by Les Daniels
First published 1977
A murderer hears the beating heart beneath the floorboards. A family receives three wishes from a cursed monkey's paw. A hunter becomes prey on a remote island. A violinist's music holds cosmic secrets. These thirteen stories span decades of horror fiction, collecting works by Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and other masters of the macabre. Each tale explores different fears: guilt that won't stay buried, wishes that turn deadly, predators both human and inhuman, and forces beyond human understanding. The collection moves from psychological terror to supernatural dread to cosmic horror, showing how fear takes many forms across different eras of storytelling.
Genres: short-stories, 20th-century, horror, 19th-century
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, suspenseful
Tropes: cosmic-horror, supernatural-dread
260 pages · Paperback · Charles Scribner's Sons