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Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of the...
While “Sleepy Hollow” may be Irving’s pop culture masterpiece – indelibly leaving its imprint on the American celebration of Halloween – it is “Rip Van Winkle” that has kept his name in print for two...
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Arthur Machen's The Novel of the Black Seal: A Two-Minute Summary and...
Another frequently anthologized excerpt from The Three Imposters, “The Novel of the Black Seal” leant its pacing and style to M. R. James as well as H. P. Lovecraft. For James’ part, it has an uncanny...
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Edith Nesbit's The Mystery of the Semi-Detached: A Two-Minute Summary and...
Nesbit mastered the late Victorian clairvoyant tale, and this very short sketch – almost flash fiction – is an underappreciated jewel of her work. Her stories featured calamity reaching out of the...
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Fitz-James O'Brien's What Was It?: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of the...
Most famous in O’Brien’s oeuvre is the following episode: “What Was It?” In the original publication (which we have included), references to opium and a stark ending brooding with uncertainty enhanced...
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Edgar Allan Poe's Morella: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of the Classic...
The women of Poe’s tales are often polar opposites from the men who adore them. Like Berenice, the extroverted sensualist (who is mutilated by Egaeus, the reclusive intellectual) they represent what...
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Robert Louis Stevenson's Thrawn Janet: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of...
Robert Louis Stevenson was raised in a devout Presbyterian household. His father was a devoted Tory, and his family was proud of his trajectory to join the law profession, but in 1867 he attended...
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Bram Stoker's Dracula's Guest: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of the...
“Dracula’s Guest” was provocative almost as soon as it was released in 1914, and it has remained highly controversial since then – increasing in intrigue until roughly the 1970s when a sort of...
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H. G. Wells' The Door in the Wall: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of the...
H. G. Wells’ last truly great piece of short speculative fiction is probably the following tale. After World War One his writing became increasingly didactic, political, and preachy. Following his...
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Algernon Blackwood's The Willows: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of the...
Weird Fiction developed early in the Nineteenth Century with the bizarre supernatural annals of Hoffmann, Poe, and O’Brien, but the peak of its philosophy began percolating in the grotesqueries of...
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Robert W. Chambers' Cassilda's Song: A Thirty-Second Analysis of the King in...
“Cassilda’s Song” opens The King in Yellow, setting the tone for the anthology, and giving us our most liberal taste of what the eponymous play would read like, the nature of its prose and plot, and...
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Arthur Conan Doyle's The Horror of the Heights: A Two-Minute Summary and...
Doyle’s final great horror story is truly a worthy swan song – a tale who’s science fiction maintains a level of effective awe in spite of having been categorically disproven by aviators a mere decade...
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William Hope Hodgson's The Whistling Room: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis...
Perhaps using a touch of M. R. James (cf. “Count Magnus,” “Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book”), Hodgson riffs off of the legend that Solomon was given a series of rings by God with which he could control...
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E. T. A. Hoffmann's Councillor Krespel: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of...
Music has almost always been seen as a sublime expression of the unconscious: singers, players, and composers allow humanity to express and vicariously experience the most complex emotions of our...
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Washington Irving's The Adventure of the German Student: A Two-Minute Summary...
Aside from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle,” none of Irving’s ghost stories has had the incredible popularity – both among printers and the public – as “The Adventure of the German...
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W. W. Jacobs' The Toll-House: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of the...
Second to “The Monkey’s Paw” and the similarly-themed “Jerry Bundler,” “The Toll-House” is Jacobs’ most anthologized horror story, and with good reason. Few haunted house stories have ever been...
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Le Fanu's Schalken the Painter: A Summary and Full Analysis of the Classic...
Godfried Schalcken (1643 - 1706) was a Dutch master painter who studied under one of Rembrandt’s greatest pupils, attached himself to the court of William III, and was well-known for his temper,...
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The Phantom of the Opera: Historical Inspirations, Literary Analysis, & Film...
“The Opera Ghost really existed…” Such are the opening lines of Gaston Leroux’s Edwardian homage to the Belle Epoque. Pregnant with mystery, romance, and intrigue, the words usher us into a world as...
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Arthur Machen's The Bowmen: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of the Classic...
More than “The Great God Pan,” more than “The White People,” more than anything written in “The Three Imposters,” Machen is best known for a three-page piece of wartime propaganda that perfectly...
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E. Nesbit's The Shadow: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of the Classic...
“The Shadow” is Nesbit’s worthiest bid for the literary ghost story – that rare genre of powerful, elegant supernaturalism that thunders in your ears after you read it, haunts you intermittently for...
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The Shadow by E. Nesbit (with footnote annotations)
This is not an artistically rounded-off ghost story[1], and nothing is explained in it[2], and there seems to be no reason why any of it should have happened. But that is no reason why it should not be...
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Fitz-James O'Brien's The Diamond Lens: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of...
O’Brien has not been called the “Celtic Poe” without cause. Among the most famous of his works (after “What Was It?”), “The Diamond Lens” is rich in Poesque imagery and motifs, and yet it maintains a...
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The Nightmarish, Existential, Deeply Personal Horror Stories of Edgar Allan...
You have read Poe before. I say that with the authority of someone who was brought up in the American public education system. You have read “The Raven” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” If your school was...
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Edgar Allan Poe's Ligeia: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of the Classic...
Many of Poe’s tales can be seen as re-workings of previous works: “MS.” becomes “Maelström,” “Metzengerstein” becomes “Hop-Frog,” “Shadow” becomes “Masque,” “Tell-Tale Heart” becomes “Imp of the...
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Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher: A Two-Minute Summary and...
Magnum opus to Poe’s canon, “The Fall of the House of Usher” single-handedly could have ensured his reputation. While others may contend for the title of “Greatest” in the catalogue, the influence of...
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Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of...
Arguably the most famous of Poe’s murder tales (and comfortably short for casual readers of literary fiction) “The Tell-Tale Heart” has become a cultural metaphor for the exposure of evil deeds. And...
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Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask of Amontillado: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis...
Unlike “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Imp of the Perverse,” and “The Black Cat,” Poe’s final two murder tales – “The Cask of Amontillado” and “Hop-Frog” – were revenge fantasies. The previous three murder...
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Critical Interpretations, a Literary Analysis, and...
I was six years old when I walked into a bookstore in Holland, Michigan with my family and met Dr. Jekyll for the first time. We had recently watched The Great Mouse Detective and I saw the...
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Bram Stoker's The Burial of the Rats: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of...
Part “Three Skeleton Key,” part “The Most Dangerous Game,” “The Burial of the Rats” has the distinctive flavor of an Edwardian gentleman’s magazine thriller, and it features all the necessary tropes...
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The White-Knuckle Thrillers and Darwinian Horror Stories of H. G. Wells (An...
The canon of science fiction follows a very direct descent. From Thomas More to Johannes Kepler, Francis Godwin, and Cyrano de Bergerac, thence to Swift, off to Mary Shelley, handed to Hoffmann, then...
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An Analysis, Interpretations, and Inspirations of H. G. Wells' The Invisible...
When H. G. Wells first published “The Invisible Man” in 1897, the title alone ensured its success. Invisibility fascinates, attracts, and terrifies. It’s allure rests in the ability to escape notice...
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The Savagely Brutal, Bitterly Mournful Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierce...
“GHOST, n. The outward sign of an inward fear” — Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s DictionaryHe was the successor of Edgar Allan Poe and a harbinger of H. P. Lovecraft, penning some of the most shocking,...
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Ambrose Bierce's The Boarded Window: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of the...
Perhaps Bierce’s most anthologized horror story, “The Boarded Window” has remained a staple of American Gothicism since its publication, though with little commentary. As with so many of his stories,...
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Of Dreams that Wave Before the Half-Shut Eye: A Sleepy Hollow Ghost Story for...
Raw from her parents’ recent deaths and a crushing divorce, an anthropology professor is now faced with losing her chance at tenure and decides to spend her fall break in Sleepy Hollow, New York in a...
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The Hound of the Baskervilles: Analyses, Interpretations, and Inspirations --...
As we all know, Arthur Conan Doyle was the most significant contributor to the detective story genre – what Verne and Wells were to science fiction, or what Tolkein and Lewis were to fantasy. And yet –...
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E. T. A. Hoffmann's The Stranger Child: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of...
One of Hoffmann’s most common motifs – the hallmark of his fiction – is the theme of parallelism. His fantasies are unlike typical fairy tales in that they don’t depict wondrous things happening in a...
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A Christmas Carol: Inspirations, Interpretations, and a Deep Analysis -- A...
Arguably Dickens’ most famous work, there is something inescapably archetypal about “A Christmas Carol.” Its heavyweight power to charm, chill, and awe has made it one of the most adapted pieces of...
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E. T. A. Hoffmann's The Lost Reflection: A New Year's Eve Adventure -- A...
In 1810 Hoffmann began teaching music to Julia Mark, the teenaged cousin of one of his close friends. Hoffmann met her when she was twelve – about a year after the death of his infant daughter, and not...
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Edgar Allan Poe's Hop-Frog: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of the Classic...
Poe’s final tale of horror was inspired by two actual events: the first was the social scandal aroused by a spurned woman, and the other was a ghastly event of Medieval French history called the Ball...
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Rhoda Broughton's Nothing But the Truth: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of...
In the cold February of 1868, Sheridan Le Fanu's Welsh niece, Rhoda Broughton, published her first ghost story: "The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth" -- a chilling episode based on...
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Rhoda Broughton's Behold, It Was a Dream: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis...
Like her first ghost story, “Nothing But the Truth,” the following tale is an example of Rhoda Broughton’s brilliant ability to infuse the dreadful into the domestic. Another story built on a...
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Elizabeth Gaskell's The Old Nurse's Story: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis...
Elizabeth Gaskell – like Broughton and Oliphant – wrote ghost stories with a critical (and notably feminist) perspective of British society. Her fiction explored the unstable nature (and looming doom)...
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J. Sheridan Le Fanu's Green Tea: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of the...
With the sole exception of “Carmilla,” “Green Tea” reigns as J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s most widely celebrated and well-known supernatural tale. I know of many people who, when asked if they know anything...
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Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death: A Two-Minute Summary and...
Often considered a parabolic meditation on the invincibility of death – a mere prose expansion of “The Conqueror Worm” – “The Masque of the Red Death” suffers from an underappreciation of its brooding...
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Ambrose Bierce's Some Haunted Houses (The Spook House and Others): A...
“Some Haunted Houses” is easily one of Bierce’s most entertaining series of tales. I recommend it as the ideal Hallowe’en reading choice – a collection of pithy short stories that exude the gloomy...
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Algernon Blackwood's The Glamour Of the Snow: A Two-Minute Summary and...
A wintry fantasia of Nature, Death, and the Sublime, “The Glamour of the Snow” features one of Blackwood’s most deceptively disturbing stories. While it lacks the psychological terror of “The Wendigo”...
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"The Key to Grief" by Robert W. Chambers (A Rare and Forgotten Story...
NOTE BY M. GRANT KELLERMEYER: A “key” in nautical geography is a low, sandy island that juts out of a sunken reef. This makes the more obvious meaning of the “key to grief” no less poignant: it is a...
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"The Harbor-Master" by Robert W. Chambers (A Rare and Forgotten Story...
NOTE BY M. GRANT KELLERMEYER: While many fans of H. P. Lovecraft assume that Chambers’ influence on him begins and ends with The King in Yellow, the following story attracted a great deal of excitement...
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"The 'Shamraken' Homeward-Bounder" by William Hope Hodgson (A Rare and...
NOTE BY M. GRANT KELLERMEYER: One of the few stories in this book to have attracted critical attention outside of the horror world, “The ‘Shamraken’ Homeward-Bounder” takes a place alongside the works...
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"Out of the Storm" by William Hope Hodgson (A Rare and Forgotten Story...
NOTE BY M. GRANT KELLERMEYER: The following remarks on this story come from Mr. Chris William’s 2008 article on “Out of the Storm” from his superb horror blog, TenHornedBeast. Mr. Williams’ words...
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"From the Tideless Sea" (Part I.) by William Hope Hodgson (A Rare and...
NOTES BY M. GRANT KELLERMEYER: Aside from “Carnacki the Ghost-Finder,” Hodgson is probably most famous for what has been referred to as his Sargasso Sea Mythos – a series of horror stories set in the...
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