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• The Anaconda   by Matthew G. Lewis
  'The Lord in heaven forbid!' exclaimed the old man, while every limb was convulsed with horror, the blood forsook his cheeks, and he clasped his hands in agony;

• Old Applejoy's Ghost   by Frank R. Stockton
  The large and commodious apartments in the upper part of the old Applejoy mansion were occupied exclusively, at the time of our story, by the ghost of the grandfather of the present owner of the estate.

• Aungier Street   by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
  I had never pretended to conceal from poor Tom my superstitious weakness; and he, on the other hand, most unaffectedly ridiculed my tremors. The sceptic was, however, destined to receive a lesson, as you shall hear.

• The Bell in the Fog   by Gertrude Atherton
  He was turning fifty when his great-aunt died and made him her heir: "as a poor reward for his immortal services to literature," read the will of this phenomenally appreciative relative. The estate was a large one. There was a rush for his books; new editions were announced.

• The Body-Snatcher   by Robert Louis Stevenson
  Every night in the year, four of us sat in the small parlour of the George at Debenham--the undertaker, and the landlord, and Fettes, and myself. Sometimes there would be more; but blow high, blow low, come rain or snow or frost, we four would be each planted in his own particular arm-chair.

• The Brick Moon and Other Stories  
  I have no sort of objection now to telling the whole story. The subscribers, of course, have a right to know what became of their money. The astronomers may as well know all about it, before they announce any more asteroids with an enormous movement in declination. And experimenters on the longitude may as well know, so that they may act advisedly in attempting another brick moon or in refusing to do so.

• Carmilla   by J. Sheridan LeFanu
  The forest opens in an irregular and very picturesque glade before its gate, and at the right a steep Gothic bridge carries the road over a stream that winds in deep shadow through the wood. I have said that this is a very lonely place. Judge whether I say truth. Looking from the hall door towards the road, the forest in which our castle stands extends fifteen miles to the right, and twelve to the left.

• The Centaur   by Algernon Blackwood
  THERE are certain persons who, independently of sex or comeliness, arouse an instant curiosity concerning themselves. The tribe is small, but its members unmistakable. They may possess neither fortune, good looks, nor that adroitness of advance-vision which the stupid name good luck; yet there is about them this inciting quality which proclaims that they have overtaken Fate

• The Man Whom the Trees Loved   by Algernon Blackwood
  There was nothing else in the wide world that he could paint; flowers and landscapes he only muddled away into a smudge; with people he was helpless and hopeless; also with animals. Skies he could sometimes manage, or effects of wind in foliage, but as a rule he left these all severely alone. He kept to trees, wisely following an instinct that was guided by love.

• The Transfer   by Algernon Blackwood
  I heard the curious little wail of the child's crying, with the effect, wholly unaccountable, that every nerve in my body shot its bolt electrically, bringing me to my feet with a tingling of unequivocal alarm.

• The Terror of the Twins   by Algernon Blackwood
  Being a man of rigid self-control, however, it operated inwardly, and doubtless along some morbid line of weakness little suspected even by those nearest to him, preying upon his thought to such dreadful extent that finally the mind gave way.

• The Room In The Dragon Volant   by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
  I was exactly three-and-twenty, and had just succeeded to a very large sum in consols and other securities. The first fall of Napoleon had thrown the continent open to English excursionists, anxious, let us suppose, to improve their minds by foreign travel

• The Familiar   by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
  some are simply visionaries, and propagate the illusions of which they complain from diseased brain or nerves. Others are, unquestionably, infested by, as we term them, spiritual agencies, exterior to themselves.

• Mr. Justice Harbottle   by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
  Thirty years ago an elderly man, to whom I paid quarterly a small annuity charged on some property of mine, came on the quarter-day to receive it. He was a dry, sad, quiet man, who had known better days, and had always maintained an unexceptionable character. No better authority could be imagined for a ghost story.

• Running Wolf   by Algernon Blackwood
  The man who enjoys an adventure outside the general experience of the race, and imparts it to others, must not be surprised if he is taken for either a liar or a fool

• The Other Wing   by Algernon Blackwood
  He felt, rather than heard, its presence. It glided quietly away. It moved with marvellous softness, yet he was positive it moved. He felt the difference, so to speak. It had been near him, now it was gone.

• The Occupant of the Room   by Algernon Blackwood
  And in the little hall of the inn there began again a confused three-cornered conversation, with frequent muttered colloquy and whispered asides in patois between the woman and the porter -- the net result of which was

• Max Hensig   by Algernon Blackwood
  He was therefore puzzled and a little disappointed one morning as he saw his inferiors summoned one after another to the news desk to receive the best assignments of the day

• The Listener   by Algernon Blackwood
  All the morning I sit indoors writing -- articles; verses for the comic papers; a novel I've been "at" for three years, and concerning which I have dreams; a children's book, in which the imagination has free rein; and another book which is to last as long as myself

• Keeping His Promise   by Algernon Blackwood
  He was nervous. It would have bothered and pecked at his mind all night long not to know who the visitor was and what he wanted. The only thing to do, therefore, was to let him in

• Carnacki The Ghost Finder   by William Hope Hodgson
  In response to Carnacki's usual card of invitation to have dinner and listen to a story, I arrived promptly at 427, Cheyne Walk, to find the three others who were always invited to these happy little times, there before me. Five minutes later, Carnacki, Arkright, Jessop, Taylor and I were all engaged in the "pleasant occupation" of dining

• Captain Fracasse   by Theophile Gautier
  Two tall towers, with extinguisher tops, mounted guard at the angles of the mansion, and gave it rather a feudal air. The deep grooves upon its facade betrayed the former existence of a draw-bridge, rendered unnecessary now by the filling up of the moat, while the towers were draped for more than half their height with a most luxuriant growth of ivy, whose deep, rich green contrasted happily with the ancient gray walls.

• The Dead and the Countess   by Gertrude Atherton
  It was an old cemetery, and they had been long dead. Those who died nowadays were put in the new burying-place on the hill, close to the Bois d'Amour and within sound of the bells that called the living to mass. But the little church where the mass was celebrated stood faithfully beside the older dead; a new church, indeed, had not been built in that forgotten corner of Finisterre for centuries, not since the calvary on its pile of stones had been raised in the tiny square, surrounded then, as now, perhaps, by gray naked cottages; not since the castle with its round tower, down on the river, had been erected for the Counts of Croisac. But the stone walls enclosing that ancient cemetery had been kept in good repair, and there were no weeds within, nor toppling headstones.

• Death and the Woman   by Gertrude Atherton
  Her husband was dying, and she was alone with him. Nothing could exceed the desolation of her surroundings. She and the man who was going from her were in the third- floor-back of a New York boarding-house. It was summer, and the other boarders were in the country; all the servants except the cook had been dismissed, and she, when not working, slept profoundly on the fifth floor.

• The Evil Guest   by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu
  It lay in the midst of a demesne of considerable extent, and richly wooded with venerable timber; but, apart from the sombre majesty of these giant groups, and the varieties of the undulating ground on which they stood, there was little that could be deemed attractive in the place.

• Green Tea   by J. Sheridan LeFanu
  There is no doubt that Mr. Jennings' health does break down in, generally, a sudden and mysterious way, sometimes in the very act of officiating in his old and pretty church at Kenlis. It may be his heart, it may be his brain. But so it has happened three or four times, or oftener, that after proceeding a certain way in the service, he has on a sudden stopped short, and after a silence, apparently quite unable to resume, he has fallen into solitary, inaudible prayer, his hands and his eyes uplifted,

• The Greatest Good of the Greatest Number   by Gertrude Atherton
  But for one man he cherished an abiding sympathy; to that man he hastened on the slightest summons, as he hastened now. They had been intimate in boyhood; then in later years through mutual respect for each other's high abilities and ambitions.

• Jettatura   by Theophile Gautier
  Their splenetic faces were carefully shaven, their cravats had not a wrinkle, their shirt collars, white and stiff, looked like triangles of Bristol board, their hands were protected by brand-new Suede gloves, and their new boots shone with Lord Elliot's blacking. They looked as if they had just emerged from one of the compartments of their dressing-cases, for in their correct get-up there were visible none of the little disorders of dress which are the usual consequences of travel.

• Let Loose   by Mary Cholmondeley
  I was not then aware that it is not enough to take up art. Art must take you up, too. I never doubted but that my passing enthusiasm for her would be returned. When I discovered that she was a stern mistress, who did not immediately respond to my attentions, I naturally transferred them to another shrine. There are other things in the world besides art. I am now a landscape gardener.

• Maid Marian   by Thomas Love Peacock
  The abbey of Rubygill stood in a picturesque valley, at a little distance from the western boundary of Sherwood Forest, in a spot which seemed adapted by nature to be the retreat of monastic mortification, being on the banks of a fine trout-stream, and in the midst of woodland coverts, abounding with excellent game. The bride, with her father and attendant maidens, entered the chapel; but the earl had not arrived. The baron was amazed, and the bridemaidens were disconcerted.

• The Necromancers   by Robert Hugh Benson
  The girl who sat upright with her hands on her lap was of another type altogether--of that type of which it is impossible to predicate anything except that it makes itself felt in every company. Any respectable astrologer would have had no difficulty in assigning her birth to the sign of the Scorpion.

• The House of the Past   by Algernon Blackwood
  in my heart I became aware of a strange sensation as of the uncoiling of something that had been asleep for ages. My whole being, unable to resist, at once surrended itself to the spirit of deepest melancholy

• The Human Chord   by Algernon Blackwood
  His imagination conceived and bore--worlds; but nothing in these worlds became alive until he discovered its true and living name. The name was the breath of life

• The Garden of Survival   by Algernon Blackwood
  The desire for confession is upon me: this thing must out. It is a story, though an unfinished one. I mention this at once lest, frightened by the thickness of the many pages

• The Goblin's Collection   by Algernon Blackwood
  Dutton began to dress, wondering how the lad had left the impression that his words meant more than they said. He almost wished he had encouraged him to talk.

• First Hate   by Algernon Blackwood
  A wave of repulsion swept over me as I followed him down the room a moment with my eyes, till he took his seat at a distant table and was out of sight.

• Crotchet Castle   by Thomas Love Peacock
  a venerable family mansion, in a highly picturesque state of semi-dilapidation, pleasantly situated on a strip of dry land between the sea and the fens, at the verge of the county of Lincoln, had the honour to be the seat of Christopher Glowry, Esquire. This gentleman was naturally of an atrabilarious temperament, and much troubled with those phantoms of indigestion which are commonly called 'blue devils.'

• The Purcell Papers   by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
  As a mere child, he was a remarkably good actor, both in tragic and comic pieces, and was hardly twelve years old when he began to write verses of singular spirit for one so young. At fourteen, he produced a long Irish poem, which he never permitted anyone but his mother and brother to read.

• The Return   by Walter de la Mare
  And in spite of a peculiar melancholy that had welled up into his mind during these last few days, he had certainly smiled with a faint sense of the irony of things on lifting his eyes in an unusually depressed moodiness to find himself looking down on the shadows and peace of Widderstone.

• Wake Not The Dead   by Johann Ludwig Tieck
  "Wilt thou for ever sleep? Wilt thou never more awake, my beloved, but henceforth repose for ever from thy short pilgrimage on earth? O yet once again return! and bring back with thee the vivifying dawn of hope to one whose existence hath, since thy departure, been obscured by the dunnest shades.

• The Wondersmith   by Fitz-James O'Brien
  A clean street is terribly prosaic. There is no food for thought in carefully swept pavements, barren kennels, and vulgarly spotless houses. But when I go down a street which has been left so long to itself that it has acquired a distinct outward character, I find plenty to think about.

• The Werewolf   by Clemence Housman
  The great farm hall was ablaze with the fire-light, and noisy with laughter and talk and many-sounding work. None could be idle but the very young and the very old -- little Rol, who was hugging a puppy, and old Trella, whose palsied hand fumbled over her knitting.

• Zanoni   by Edward Bulwer Lytton
  With that the old gentleman condescended to enter into a very interesting, and, as it seemed to me, a very erudite relation, of the tenets of the Rosicrucians, some of whom, he asserted, still existed, and still prosecuted, in august secrecy, their profound researches into natural science and occult philosophy.

• The Tractate Middoth   by M. R. James
  Mr Eldred, still a prey to anxiety, betook himself in a cab to Mr Garrett's address, but the young man was not yet in a condition to receive visitors. He was better, but his landlady considered that he must have had a severe shock.

• Wake Not The Dead   by Johann Ludwig Tieck
  Wilt thou for ever sleep? Wilt thou never more awake, my beloved, but henceforth repose for ever from thy short pilgrimage on earth? O yet once again return! and bring back with thee the vivifying dawn of hope to one whose existence hath, since thy departure, been obscured by the dunnest shades.

• The Striding-Place   by Gertrude Atherton
  Weigall, continental and detached, tired early of grouse shooting. To stand propped against a sod fence while his host's workmen routed up the birds with long poles and drove them towards the waiting guns, made him feel himself a parody on the ancestors who had roamed the moors and forests of this West Riding of Yorkshire in hot pursuit of game worth the killing.

• The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral   by M. R. James
  'It might have been augured that an existence so placid and benevolent would have been terminated in a ripe old age by a dissolution equally gradual and calm. But how unsearchable are the workings of Providence! The peaceful and retired seclusion amid which the honoured evening of Dr Haynes's life was mellowing

• Sir Bertrand   by Anne Barbauld
  Sir Bertrand turned his steed towards the woulds, hoping to cross these dreary moors before the curfew. But ere he had proceeded half his journey, he was bewildered by the different tracks, and not being able, as far as the eye could reach, to espy any object but the brown heath surrounding him, he was at length quite uncertain which way he should direct his course.

• The Mindless Monsters   by Kenneth Robeson
  It was true that Flatfoot O'Hallahan could whip any man he'd met who was not more than half again his own weight. Thus, the skinny man with the flat, lusterless eyes seemed to present no problem at all.

• Headlong Hall   by Thomas Love Peacock
  Here the coach stopped, and the coachman, opening the door, vociferated -- "Breakfast, gentlemen;" a sound which so gladdened the ears of the divine, that the alacrity with which he sprang from the vehicle superinduced a distortion of his ankle

• The House on the Borderland   by William Hope Hodgson
  I have said that the river is without name; I may add that no map that I have hitherto consulted has shown either village or stream. They seem to have entirely escaped observation:

• The Haunted Jarvee   by William Hope Hodgson
  'I've been on a trip in one of the real old-time sailing ships,' he said without any preliminary remarks. 'The Jarvee, owned by my old friend Captain Thompson. I went on the voyage primarily for my health

• The Misfortunes of Elphin   by Thomas Love Peacock
  when Uther Pendragon held the nominal sovereignty of Britain over a number of petty kings, Gwythno Garanhir was king of Caredigion. The most valuable portion of his dominions was the Great Plain of Gwaelod, an extensive tract of level land

• An Egyptian Hornet   by Algernon Blackwood
  The word has an angry, malignant sound that brings the idea of attack vividly into the mind. There is a vicious sting about it somewhere -- even a foreigner, ignorant of the meaning, must feel it. A hornet is wicked; it darts and stabs; it pierces, aiming without provocation for the face and eyes.

• Death In Silver   by Kenneth Robeson
  A person with spunk did not work long with Seven Seas, because Paine L. Winthrop, the owner, was a cold-blooded driver of the old school, an industrial emperor who looked upon those under him as vassals.

• The Devil's Black Rock   by Kenneth Robeson
  Donkey Sam Davis was a prospector; probably you could call him a full-fledged desert rat. However, he did not prospect all of the time, but only when he was broke, which was quite considerable of the time at that.

• Fortress Of Solitude   by Kenneth Robeson
  Russia was the first government to become afraid of him. It just happened that Russia was the first -- John Sunlight wasn't a Russian. No one knew what he was

• The Man Of Bronze   by Kenneth Robeson
  These men came toward Doc. There was wild delight in their manner. But for some sober reason, they did not shout boisterous greetings. It was as though Doc bore a great grief

• Ost   by Kenneth Robeson
  "Yeah. It was at sea, at night. It was as dark as hell, and everybody knows you can't see anythin' when it is dark. But these buildin's in this city was there plain as could be.

• Quest Of Qui   by Kenneth Robeson
  the vessel had some of the aspects of a giant, fat canoe. Bow and stern reared up to support platforms, and amidships was deck planking, while along the rail, on the outside were fastened round things of rusty steel

• Red Snow   by Kenneth Robeson
  A fisherman reported seeing a cloud of reddish substance in the sky, and said this seemed to fall toward the earth and disperse, as if it were snow melting.

• The Time Terror   by Kenneth Robeson
  Doc Savage, a giant of a man ... had spent the day sitting on a war-strategy board in Washington. Doc was not happy, as a whole, with his part in the war.

• Brand Of The Werewolf   by Kenneth Robeson
  Just now, however, the telegrapher looked as if things were happening -- big things. His manner was as excited as that of a small boy about to see the circus.

• The Four Days' Night   by Fred M. White
  The chance he was waiting for seemed to have come at last. November had set in, mild and dull and heavy. Already there had been one or two of the dense fogs under which London periodically groans and does nothing to avert.

• The Thames Valley Catastrophe   by Grant Allen
  It can scarcely be necessary for me to mention, I suppose, at this time of day, that I was one of the earliest and fullest observers of the sad series of events which finally brought about the transference of the seat of Government of these islands from London to Manchester.

• The Shadows of the Dead   by Louis Becke
  Slowly they paddled over the glassy surface, and as the little craft cut her way noiselessly through the water, the dying sun turned the slopes of vivid green on Mont Buache to changing shades on gold and purple light, and the dark blue of the water of the reef-bound lagoon paled and shallowed and turned to bright transparent green with a bottom of shining snow-white sand

• Saunderson and the Dynamite   by Louis Becke
  Saunderson was one of those men who firmly believed that he knew everything, and exasperated people by telling them how to do things; and Denison, the super-cargo of the Palestine, hated him most fervently for the continual trouble he was giving to everyone, and also because he had brought a harmonium on board

• The River of Death   by Fred M. White
  The drought had lasted since April. Tales came up from the provinces of stagnant rivers and quick, fell spurts of zymotic diseases. For some time the London water companies had restricted supplies

• The Invisible Force   by Fred M. White
  In the flare of the blue arc lights a dozen men were working on the dome of the core. Something had gone wrong with a water-main overhead, the concrete beyond the steel belt had cracked, and the moisture had corroded the steel plates, so that a long strip of the metal skin had been peeled away, and the friable concrete had fallen on the rails.

• Everybody's Chance   by John Habberton
  There was no chance of any kind for any of the natives. Young men were afraid to marry, and young women were afraid to marry them; for what girl wanted to go through the routine of drudgery in which she had pitied her own mother

• The Dust of Death   by Fred M. White
  Hubert asked no unnecessary questions. He knew Fillingham, the great portrait painter, well enough by repute and by sight also, for Fillingham's house and studio were close by. There were many artists in the Devonshire Park district

• The Devil's Pool   by George Sand
  the peasant is too abject, too wretched, and too fearful of the future to enjoy the beauty of the country and the charms of pastoral life. To him, also, the yellow harvest-fields, the rich meadows, the fine cattle represent bags of gold

• A Bubble Burst   by Fred M. White
  there was a tremendous "boom." Nothing like it had ever been seen in the history of commerce. It was the golden hour of the promoter. Yet, for the most part, the schemes promised well.

• The Four White Days   by Fred M. White
  There had been no sign of any abatement in the gripping frost, but the wind had suddenly shifted to the east, and almost immediately snow had commenced to fall. But as yet there was no hint of the coming calamity.

• The Mysteries of Udolpho   by Ann Radcliffe
  He had known life in other forms than those of pastoral simplicity, having mingled in the gay and in the busy scenes of the world; but the flattering portrait of mankind, which his heart had delineated in early youth, his experience had too sorrowfully corrected.

Pages Updated On: 1-August- MMIII
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