Welcome, dear reader, to the historical shelf of our humble little library.
Some of literature’s greatest and most prominent voices in horror and heresy are gathered here, collectively providing a well-rounded sampling of antiquity’s most spine-chilling fears—well, if not antiquity, then certainly the 19th century. More often than not, those scoundrels indulged in all manner of ghoulish delights. But fear not! Our scope is not quite so limited: We boast countless tales from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries—up until the late 1920s, that is. (Anything more current is, alas, not yet included in the public domain.)
In our extensive collection, we feature multiple chilling tales from such esteemed figures as Robert Louis Stevenson, Louisa May Alcott, Edith Wharton, Algernon Blackwood, Charles Dickens, and, perhaps most importantly (at least for our nefarious purposes), the inimitable Edgar Allan Poe. We can also offer a collection of miscellaneous short horror fiction, in which you’ll find the writings of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, W.W. Jacobs, Margaret Oliphant, Washington Irving, and many others.
As the horror and weird fiction genres have long and, dare we say, storied histories (forgive the pun, if you so desire), we have invariably missed some lesser-known tales while gathering this collection; more specifically, we recognize that a vast majority of popular historical horror fiction (especially that within the public domain) is written and anthologized by white, English-speaking authors. We are working to locate additional short horror fiction from BIPOC and non-Anglophone authors to include in our collection, as these voices not only deserve to be heard (or, rather, read), but are necessary for understanding the full scope of horror fiction’s spread and influence. If you have any recommendations to this effect, feel free to reach out using the email address found in our “Submissions” tab.
Finally, as mentioned in our “About the Post” introduction, we would like to advise that you exercise caution while engaging with the stories found below. As much as we adore short horror fiction in all its forms, we recognize that many historical authors harbored objectionable perspectives on race, sex, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and other sensitive topics and may have included language or story elements in their writing that are disproportionately upsetting, offensive, or otherwise unsavory. These ideologies do not reflect those of the Post or its staff, though we do feel it necessary to include past authors’ shortcomings for the sake of transparency and posterity. Thank you for understanding and for joining us on this ever-expanding—and often treacherous—literary journey.
Please enjoy these chilling tales from eras past; we hope they frighten and delight in equal measure—or in whichever measure you find most enjoyable.
Special thanks to Sublime Horror, Short Story Guide, Project Gutenberg, Oldstyle Tales Press, AmericanLiterature.com, and FullReads.com for their superb record-keeping and literary preservation efforts. This vast and labyrinthine project would not have been possible without them.
The Raven Post 