Bestselling Horror Story Anthologies
Looking for horror stories and horror story collections? The 10 horror anthologies below are the best current collections of horror stories available on Amazon, and they're bound to please.
The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology by Christopher Golden - If horror stories about the living dead tickle your fancy, then this collection from Christopher Golden would be a great purchase. 19 stories are included, from authors as diverse as Joe Hill, Rick Hautala, and Joe Lansdale.
The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre by H.P. Lovecraft - An affordable introduction to H.P. Lovecraft, who is considered by most people to be Poe's successor as master of the horror story. Lovecraft has been a huge influence on every horror writer since.
The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories by Algernon Blackwood - This is one of only two single-author anthologies of horror stories included on this list. Blackwood is a master of the craft, and his stories were a huge influence on H.P. Lovecraft.
Poe's Children: The New Horror by Peter Straub - Over 600 pages of horror stories selected by one of the master horror novelists writing today, Peter Straub. Authors included in the collection include John Crowley, Thomas Tessier, and Thomas Ligotti.
Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror by Ellen Datlow - Darkness presents 25 horror stories from a diverse group of writers including Clive Barker, Peter Straub, and Stephen King.
Vile Things: Extreme Deviations of Horror by Cheryl Mullenax - British horror writers Graham Masterton and Ramsey Campbell both have stories included in this anthology of horror stories, and other authors include Tim Curran and Randy Chandler.
Hellbound Hearts by Paul Kane and Marie O'Regan - This is an anthology of stories set in the same universe as Clive Barker's novel The Hellbound Heart. (That book was the source material for the Hellraiser movies.) Includes stories from Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean.
Dark Delicacies III: Haunted by Del Howison and Jeff Gelb - The editor, Del Howison, owns and operates one of only two all-horror bookstores in the USA, Dark Delicacies. This anthology includes a novella from Chuck Palahniuk, as well as short stories from notable horror authors like David Morrell and Clive Barker.
The Mammoth Book of the Best New Horror by Stephen Jones - Presents short horror stories from 1989 to 2008 from authors like Brian Lumley, Ramsey Campbell, Harlan Ellison, Neil Gaiman, Peter Straub, Tim Lebbon, Joe Hill, Clive Barker, and Stephen King.
Zombies: Encounters with the Hungry Dead by John Skipp - Features 32 zombie stories from notable horror authors like Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Robert R. McCammon, and Joe Lansdale.
Essays about Horror Stories
Through the ages, horror stories raise imagination and response in the form of essays about horror stories. Today's essays about horror stories are written mostly by theatrical critics whose columns regularly appear in the media. Depending on the type of horror stories, authors who write these stories are often viewed not only from their level of writing skill, but also from their signature literary style.
True horror stories range from those written by Edgar Allen Poe to the darker side of horror written by modern authors like Stephen King. Curiously, essays have been written about Mother Goose stories in consideration of their dark elegies. The classic writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne's House of Seven Gables has been the subject of essays since its first publication and continues in many high school and university literature studies.
Though Hawthorne's House of Seven Gables doesn't characterize ghouls or gore, it does represent the dark side of human nature in a most prolific manner. The subject of many of Stephen King's novels are cause for high volumes of essays that subjectively and objectively view his writing style and technique for horror stories with unique beginnings as well as peculiar endings. Writing essays about horror stories provides an opportunity to step into the world of the author and try to understand the basis of his or her writings.
When writing an essay for horror stories, it's important to capture more than just the characters and plot. The interaction between characters should be examined when writing essays about horror stories. Yet, it's also essential to continue to develop the relativity between characters and plot in the essay in order that the essay will have validity.
Essays about horror stories needn't necessarily be a critique. Rather, these essays can be a more in-depth view of the value of the horror stories to readers and in general to literary posterity. Essays about horror stories should cross-examine the author in conjunction with the stories he/she writes in order to provide proper literary evaluation.
Many horror story writers today indulge in excessive guts and gore styles of writing. No story survives an essayist's editorial judgment if the plot is weak. Most essays about horror stories focus on the plot as it relates to writer and character because the plot is what sustains readership.
Choosing a horror story upon which to base an essay isn't a difficult task. The horror story must be thoroughly studied in context with the style and focus of the essay. Reading a horror story like Stephen King's, The Shining as an example, cannot be supplanted for essay material by watching the popular film version.
The horror in this particular book is far more complex than the film version. Writing an essay on The Shining would need to take into account several factors missing from the film such as the main characters Jack Torrance and the action that takes place in the Overlook Hotel that sets the basis for the horror in the plot.