Synopses & Reviews
Part of a new six-volume series of the best in classic horror, selected by award-winning director Guillermo del Toro
Filmmaker and longtime horror literature fan Guillermo del Toro serves as the curator for the Penguin Horror series, a new collection of classic tales and poems by masters of the genre. Included here are some of del Toros favorites, from Mary Shelleys Frankenstein and Ray Russells short story Sardonicus,” considered by Stephen King to be perhaps the finest example of the modern Gothic ever written,” to Shirley Jacksons The Haunting of Hill House and stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, Ted Klein, and Robert E. Howard. Featuring original cover art by Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, these stunningly creepy deluxe hardcovers will be perfect additions to the shelves of horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and paranormal aficionados everywhere.
The Haunting of Hill House
The classic supernatural thriller by an author who helped define the genre. First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a haunting;' Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powersand soon it will choose one of them to make its own.
Review
H. P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the twentieth centuryÆs greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale. (Stephen King)
Review
“
Songs of a Dead Dreamer is full of inexplicable and alarming delights. . . . Put this volume on the shelf right between H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe. Where it belongs.” —
The Washington Post
“Thomas Ligotti has had one of the most quietly extraordinary careers in the history of horror fiction. He is a dense, witty, and enormously inventive writer.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer
Synopsis
Plagued by insane nightmare visions, Walter Gilman seeks help in Miskatonic University's infamous library of forbidden books, where, in the pages of Abdul Alhazred's dreaded
Necronomicon, he finds terrible hints that seem to connect his own studies in advanced mathematics with the fantastic legends of elder magic.
The Dreams in the Witch House, gathered together here with more than twenty other tales of terror, exemplifies H. P. Lovecraft's primacy among twentieth-century American horror writers.
Synopsis
"The dreams were wholly beyond the pale of sanity . . . "
Plagued by insane nightmare visions, Walter Gilman seeks help in Miskatonic University's infamous library of forbidden books, where, in the pages of Abdul Alhazred's dreaded Necronomicon, he finds terrible hints that seem to connect his own studies in advanced mathematics with the fantastic legends of elder magic. The Dreams in the Witch House, gathered together here with more than twenty other tales of terror, exemplifies H. P. Lovecraft's primacy among twentieth-century American horror writers.
This volume is a companion to the other two Penguin Classics edition of Lovecraft's work: The Call of the Cthulhu and The Thing on the Doorstep. This original collection presents the definitive texts of the work, including a newly restored text of "The Shadow out of time" along with S. T. Joshi's invaluable introduction and notes.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Synopsis
A much-awaited collection of prose and poetry from one of the great cosmic masters of the supernatural Not just any fantasy, horror, and science fiction author could impress H. P. Lovecraft into calling him unexcelled by any other writer, dead or living” or compel Fritz Lieber to employ the worthy term sui generis. Clark Ashton Smithautodidact, prolific poet, amateur philosopher, bizarre sculptor, and unmatched storytellersimply wrote like no one else, before or since. This new collection of his very best tales and poems is selected and introduced by supernatural literature scholar S. T. Joshi and allows readers to encounter Smiths visionary brand of fantastical, phantasmagorical worlds, each one filled with invention, terror, and a superlative sense of metaphysical wonder.
Synopsis
Two terrifying classics by the best kept secret in contemporary horror fiction” (The Washington Post)
The recent smash success of HBOs True Detective has sparked new interest in cult horror favorite Thomas Ligotti, who was cited by the shows creator, Nic Pizzolatto, as a prime influence. Ligottis debut story collection, Songs of a Dead Dreamer, and its follow-up, Grimscribe, marked a major evolution in supernatural horror. Influenced by the strange terrors of Lovecraft and Poe and by the brutal absurdity of Kafka, Ligotti eschews cheap, gory thrills for his own brand of atmospheric horror, which shocks at the deepest, existential, levels.
Ligottis stories take on decaying cities and lurid dreamscapes in a style ranging from rich, ornamental prose to cold, clinical detachment. His raw and experimental work lays bare the unimportance of our world and the sickening madness of human consciousness. Like the greatest writers of cosmic horror, Ligotti bends reality until it cracks, opening fissures through which he invites us to gaze on the unsettling darkness of the abyss below.
Synopsis
A much-awaited collection of prose and poetry from one of the great cosmic masters of the supernatural Not just any fantasy, horror, and science fiction author could impress H. P. Lovecraft into calling him unexcelled by any other writer, dead or living” or compel Fritz Lieber to employ the worthy term sui generis. Clark Ashton Smithautodidact, prolific poet, amateur philosopher, bizarre sculptor, and unmatched storytellersimply wrote like no one else, before or since. This new collection of his very best tales and poems is selected and introduced by supernatural literature scholar S. T. Joshi and allows readers to encounter Smiths visionary brand of fantastical, phantasmagorical worlds, each one filled with invention, terror, and a superlative sense of metaphysical wonder.
About the Author
Shirley Jackson (19161965) received wide critical acclaim for her short story "The Lottery," which was first published in the
New Yorker in 1948. Her novels include
We Have Always Lived in the Castle,
The Sundial, and T
he Haunting of Hill House.
Guillermo del Toro is a film director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, and designer. He is best known as the director of the Academy Awardwinning film Pans Labyrinth and the Hellboy franchise. His latest film, Pacific Rim, premieres in the summer of 2013. He is also the foreword author to the Penguin Classics edition of The White People and Other Weird Stories by Arthur Machen.
Table of Contents
The Dreams in the Witch House And Other Weird Stories Introduction by S.T. Joshi
Suggestions for Further Reading
A Note on the Texts
Polaris
The Doom That Came to Sarnath
The Terrible Old Man
The Tree
The Cats of Ulthar
From Beyond
The Nameless City
The Moon-Bog
The Other Gods
Hypnos
The Lurking Fear
The Unnamable
The Shunned house
The Horror at Red Hook
In the Vault
The Strange High House in the Mist
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
The Silver Key
Through the Gates of the Silver Key
THe Dreams in the Witch House
The Shadow out of Time
Explanatory Notes
Jeff VanderMeer on PowellsBooks.Blog
My latest book is
The Strange Bird, which exists in the universe of my novel
Borne. It’s my attempt to write from the perspective of a bird, although I cheat a bit since the bird is part human. The story follows the bird’s quest to be free, while encountering any number of obstacles...
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