Best Classic Horror Books

The Crawling Chaos

by Lovecraft, H. P.

Some of H. P. Lovecraft's most fascinating work came from a time in his life that he was forced, by economic survival, to ghostwrite, collaborate and revise the work of others in the field. Here Lovecraft Scholar S. T. J...

The Picture of Dorian Gray

by Wilde, Oscar

**The Picture of Dorian Gray** is a philosophical novel by Irish writer Oscar Wilde. A shorter novella-length version was published in the July 1890 issue of the American periodical *Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine*. The n...

Interview With the Vampire

by by Anne Rice

In a remote room in a large city, a young reporter sits face-to-face with his most astonishing subject: a onetime New Orleans gentleman plantation owner who, in vividly terrifying and haunting detail, recalls his centuri...

I Am Legend

by Matheson, Richard

This is the story that influenced the zombie genre and popularized the concept of a worldwide zombie apocalypse. Robert Neville is the last human on the earth. He is immune to a virus that either killed people or turned...

The Shining

by King, Stephen

Disclaimer: Avoid King books if you're sensitive to the overuse of adverbs. Second disclaimer: The movie and the book are quite different, but neither will ruin you for the other since they're both excellent.King has spo...

The Girl Next Door

by Jack Ketchum

The Great God Pan

by Arthur Machen

Arthur Machen's first book, THE GREAT GOD PAN, published in 1894, is still one of the greatest works of weird horror and decadence ever produced. Arthur Machen with his taste for the bizarre and macabre, unfurls the tale...

October Country

by Bradbury, Ray

"The October Country is many places: a picturesque Mexican village where death is a tourist attraction; a city beneath the city where drowned lovers are silently reunited; a carnival midway where a tiny man's most cheris...

The Masque of the Red Death

by Edgar Allen Poe

Frankenstein

by Shelley, Mary

While not “strictly” a steampunk, this is one of the first science fiction novels, the ultimate science-gone-wrong story, and Victor Frankenstein is the quintessential mad-scientist, harnessing the power of a storm to cr...

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

by Washington Irving

A superstitious schoolmaster, in love with a wealthy farmer's daughter, has a terrifying encounter with a headless horseman.

The Exorcist

by William Peter Blatty

The Exorcist is a 1971 horror novel by American writer William Peter Blatty. The book details the demonic possession of eleven-year-old Regan MacNeil, the daughter of a famous actress, and the two priests who attempt to...

The Golem

by Gustav Meyrink

A masterpiece of surreal fantasy. The protagonist, called Athanasius Pernath is flung from the present, to the past, from one nightmare situation where the characters he meets have no link with anyon else. Underlying all...

The Turn of the Screw

by Henry James

The governess of two enigmatic children fears their souls are in danger from the ghosts of the previous governess and her sinister lover.

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Mr. Gabriel Utterson is a serious, austere lawyer living a humdrum life in Victorian London. Yet there is a strange clause in his friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll's will: should he disappear for more than 3 months, everything wi...

Rosemary's Baby

by Ira Levin

The genre-defining classic that ushered in the era of modern horror One of the best-selling books of all time, Rosemary’s Baby is a foundational work of suspense and psychological horror which remains as powerful and chi...

Carmilla

by Fanu, Joseph Sheridan Le

Widely regarded as a classic addition to vampire fiction, 'Carmilla' is usually referred to as a novella rather than a full-length book. However, despite its short length, this captivating story is deserving of a plac...

The Haunting of Hill House

by Shirley Jackson

First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House:...

The Amityville Horror

by Jay Anson

The Amityville Horror is a book by American author Jay Anson, published in September 1977. It is also the basis of a series of films released from 1979 onward. The book is claimed to be based on the paranormal experience...

The Day Of The Triffids

by John Wyndham

In Billion Year Spree, his epic history of science fiction, Brian Aldiss coined the term "cosy catastrophe" for the sorts of novels that John Wyndham wrote. Well, they are certainly catastrophes, but they are far from...

Cape Fear

by John D. MacDonald

**MAJOR APPLE TV SERIES!** starring Amy Adams and Javier Bardem 'The great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller' - Stephen King A dark, psychological thriller, first published in 1957 as The Executioners...