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Reviewing: Ty Tracey's Three Days in Ashford
Longtime readers of my reviews and my own short stories will probably know that I have a passion for two particular literary motifs: slow-burning, high-concept, low-gore, mystical terror and a...
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H. G. Wells' The Inexperienced Ghost: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of...
As with “The Stolen Body,” “The Inexperienced Ghost” (perhaps Wells’ most anthologized ghost story after “The Red Room” – with good reason, for it is a masterpiece of speculative fiction) is designed...
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Algernon Blackwood's The Wendigo: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of the...
Rivaled in popularity only by “The Willows” – and the contest is a close one – Blackwood’s “The Wendigo” pairs finely with its older cousin, being a horror story of which follows two campers as they...
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7 Best Creepy Stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann (Other than The Nutcracker and The...
He was the godfather of modern horror, weird fiction, and fantasy, an inestimable influence on Poe, Dickens, and Hawthorne, de Maupassant, Stevenson, and James, left his fingerprints on “Frankenstein,”...
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Robert W. Chambers' The Demoiselle DY's: A Two Minute Summary and Analysis of...
Far less ghoulish than the more famous supernatural tales included in The King in Yellow, “The Demoiselle D’Ys” (day-MWAH-zell DEESE) still manages to pack a powerful blow of awe, mysticism, and...
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F. Marion Crawford's The Dead Smile: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of the...
A rictus grin (known in medicine as a risus sardonicus) is a chilling postmortem phenomenon that leaves a corpse with a toothy smile during the early stages of decomposition. This is usually caused by...
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20 Romantic Ghost Stories of Desire, Jealousy, Love, and Loss that You Can...
Romance has always had a dark side: something sinister, possessive, even fatal lurks behind the desire to attract and be attracted. For centuries something spiritual – even supernatural – has been...
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Charles Dickens' The Lawyer and the Ghost: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis...
Dickens wrote several types of ghost stories, and most were more rhetorical exercises or moral parables rather than horror stories, but that makes them no less important or even chilling than the most...
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Arthur Conan Doyle's Lot No. 249: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of the...
Arthur Conan Doyle’s role in the evolution of the malevolent mummy trope was just as fundamental as Stoker’s contributions to the vampire, Stevenson’s to the werewolf, and Shelley’s to the science...
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William Hope Hodgson's A Tropical Horror: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis...
“A Tropical Horror” was the second horror story Hodgson ever wrote, and the first maritime story. While it has been met with mixed criticism, it remains one of his most popular stories, is frequently...
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A Deep Analysis of Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:...
On a hot afternoon in the summer of 2008, I found myself standing on a concrete bridge thirty miles north of New York City, watching the black water of a lazy brook drift into the shadow of yawning...
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W. W. Jacobs' The Brown Man's Servant: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of...
“The Brown Man’s Servant” belongs to that same category of tales as J. S. Le Fanu’s “The Familiar,” M. R. James’ “Casting the Runes,” and “Count Magnus,” and – to degrees – H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Call...
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A Deep Analysis of Henry James' Turn of the Screw: Historical Background,...
Like the other exemplars of the five respective genres of literary horror (Frankenstein, Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde, Haunting of Hill House), “The Turn of the Screw” has a fascinating genesis. Mary...
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J. Sheridan Le Fanu's Squire Toby's Will: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis...
Revenge has consistently been a major theme of Le Fanu’s supernatural fiction. Whether it be the revenge of a spectral agent (Ultor de Lacy, The Familiar, etc.), or that of divine justice (Tyrone...
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Henry James' The Romance of Certain Old Clothes: A Two-Minute Summary and...
“Moonlight, in a familiar room, falling so white upon the carpet, and showcasing all its figures so distinctly, -- making every object so minute visible, yet so unlike a morning or noontide visibility,...
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William Hope Hodgson's The Voice in the Night: A Two-Minute Summary and...
Unquestionably, “The Voice in the Night” is Hodgson’s most famous story. It is also his most filmed story: only three of Carnacki’s tales were filmed (for television), and this – his only other adapted...
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Top 8 Film Adaptations of The Turn of the Screw
Since its publication in 1898, Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw" has absorbed our collective imaginations. It is a story that pits innocence against corruption, desire against duty, and children...
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E. T. A. Hoffmann's The Sandman: A Two-Minute Summary and Analysis of the...
None of Hoffmann’s tales compares in literary merit, psychological scope, or popular influence like “The Sandman.” While “Nutcracker and the Mouse-King” has secured more attention in the genres of...
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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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