Favorite Horror Literature

[2322]

In celebration of the day, I think it would be interesting to read some of your favorite passages from the horror genre. It can be a traditional ghost story, goth, or even suspense. Post a piece of what you find scary. In keeping with the theme, I've posted the first paragraph of Shirley Jackson's The House on Haunted Hill as my signature.

I love Annabel Lee, written by Edgar Allan Poe, one of the finest American writers. I'll post another masterpiece of his, Berenice, after the sun goes down. Don't cheat and read it before if you haven't!

And now, Annabel Lee......... or what's left of her :saevil:...


It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

 

[SilverTrain]

I'm on my phone, and too lazy to link or write much, but I LOVE Poe!

 

[D_Fiona_Farvel]

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

The Call of Cthulhu by Lovecraft

I'm on my phone, and too lazy to link or write much, but I LOVE Poe!

I know you love typing with your pinkies. :wink:

 

[SilverTrain]

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

But an acid trip can accomplish just such a thing!





Not that I would have any first hand knowledge of such. :wink:

 

[HazelGod]

Annabel Lee, written by Edgar Allan Poe, one of the finest American writers.

The Call of Cthulhu by Lovecraft

Poe is fantastic...I love The Tell-Tale Heart and The Masque of the Red Death.

Ditto for the quoted Lovecraft work, which formed the underpinning of most of the modern "horror" stories.

For really creepy, though, Stephen King's The Shining is my all-time favorite. (And I don't mean that godawful Kubric film from the '70s)

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

I'm not sure it's "horror" literature, but it is incredibly chilling and spooky, I love the Ghost stories of MR James.

 

[2322]

I'm not sure it's "horror" literature, but it is incredibly chilling and spooky, I love the Ghost stories of MR James.

I don't know James at all outside of one short story of his in an anthology. I'm downloading a copy of Ghost Stories of an Antiquary now. Thanks for the tip!

I'm more about terror than horror. I love atmosphere, foreboding, ill omens, and more traditional monsters as they seem to reach deeper into the psyche than your average teen-hunting undead slasher.

 

[HellsKitchenmanNYC]

I don't know James at all outside of one short story of his in an anthology. I'm downloading a copy of Ghost Stories of an Antiquary now. Thanks for the tip!

I'm more about terror than horror. I love atmosphere, foreboding, ill omens, and more traditional monsters as they seem to reach deeper into the psyche than your average teen-hunting undead slasher.

Where are you downloading from? Anything Poe is fantastic. his own story is riveting. I cannot believe there hasn't been a movie bio about him yet. I'd make a good Poe.

 

[2322]

Where are you downloading from? Anything Poe is fantastic. his own story is riveting. I cannot believe there hasn't been a movie bio about him yet. I'd make a good Poe.

You'd be a great Poe!

I got it from Project Guttenberg. James' works are public domain (as are Poe's).

 

[ZOS23xy]

Edgar Allen Poe looked a lot like Bill Murray, who is now too old to do the role.

Other good writers of 'horror', can be H.P.Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and some of Ray Bradbury's early material.

Most of Stephen King's short works are pretty decent works.

Arthur Machen's "The Great God Pan" has always interested me, because I get involved in reading it, and up to a point, can't finish it because it makes me feel...odd...

 

[psidom]

i always dug Hp Lovecraft,
especially "the book"

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Book_(Lovecraft)

he has other stories i dug as well,
i am also a fan of the original dracula.

 

[2322]

Berenice is 18,000+ characters so I'm going to spare you and just link to it (and other Poe stories. They're just great!

 

[B_hungprepjock]

For masters of the macabre, it's difficult to ignore two more names: H.H. Munro (Saki) and Charles Williams.

When I first joined LPSG and was utterly lost, thinking what kind of porn site is this, ostensibly devoted solely to big cocks, whose 'members' yet used signatures that ranged from the ridiculous (14.5x9.6) to the sublime (Marcus Aurelius, Emerson, George Eliot). Luckily, one day I spotted as someone's signature a familiar verse from my childhood that convinced me not to give up on the place quite yet, as follows:

'Sredni Vashtar went forth
His thoughts were red thoughts
And his teeth were white

'His enemies called for peace
But he brought them death
Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful'

It's the 'Hymn to Sredni Vashtar' from the short story of the same name by the valiant H.H. Munro. His complete short stories, as well as a surprising biography and other material, are available in full on the Web.

Here's a link to just the one:

Sredni Vashtar--H. H. Munro (Saki) (1870-1916)

Also especially appropriate, as the witching hour approaches, is All Hallow's Eve, one of the chillingly atmospheric novels of witchcraft and the supernatural by Charles Williams. I don't know if they, too, are available to be downloaded in full, but here are links to a review and synopsis of All Hallow's Eve, and Williams' Wikipedia entry, as follows:

Charles Williams, All Hallows Eve

Charles Williams (UK writer) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Happy Reading, and Pleasant Dreams

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

I don't know James at all outside of one short story of his in an anthology. I'm downloading a copy of Ghost Stories of an Antiquary now. Thanks for the tip!

I'm more about terror than horror. I love atmosphere, foreboding, ill omens, and more traditional monsters as they seem to reach deeper into the psyche than your average teen-hunting undead slasher.

I can't recall now if he was an Oxford or a Cambridge professor but he wrote his tales ( at least at first ) as part of the Old English tradition of telling Ghost stories at Christmas ( hence Dicken's A Christmas Carol ), he would circulate them among his friends and read them to students. The BBC used to do dramatisations of them at Christmas time, they stopped for a while but they've been doing it again the last couple of years.

Some of his stories are genuinely bone chilling, and frightened me in a way no modern horror fiction or movie has ever been able to do. "Oh whistle and I'll come to you my lad", "An Episode in Cathedral History" and "The Rose Garden" ( from "More Ghost Stories ) are all classics but there are many less well known of his stories which are truly haunting too, "Mr Humphreys and his inheritance" is a personal favourite.

Though it's a play and not strictly speaking literature, the play The Woman in Black is also terrifying so much so that whole audiences of grown men and women will scream like children all the way through it, and it really really stays with you too.

 

[SpeedoGuy]

Steven King fan here.

King's four-story novella Different Seasons is probably my favorite. Three of those stories were eventually made into feature movies.

As for the classics, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" remains one of my favorites. "Heart of Darkness" and is another.

 

[rob_just_rob]

Arthur Machen's "The Great God Pan" has always interested me, because I get involved in reading it, and up to a point, can't finish it because it makes me feel...odd...

I enjoyed that one. Machen and the other late-1800s horror writers really captured atmosphere well.

HP Lovecraft was another favourite (e.g. Pickman's Model)

 

[Ethyl]

H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Robert Chambers' The King in Yellow, and John W. Campbell's Who Goes There? are favourites but the first stories that made an impression on me were grisly fairy tales like Bluebeard and Baba Yaga. I do think Bettleheim was right in that these tales allow children (and adults, for that matter) to face their fears with a certain detachment. Plus, it's fun to let your mind wander and imagine what you fear you shouldn't.

 

[ZOS23xy]

One of M. R. Jame's short stories was made into a good movie called CURSE OF THE DEMON with Dana Andrews. I think it was "Whistle and I'll come to you, me lad." Story doesn't have anything to do with the movie, which is exceptionally effective.

 

[ital8]

Ghost Story by Peter Straub is a great horror novel. It's a little slow at first, but it does have some chilling scenes.

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

One of M. R. Jame's short stories was made into a good movie called CURSE OF THE DEMON with Dana Andrews. I think it was "Whistle and I'll come to you, me lad." Story doesn't have anything to do with the movie, which is exceptionally effective.

Oh I've seen that movie, it's black and white isn't it ? With this weird whistling screetching demon in it is that right ? And it follows people who have this tiny piece of paper passed to them by some means or other ? Is that the one ?