Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural

by Herbert A. Wise

Other authorsPhyllis Fraser (Author)

Hardcover, 1972

Status

Available

Call number

PZ1.W6795 G

Genres

Publication

The Modern Library (1972), 1080 pages

Description

When this longtime Modern Library favorite--filled with fifty-two stories of heart-stopping suspense--was first published in 1944, one of its biggest fans was critic Edmund Wilson, who in The New Yorker applauded what he termed a sudden revival of the appetite for tales of horror. Represented in the anthology are such distinguished spell weavers as Edgar Allen Poe ("The Black Cat"), Wilkie Collins ("A Terribly Strange Bed"), Henry James ("Sir Edmund Orme"), Guy de Maupassant ("Was It a Dream?"), O. Henry ("The Furnished Room"), Rudyard Kipling ("They"), and H.G. Wells ("Pollock and the Porroh Man"). Included as well are such modern masters as Algernon Blackwood ("Ancient Sorceries"), Walter de la Mare ("Out of the Deep"), E.M. Forster ("The Celestial Omnibus"), Isak Dinesen ("The Sailor-Boys Tale"), H.P. Lovecraft ("The Dunwich Horror"), Dorothy L. Sayers ("Suspicion"), and Ernest Hemingway ("The Killers"). "There is not a story in this collection that does not have the breath of life, achieve the full suspension of disbelief that is so particularly important in [this] type of fiction," wrote the Saturday Review. With an introduction and notes by Phyllis Cerf Wagner and Herbert Wise.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member scratchdesigns

From a world long before Stephen King, this is the best compilation of classic horror writing I've ever read. My father had an older (identical) version when I was a child, and it was the first place I discovered H.P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood, and Arthur Machen. You'll find all the greats

here: M.R. James (oft called the world's best ghost story writer), Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, and H.G. Wells; as well as some shadowy works by such rare and extremely influential writers as Le Fanu, Maupassant, and W.W. Jacobs (The Monkey's Paw). These tales are drawn from great literature, so don't be surprised to find Faulkner, Dickens, and Hemmingway here as well. Essential.

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LibraryThing member odamae

Excellent, excellent, excellent! Some of the early stories had me reading the sentences aloud. Words perfectly chosen to give mood, beautiful old little used words that fit perfectly. An English major horror freak's dream book.

LibraryThing member imaginationzombie

My favorite collection of stories ever. I've read this to many times to count. This is the book that sits on my night stand. I reach for it after I've read a handful of crappy horror stories. Or after I've written a handful of crappy horror stories.

LibraryThing member ehines

One hardly expects to be transfixed by an innocent looking Modern Library horror collection--one expects a rather dry "representative historical collection." This one though has an atmosphere about it, though . . . the lines of influence run fairly strongly through the stories of this collection.

While the authors, styles and approaches to creating a sense of the uncanny are distinct, there is also something mutually reinforcing in these stories. A really great collection.

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LibraryThing member tungsten_peerts

This is the single finest collection of tales of the supernatural I have ever encountered. Wall to wall classics of their kind.

LibraryThing member antiquary

A very wide-ranging selection --everything from Fauikner to Lovecraft. Mostly British and American nineteenth century or early 20th century, with a few French. Divided into 2 parts, Tales of Terror and Tales of the Supernatural, but many in the supernatural section are equally terrifying. The

distinction seems to be the first group are not supernatural (e.g. A Rose for Emily)

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LibraryThing member antiquary

distinction seems to be the first group are not supernatural (e.g. A Rose for Emily)

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LibraryThing member beabatllori

I've had this forever. I should read it or something.

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