Horror Stories

Classic Tales from Hoffmann to Hodgson

Edited by Darryl Jones

Oxford World's Classics

A unique and wide-ranging anthology of horror fiction from the Victorian and Edwardian periods, that embraces the diversity of the genre to showcase its terrifying achievements.
Includes all horror types -- from supernatural tales and ghost stories, to scientific, psychological, and colonial horror--and writers from the British, Irish, European, and American traditions.
A lively and accessible introduction discusses horror's appeal and often controversial nature, its particular attraction to nineteenth-century writers and readers as a way of articulating cultural preoccupations and anxieties, and the importance of the periodical market to the history of the genre.
Includes comprehensive notes with brief accounts of the writers' lives and careers, full chronology, and select bibliography.

Horror Stories

Classic Tales from Hoffmann to Hodgson

Edited by Darryl Jones

Description

The modern horror story grew and developed across the nineteenth century, embracing categories as diverse as ghost stories, the supernatural and psychological horror, medical and scientific horror, colonial horror, and tales of the uncanny and precognition. This anthology brings together twenty-nine of the greatest horror stories of the period, from 1816 to 1912, from the British, Irish, American, and European traditions. It ranges widely across the sub-genres to encompass authors whose terror-inducing powers remain unsurpassed.

The book includes stories by some of the best writers of the century -- Hoffmann, Poe, Balzac, Dickens, Hawthorne, Melville, and Zola -- as well as established genre classics from M. R. James, Arthur Machen, Bram Stoker, Algernon Blackwood, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and others. It includes rare and little-known pieces by writers such as William Maginn, Francis Marion Crawford, W. F. Harvey, and William Hope Hodgson, and shows the important role played by periodicals in popularizing the horror story. Wherever possible, stories are reprinted in their first published form, with background information about their authors and helpful, contextualizing annotation. Darryl Jones's lively introduction discusses horror's literary evolution and its articulation of cultural preoccupations and anxieties. These are stories guaranteed to freeze the blood, revolt the senses, and keep you awake at night: prepare to be terrified!

Horror Stories

Classic Tales from Hoffmann to Hodgson

Edited by Darryl Jones

Oxford World's Classics

Introduction
Note on the Texts
Select Bibliography
Chronology
E.T.A. HOFFMANN, The Sandman
WILLIAM MAGINN, The Man in the Bell
JAMES HOGG, George Dobson's Expedition to Hell
HONORÉ DE BALZAC, La Grande Bretêche
EDGAR ALLAN POE, Berenice
SHERIDAN LE FANU, Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, The Birth-Mark
HERMAN MELVILLE, The Tartarus of Maids
FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN, What Was It?
CHARLES DICKENS, No. 1 Branch Line: The Signal-Man
ÉMILE ZOLA, The Death of Olivier Bécaille
RONALD ROSS, The Vivisector Vivisected
ROBERT-LOUIS STEVENSON, The Body-Snatcher
RUDYARD KIPLING, The Mark of the Beast
AMBROSE BIERCE, Chickamauga
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN,The Yellow Wall Paper
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, The Case of Lady Sannox
BRAM STOKER, The Squaw
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS, The Repairer of Reputations
ARTHUR MACHEN, Novel of the White Powder
RICHARD MARSH, The Adventure of Lady Wishaw's Hand
W. W. JACOBS, The Monkey's Paw
MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN, Luella Miller
M. R. JAMES, Count Magnus
FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD, For the Blood is the Life
ALGERNON BLACKWOOD, The Wendigo
W. F. HARVEY, August Heat
E. F. BENSON, The Room in the Tower
WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON, The Derelict
Explanatory Notes

Horror Stories

Classic Tales from Hoffmann to Hodgson

Edited by Darryl Jones

Oxford World's Classics

Author Information

Darryl Jones has taught at Trinity College Dublin since 1994. Prior to this he taught in the University of Lodz, Poland. He has held Visiting Professorships at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, Babes Bolyai University, Cluj, Transylvania, and Tongji University, Shanghai. He is the author or editor of twelve books, including Horror: A Thematic History in Fiction and Film (Arnold/OUP 2002), It Came From the 1950s!: Popular Culture, Popular Anxieties (with Elizabeth McCarthy and Bernice M. Murphy, Palgrave Macmillan 2011), and for Oxford World's Classics, M. R. James' Collected Ghost Stories (OUP, 2011, 2013), Arthur Conan Doyle's Gothic Tales (2016), and H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (2017) and The Island of Doctor Moreau (2017).

Horror Stories

Classic Tales from Hoffmann to Hodgson

Edited by Darryl Jones

Oxford World's Classics

From Our Blog

A Halloween horror story: What was it? Part 5

Every Friday this October we've unveiled a part of Fitz-James O'Brien's tale of an unusual entity in What Was It?, a story from the spine-tingling collection of works in Horror Stories: Classic Tales from Hoffmann to Hodgson, edited by Darryl Jones. Today we're wrapping up the story with the final installment. Last we left off the narrator, Harry, and his friend, Hammond, tied up an invisible entity, shocking the boarders of the haunted home where they had been staying. Will they learn more about the mysterious creature?

Posted on October 31, 2014

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A Halloween horror story : What was it? Part 4

We're getting ready for Halloween this month by reading the classic horror stories that set the stage for the creepy movies and books we love today. Every Friday this October we've unveiled a part of Fitz-James O'Brien's tale of an unusual entity in What Was It?, a story from the spine-tingling collection of works in Horror Stories: Classic Tales from Hoffmann to Hodgson, edited by Darryl Jones. Last we left off the narrator, Harry, tried to fight off a mysterious creature fighting him in his bed. His friend Hammond had just come to his rescue.

Posted on October 24, 2014

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A Halloween horror story : What was it? Part 2

Last we left off the narrator had moved into a reported haunted boarding house. After a month of waiting for something eerie to happen, the boarders were beginning to believe there was nothing supernatural at all in the residence...

Posted on October 10, 2014

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In defence of horror

A human eyeball shoots out of its socket, and rolls into a gutter. A child returns from the dead and tears the beating heart from his tormentor's chest. A young man has horrifying visions of his mother's decomposing corpse. A baby is ripped from its living mother's womb. A mother tears her son to pieces, and parades around with his head on a stick.

Posted on October 22, 2014

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A Halloween horror story : What was it?

We're getting ready for Halloween this month by reading the classic horror stories that set the stage for the creepy movies and books we love today. Check in every Friday this October as we tell Fitz-James O'Brien's tale of an unusual entity in What Was It?, a story from the spine-tingling collection of works in Horror Stories: Classic Tales from Hoffmann to Hodgson, edited by Darryl Jones.

Posted on October 3, 2014

Read the blog post