Halloween’s nearing, so you know what that means? That’s right, literature.
The literary greats may have pumped out some timeless, transcendent, subtle pieces of fiction, but they also liked to scare the ever-living crap out of people. Here’s a couple stories you might enjoy:
John Steinbeck, “The Affair at 7, Rue de M”
You know him from: “The Grapes of Wrath,” “Of Mice and Men”
This story has: haunted bubblegum, a father encouraging his son to suppress gum-related trauma, bludgeoning with an African war club
Charles Dickens, “The Signalman”
You know him from: “Great Expectations,” “A Tale of Two Cities,” “A Christmas Carol”
This story has: “Halloa!” as the first word, cryptic warnings, a foreboding apparition
Henry James, “The Turn of the Screw”
You know him from: “The Ambassadors,” “The Portrait of a Lady,”
This novella has: a terrible secret, two mysterious figures, a sudden death
This story has: a ghost, an old house, an existential crisis
Edith Wharton, “Bewitched”
You know her from: “The House of Mirth,” “The Age of Innocence,” “Ethan Frome”
This story has: consorting with ghosts, a mysterious illness, suspenseful pacing
This story has: a mysterious series of letters, preoccupation with the dead, New York in the early 20th century
This story has: a disappearance, a haunted house with a hidden stairwell, a cryptic note
Bonus! Edith Wharton wrote a lot of ghost stories. These and more are collected in “Tales of Men and Ghosts.”
Roald Dahl, “The Landlady”
You know him from: “The BFG,” “The Witches,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Matilda,” “James and the Giant Peach”
This story has: a creepy old woman, taxidermy, suspiciously cheap lodgings
This story has: murder, hiding the evidence, black humor
“Roald Dahl’s Book of Ghost Stories”
Neil Gaiman, “A Study in Emerald”
You know him from: “Stardust,” “American Gods,” “Coraline,” “The Sandman,”
This story has: a combination of the worlds of Arthur Conan Doyle and H.P. Lovecraft, the investigation of a murder, thinly veiled historical allegory
Or, you could listen to Neil Gaiman himself read a ghost story for charity! If you download “Click, Clack the Rattlebag” before Halloween, Audible will donate a dollar to DonarsChoose.org, an education charity. It’s free! And chilling.
Joyce Carol Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”
You know her from: “The Assassins,”
This story has: suburbia, stalking, vague and eerie trauma
If you liked this story, Oates wrote a lot more horror, and many of her stories are anthologized in “The Collector of Hearts.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “Lot No. 249”
You know him from: the "Sherlock Holmes" series, “The Lost World”
This story has: a mummy, Egyptian magic, murder
Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Body Snatcher” (pg. 87)
You know him from: “Treasure Island,” “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,”
This story has: dissection, a series of mysterious murders, a twist
Oscar Wilde, “The Canterville Ghost”
You know him from: “The Importance of Being Earnest,” “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” “Lady Windermere’s Fan”
This story has: Oscar Wilde being Oscar Wilde, aggressively American names, a misunderstood ghost
Lord Byron, “A Fragment of a Novel”
You know him from: “Don Juan,” “Manfred,” “Prometheus,” “The Giaour”
This story has: vampires, a Turkish cemetery, historical significance
You know the story of how “Frankenstein” was composed? Where Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley and Lord Byron were stuck inside because of the cold, and they all amused themselves by making up ghost stories? This was Lord Byron’s contribution.
Nikolai Gogol, “The Overcoat”
You know him from: “Diary of a Madman,” being the Russian Mark Twain
This story has: a really distressful overcoat, a vengeful ghost, a coat party
Chuck Palahniuk, “Slumming”
You know him from: “Fight Club,” “Choke,” “Invisible Monsters”
This story has: that thing Chuck Palahniuk does where he uses the second person perspective and it’s kind of unnerving, a series of murders, Old Money vs. New Money
This story has: well, it made 67 people faint at readings.
Ray Bradbury, “The October Game”
You know him from: “Farenheit 451,” “The Martian Chronicles”
This story has: Halloween, good old suburban ennui, familial resentment, a horrible twist
