Haunted American Tales:

Short Stories

The dark : new ghost stories edited by Ellen Datlow (2003)   

A chilling anthology of ghost stories by fifteen masters of the macabre features ghoulish horror tales by Ramsey Campbell, Sharyn McCrumb, Joyce Carol Oates, Gahan Wilson, Kathe Koja, Lucius Shepard, and other notable authors.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman "The Yellow Wallpaper" from The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Reader (1980)

In this classic late-nineteenth-century story, a new mother suffering from what we might today call 'post-partum depression,' is diagnosed with a nervous disorder. Instructed to abandon her intellectual life and avoid stimulating company, she sinks into a still-deeper depression invisible to her husband, who believes he knows what is best for her. Alone in the yellow-wallpapered nursery of a rented house, she descends into madness.

Gothic Ghosts edited by Wendy Webb and Charles Grant (1997)

A collection of new, original ghost stories blends the Victorian Gothic and modern fantasy genres and includes tales by Bram Stoker Award-winner Nancy Holder, Nebula Award-winner Esther M. Friesner, and best-selling author Rick Hautala.

Henry James "The Turn of the Screw" from Complete Stories, 1892-1898

As shadowy twin creatures of evil haunt an isolated estate, a young governess watches in horror as she realizes that Miles and Flora -- her two young charges -- want the ghosts to claim them. Classic ghost story by one of America's greatest novelists.

The Literary ghost: great contemporary ghost stories, edited and with an introduction by Larry Dark (1991)

"It takes a certain amount of daring for a literary writer to employ a device as powerful and obvious as a ghost, and a great deal of talent and self-assurance to pull it off. The fact that these stories are so different from one another and that no two ghosts in them are alike is a testament to the power of the individual imagination to appropriate established myths without assuming the associated clichés." So writes Larry Dark in the introduction to this anthology of expertly crafted ghost stories by such luminaries as Donald Barthelme, Paul Bowles, A. S. Byatt, Robertson Davies, M. F. K. Fisher, John Gardner, Nadine Gordimer, Graham Greene, Patrick McGrath, R. K. Narayan, Tim O'Brien, V. S. Pritchett, Anne Sexton, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Fay Weldon.

H. P. Lovecraft The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft annotations by S.T. Joshi (1997)

Offers four of the author's best short stories along with the eerie novella, "At the Mountains of Madness," complemented by a scholarly introduction, hundreds of detailed annotations, and photographs and illustrations depicting the author's life and work.

Alison Lurie Women and Ghosts (1994)

A collection of nine tales focuses on women haunted by spirits of the night and the mind, such as the story of an imminent second wife who is visited by the ghost of the first and a dieting secretary who sees obese people everywhere she looks.

Poe's children : the new horror : an anthology edited by Peter Straub (2008)

A chilling anthology of the best of modern horror fiction features tales from twenty-five masters of the genre, with such selections as Stephen King's "The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet," Dan Chaon's "The Bees," Peter Straub's "Little Red," and works by Neil Gaiman, Jonathan Carroll, and Brian Evenson, among others.

Restless Spirits: Ghost Stories By American Women, 1872-1926, edited with an introduction by Catherine A. Lundie (1996)

This volume provides fascinating glimpses into the psyches of turn-of-the-century American women writers. Ghost stories have always focused on the uneasy and the uncanny. Lundie has divided her selections into categories that provide a quick gloss on the primary sources of discomfort for these women, namely, marriage, motherhood, sexuality, madness, and old age. In each story the author capitalizes on obsessions with the supernatural to explore moral and psychological dilemmas but also to make social criticisms about the institution of marriage, infidelity, and the medical establishment, among others.

Novels

William Peter Blatty The Exorcist (1971)

In D.C. to shoot a film, adored film star Chris MacNeil finds her stay turning into a nightmare when her young daughter, Regan, is possessed by the devil and must endure a brutal exorcism.

Ray Bradbury Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

A strange carnival brings terror to the population of a small midwestern town.

Hecht, Daniel City of Masks : A Cree Black Thriller (2003)

Returning to her ancestral New Orleans home, Lila Beauforte is tormented by an insidious and violent spectre, until her brother calls in "ghostbusters" Cree Black and her partner to unlock the mystery of the historic house, contact the ghosts that haunt it, and exorcise them from the Beaufortes' lives.

Shirley Jackson The Haunting of Hill House (1959)

An anthropologist conducts an unusual research project in a reputedly haunted house.

Stephen King The Shining (1977)

Terrible events occur at an isolated hotel in the off season, when a small boy with psychic powers struggles to hold his own against the forces of evil that are driving his father insane.

Ira Levin Rosemary's Baby (1967)

Witchcraft and terror await Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse when they move into the ominous Bramford apartment house.

Peter Straub Ghost Story (1979)

Questions arise concerning the connections between a strangely detached young girl's captivity in a seedy Florida motel, a death that occurs at a party for a visiting actress, and a young California instructor's obsession with one of his students.