirley Jackson: The Summer People (2), The Lottery
Mary E Wilkins: The Wind in the Rose-Bush
Joyce Carol Oates: Night-Side
Robert Bloch: Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper, The Night Before Christmas
Ray Bradbury: The Crowd, The Veldt
Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Haunters and the Haunted
Theodore Sturgeon: Vengeance is
Peter Straub: A Short Guide to the City
Cortozar: House Taken Over
E.F. Benson: The Room in the Tower
George R.R. Martin: Sandkings
Stephen King: Quitters Inc. (2), Mrs. Todd's Shortcut (2), Crouch End (2), Breathing Method, One for the Road, The Reaper's Image, The Reach, The Mangler, Rainy Season, The Ledge, The Jaunt, Survivor Type, The Mist, Sundog
James Everington: A Writer's Words, The Other Room
Jeffrey Deaver: Beautiful
H.P. Lovecraft: In The Vault, The Call of Cthulhu, The Colour out of Space (2), Dreams in the Witch House, The Outsider, The Music of Eric Zann, Shadow Over Innsmouth
Arthur Machen: The Great God Pan (2), Haunter of the Dark
R.L. Stevenson: The Merry Men
Charles Grant: This Old Man, The Garden of Blackred Roses
T.E.D. Klein: Children of the Kingdom
Sheridan Le Fanu: Carmilla, Green Tea
Nathaniel Hawthorne: Young Goodman Brown, The Minister's Black Veil
Robert E. Howard: Pigeons From Hell
A.M. Burrage: The Waxwork
H.R. Wakefield: He Cometh and He Passeth By
Ramsey Campbell: The Guide, The Companion (2)
M. R. James: Oh Whistle and I'll Come to you My Lad, The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral, Count Magnus
L. M. Boston: Curfew
Roger Johnson: The Wall Painting
R. H. Malden: The Sundial
Michael Shea: The Autopsy
Robert Aickman: The School Friend, Into the Wood, The Swords
Guy N Smith: Last Train
Nigel Kneale: Minuke
Ken Aldman: The Papal Magician
John Collier: Evening Primrose
Roald Dahl: Slaughter, Pig
F. Paul Wilson: Soft
Orson Scott Card: Eumenides, In The Fourth Floor Lavatory
Peter Watts: The Things
William Hope Hodgson: The House on the Borderland, The Voice in the Night

You can few of these scary stories in The Best Horror Stories Anthology that I edited, which was a finalist in the anthology category of the Indie Book Awards.

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