Long before the word “horror” became associated with big-screen massacre movies like “Saw,” horror was a literary genre where authors could probe, experiment, and let their guard down as they explored those things that make a reader's heart thump and spine tingle.
Classic Horror Stories
Years ago, "horror" hardly resembled the gratuitous gross-out blood-and-guts horror genre which is seen in modern horror movies today. Horror was intelligently cerebral, appearing harmless on the surface, but armed with an increasingly disturbing creepiness which haunted the unsuspecting reader throughout their days and nights. Classic horror fiction and alters the reader's consciousness in a way which is difficult to describe but exhilarating to experience.
Find Classic Horror Literature Online at HorrorMaster.com
Horror story fans will hit the mother-lode of classic horror stories at this scary story site. Horror Master offers over 2100 classic horror stories in PDF format to read online for free. The stories are alphabetized by author and organized by category.
- In “The Essentials” readers will find classic horror novels Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker's Dracula.
- In the “Icons” section readers will find over 20 selections by H.P. Lovecraft (author of The Alchemist) and more than 30 selections by Edgar Allen Poe including the wildly popular stories:The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Tell-Tale Heart.
- “Horror Milestones” boasts Poe's first horror story and the appearance of the first vampire in English literature. Horror story fans will also find a copy of the first true Gothic story here.
- “Early Works” has more than 125 authors of early horror.
- “Late 19th to early 20th Century” lists well over 200 authors: some of whom are quite unexpected like L Frank Baum of The Wizard of Oz fame and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of Sherlock Holmes. Masters of suspense O Henry, H.G. Wells and WB Yeats are here as well.
Where to Search for Classic Horror Stories Online by Author
Horror story fans can search for their favorite authors at the Literature Network (online-literature.com) and Project Guterberg (gutenberg.org). At GoogleBooks.com treasure-hunting horror fans can wander through the "short stories" and "mystery" sections and ferret out the horror stories lurking there.
Read Synopses of Classic Horror Literature Online
Horror story fans who just don't know what they want to read should visit A Story Untold; this blog features brief synopses of some of the best horror stories in classic literature with links to the online stories. There are two complete classic horror story round-up posts there and both offer great information for horror story fans.
Creepy classics, Gothic ghost stories, and the stories which the horror genre cut its teeth on are all available to read, anytime, online for free. Halloween mood-setters, campfire entertainment, and spooky sleepover bedtime stories are just a click away. Enjoy them if you dare.
Online readers might also enjoy these articles about online books: Read Books Online for Free and Read Romance Books Online for Free.
Francine Morrissette - Francine Morrissette is a freelance writer from southern Maine who has published articles on a wide range of topics including health, ...
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