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.

  1. The New Dead: A Zombie AnthologyThe 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.
  2. The Best of HP LovecraftThe 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.
  3. The Empty House and Other Ghost StoriesThe 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.
  4. Poe's ChildrenPoe'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.
  5. Darkness: Two Decades of Modern HorrorDarkness: 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.
  6. Vile Things: Extreme Deviations of HorrorVile 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.
  7. Hellbound HeartsHellbound 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.
  8. Dark Delicacies III: HauntedDark 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.
  9. The Mammoth Book of the Best New HorrorThe 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.
  10. Zombies: Encounters with the Hungry DeadZombies: 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.

Scariest Horror Stories Ever

What are the scariest horror stories ever told? More importantly, what MAKES a horror story the scariest ever told?

There are as many different styles of horror story as there are horror stories. We have the "cautionary tale" stories that warn of us of very real dangers, we have stories that shock us with unexpected, surreal imagery, we even have tales that diffuse the dark tension with humorous moments.

So what do the best of all of these categories have in common? One thing, primarily: their ability to prey upon the deepest, most primal and most vulnerable parts of the human mind.

We often forget that mankind has spent most of its history living in caves and hiding from predators, that ten thousand years ago, we weren't at the top of the food chain. We were scavengers and foragers, living in fear of animals that were bigger and meaner than ourselves.

While we may like to think we've outgrown those fears, that we've evolved past the need for them, the fact remains that for tens of thousands of years, the fear was all that kept us alive, all that kept us from becoming food for some saber toothed carnivore. What we might call the history of civilization makes up barely a fraction of the entire history of mankind.

Going back far enough, we see ancestors who lived in the sea amongst sharks and other predators. To identify true horror, true monsters, you need only look to the sea, where you'll find predators disguising themselves as their prey in order to lure them in, where you'll find parasites that burrow into the flesh of their hosts and viruses that devour the victim's brain.

The core of strong horror is to take that instinctive, animal fear and to translate it into a story that is relevant to modern living. You can accomplish this by devising some terrible monster representing the fear of being at the bottom of the food chain, or by plucking terrifying tales right out of the newspaper.

The element of the absurd, the surreal, can help as well. There's the story of the scarecrow who came to life and skinned his creator. The unexpected, sheer weirdness of this tale, the suggestion of a reality impossible to understand, is what makes it work. Other stories work because they're so believable, such as that of the babysitter and the stranger calling from the upstairs telephone.

So then, if a horror story is frightening because it taps into subconscious, buried and primal feelings of terror, then it stands to reason that a great scary storyteller is the one that can get into the mindset of the predator and prey on the fears of the audience. Alfred Hitchcock famously said that he liked to play his audience "like a piano", and the subtle manipulation of a great horror story well told can be both spine chilling and a lot of fun.