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Wednesday, October 27, 2010

My Top Ten Horrors

In no particular order, here are what probably my favorite horror short stories (though I would imagine I've forgotten something)--just in time for Halloween.  Links to e-texts provided where available.

"The Great God Pan" by Arthur Machen
"Who Goes There?" by John Campbell
"The Voice in the Night" by William Hope Hodgson
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
"Into Whose Hands" by Karl Edward Wagner
"The Clown Puppet" by Thomas Ligotti
"Pigeons from Hell" by Robert E. Howard
"Don't Ask Jack" by Neil Gaiman
"Whisperer in the Darkness" by H.P. Lovecraft
"Born of Man and Woman" by Richard Matheson

Honorable mentions go to "Dread" by Clive Barker, "Dr. Locrian's Asylum" by Ligotti, "The River of Night's Dreaming" by Wagner, "The Sandman" by E.T.A. Hoffman, "The Repairer of Reputations" by Robert W. Chambers, and "The Second Variety" by Philip K. Dick.  Maybe I should have done a top twenty!

4 comments:

  1. Yes to the Yellow Wallpaper!

    I remember reading that in a capstone English course in college and being baffled that I was the only one viewing it as a horror story.

    Every other student, as well as the professor, just waved their hands and said "She's delusional, let's talk about feminism."

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  2. @Roger -yeah. M.R. James is another that just shy of my list, I think.

    @Seth - That's funny. I first encountered the story in a horror collection.

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  3. I have read about half of these. I am going to have to find and read the other half.

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