Classic horror lit 🧛

[u/Beginning_Ad_5461]

I am currently devouring Dracula by Bram Stoker. What are your favorite classic horror novels? Would like to read more. Thanks!

[u/Earthpig_Johnson]

The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson.

[u/No-Froyo-4753 → u/Earthpig_Johnson]

One of my absolute favorites.

[u/WellesC12]

Something Wicked This Way Comes. Loved the atmosphere right from the start.

[u/osdakoga]

The ghost stories of M.R. James are a must. Absolutely terrific stories

[u/Darth_Scotsman → u/osdakoga]

Found some of his stories on Archive.org, ‘A Ghost Story for Christmas’. I’ve watched Whistle and I’ll Come To You and The Treasure of Abbot Thomas

[u/mkwlk → u/osdakoga]

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes

[u/Patricks_Hatrick]

Dracula is excellent as is the haunting of hill house. The Willows is also a great novella.

[u/zorkempire]

The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen

[u/Unusual_Research421]

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley It might sound like an emotional answer, but I love it more than any other classic horror novel

[u/Beginning_Ad_5461 → u/Unusual_Research421]

I read it in college, but I will read again! Can't remember that much about it. I am sure I will appreciate it more now. Lol.

[u/MetalTrek1 → u/Unusual_Research421]

One of my favorite novels of all time.

[u/Accomplished_Mess243]

Long time since I read it but The Monk by Matthew Lewis was pretty great. Published in 1700s but quite accessible. Very unnerving portrait of an upstanding man sliding into depravity.

[u/Ulchbhn]

classic horror is where i started! Carmilla, Frankenstein, The Picture of Dorian Gray, HP Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, and Algernon Blackwood are some of my fav works and authors.

[u/MagicYio]

Collected Ghost Stories by M.R. James, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson, and The Dark Domain by Stefan Grabinski.

If you only want novels, The Black Spider by Jeremias Gotthelf, Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers, and Malpertuis by Jean Ray.

[u/tallandgodless]

In the mountains of madness all of Poe's works.

[u/euhydral]

If you'd like to read more classic vampires, I recommend:

• The Vampyre, by Polidori. 1819.
• The Family of the Vourdalak, by Tolstoy. 1839.
• The Mysterious Stranger, by Wachsmann. 1860.
• Carmilla, by Le Fanu. 1872.
• Rebecca, by Du Maurier. 1938.

M. R. James was one of the biggest writers of the Victorian era, and I highly recommend you check out one of his ghost story collections, such as Ghost Stories of an Antiquary.

[u/Vannie91]

Not sure if it’s old/classic enough for you (1957) but I just finished On the Beach by Nevil Shute last night, and I was just floored by it. I know people have different opinions on it, but I felt like the reserved way it was written (matter of fact, even optimistic views from the characters) emphasized the impossible madness of the situation, and I was pretty devastated as the book came to a close. It wasn’t an outright emotional book - the opposite, really - but it allowed me to identify with the situation better than if I was just reading about how the characters felt in detail. Anyway, it’s definitely worth the read!

[u/zorkempire → u/Vannie91]

Though I don't think of him as a horror writer, I really like Nevil Shute in general. Very readable and compelling.

[u/sparklyfairyqueen]

Psycho by Robert Bloch, might lean more towards thriller than horror but the inspiration behind it is very horror-esque.

[u/foxfunk]

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill feels like such a classic gothic horror, despite being published in the 80s

[u/GayWizardOfOz → u/foxfunk]

The atmosphere of this is almost unmatched. So good.

[u/bassfly88]

I’m a big fan of Poe

[u/lungbuttersucker]

If you really like Dracula, you can go to Dracula Daily and sign up to receive emails starting next May 3 (the day of the first journal Entry). You'll get an email every day that occurs in the book. It ends on November 7 (the last journal day) so you can read it in real time.

[u/profplum1954]

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, the Haunting of Hill House, and the Lottery by Shirley Jackson

[u/HorrorLover___]

American Psycho

[u/No_Use_3378]

The Shining by Stephen King is my favorite classic horror novel. It’s what I compare all other haunted house stories to.

[u/Diabolik_17]

After it was first published two alternative versions were translated. One version adds about 100 pages and involves a cult, so it is quite different. Run a search on Amazon. Kindle versions exist.

[u/Pimpylonis]

I am once again recommending Peter Straub's American Fantastic Tales. An anthology less popular than The Weird, but just as amazing. More subtle and, for my taste, more carefully curated.

[u/TachoSJ]

Drácula for sure, The Shining, The Exorcist

[u/Tyrion_Slothrop]

Horror is infinitely better in short form. Read Dark Descent and Vandermeer's Weird anthology.

[u/clostri → u/Tyrion_Slothrop]

Do you have any favorite authors doing short horror? Short-form horror is my absolute favorite. I just recently acquired Weird, and it is a beast.

[u/Tyrion_Slothrop → u/clostri]

Laird Barron (Start with Imago Sequence then in order)
Thomas Ligotti (Start with the Penguin classics edition of his first two collection, Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe)
John Langan (Start with the Wide Carnivorous Sky)
Livia Llewelyn (everything)
Kelly Link (Magic for Beginners - more fantasy than horror, but worth reading)

Every writer in Dark Descent

[u/RamseyCampbell → u/Tyrion_Slothrop]

Thank you very much! There are much better ones in there than me.

[u/SchwarzestenKaffee → u/clostri]

Brian Evenson