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Must Read Classic Horror Lists > Best Anthologies

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message 1: by Robert (new)

Robert Kratky (bolorkay) | 14 comments Hi,
I was wondering what single anthology everyone would suggest as the best overall collection that contains many of the stories discussed on this board? I've heard some good things about "The Arbor House Treasury" (Sorry if I don't have this title quite correct.)


message 2: by Robert (last edited Apr 12, 2013 11:26AM) (new)

Robert Dunbar | 18 comments Randolph wrote: "Robert Dunbar's Shadows: Supernatural Tales by Masters of Modern Literature. A lot of these are actually more classic than modern."

Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, et al. "Modern" as opposed to contemporary. But, yes, several could be considered classics of a sort.


message 3: by James (new)

James Everington | 53 comments Modern as in Modernist, I took it to be. But yes, great anthology.

The Dark Descent contains a lot of 'classic' horror, but runs up to the 80s. Well worth a punt.


message 4: by Ben (new)

Ben | 17 comments This duo is highly respected: Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural by Marvin Kaye , Masterpieces of Terror and the Unknown by Marvin Kaye . And a more recent, heavier volume is Jeff and Ann Vandermeer's The Weird A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories by Jeff VanderMeer . Pretty comprehensive in regards to strange stories.


message 5: by Shawn (new)

Shawn | 333 comments as an alternative to THE WEIRD, an earlier duo of anthologies which touch the same territory but are not specifically focused on "horror" qua "horror" - Black Water: The Book of Fantastic Literature and Black Water 2: More Tales of the Fantastic are illuminating.

Foundations of Fear, Hartwell's less often mentioned follow up to DARK DESCENT, which focuses specifically on the horror novella, is excellent as well.


message 6: by Shawn (new)

Shawn | 333 comments Oh, yes, how could I forget - seeing as how I wrote exhaustive overview reviews of both of those.


message 7: by Cathy (new)

Cathy | 164 comments The Dark Descent -- seconding this one.

Hauntings: Tales of the Supernatural -- smallish collection, but very well chosen.

Shapes Of The Supernatural -- all the anthologies by Seon Manley and Gogo Lewis are GREAT. They did a ton -- witch stories, animal horror stories, horror stories written by women ...


message 8: by Werner (new)

Werner Bob wrote: "Hi,
I was wondering what single anthology everyone would suggest as the best overall collection that contains many of the stories discussed on this board? I've heard some good things about "The Arbor House Treasury..."


Bob, were you referring to Arbor House Celebrity Book of Horror Stories?


message 9: by Latoya (last edited Oct 11, 2016 09:28AM) (new)

Latoya  | 9 comments Fangs: The Vampire Archives, Volume 2 I'm listening to this now. I'm not crazy about Anne Rice :( or Richard Laymon.


message 11: by Canavan (new)

Canavan | 0 comments V wrote:

In the Shadow of Edgar Allan Poe: Classic Tales of Horror, 1816-1914 Leslie S. Klinger love the stories so far.

I felt a little let down when I looked at the table of contents. The Goodreads blurb promises that “[t]his collection features masterful tales of terror by authors who, by and large, are little-remembered for their writing in this genre.” However, the collected stories in Klinger’s anthology are all old chestnuts that most aficionados are going to have seen many times before in older anthologies. Might be worth it for the annotations, but otherwise — meh.


message 12: by Latoya (last edited Oct 18, 2016 08:20PM) (new)

Latoya  | 9 comments Canavan wrote: "V wrote:


In the Shadow of Edgar Allan Poe: Classic Tales of Horror, 1816-1914 Leslie S. Klinger love the stories so far.


I felt a little let down when I looked at the table of contents. The G..."



Oh all these writers are pretty new to me at least the horror is. I really loved the book!

I guess its a good start bc I can look up for the authors works.


message 13: by Allan (new)

Allan Phillips My father was a reader of horror from a young age and collected many interesting books that I grew up paging through. He passed along to me a 10-volume anthology called "The Forgotten Classics of Mystery." It is more horror than mystery; individual volumes are dedicated to Wilkie Collins, Udolpho, Sheridan Le Fanu, Robert Louis Stevenson, Honore de Balzac & Arthur Machen - a volume of various American stories, one of British, and the last two continental Europe. It's where I first read "The Great God Pan", "The Monkey's Paw", and "Carmilla". I've seen it on LibraryThing but it's not in Goodreads. It would a fun hunt to try and track this one down!


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