Ever since man first began to tell stories – often crouched around a campfire late at night – storytellers have tried to send a chill up the spine of their listeners; to delight, thrill and even terrify their audience with stories of ghosts, ghouls and things that go bump in the night. To this day, some of the most popular stories ever written were created to give readers a sense of dread, excitement and wonder at the unknown.
Collected here are four of the world’s best-known and beloved tales of horror, suspense and terror: Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula, ‘ H.G. Wells’ ‘The War of the Worlds, ‘ Washington Irving’s ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ and Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Black Cat.’
We begin with the greatest vampire story of all time, Bram Stoker’s terrifying classic ‘Dracula, ‘ which spins the tale of the King of the Undead as he travels from Transylvania to England in search of his lost love.
Next, we find ourselves in a world under siege in H.G. Wells’ groundbreaking story of alien invasion, ‘The War of the Worlds.’ As the Earth is attacked from above, we follow our narrator as he flees into the British countryside to escape the murderous horde from Mars!
Then we have ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, ‘ American short story writer Washington Irving’s Halloween tale of Ichabod Crane – the superstitious Yankee schoolteacher who comes face-to-face with the legendary Headless Horsemen in the woods of New England!
And finally, we find ourselves in the world of Edgar Allan Poe, the Master of Horror, as he spins the tale of a violently cruel young man who believes he can get away with murder…and the only adversary who can possibly bring him to justice: a misused feline with a taste for vengeance!
Collected together for the first time, here are four stories of murder, mayhem and malevolence, all presented in their original and unabridged formats.
About the author
Edgar Allan Poe was born Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809, the second child of actors David and Elizabeth (‘Eliza’) Poe.A year after his birth, Poe’s father abandoned the family and his mother died soon thereafter. Poe was subsequently taken in (though not formally adopted) by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia (thus providing him with a middle name).Poe had a tense relationship with his foster family, often arguing with John Allan over finances. Poe attempted to become a soldier, enlisting in 1827 under an alias, but he was forced to leave cadet training at West Point and began concentrating more heavily on his writing.Poe’s earliest stories were published anonymously in 1827 but soon after leaving the military, he began publishing works under his own name and contributing articles on literary criticism to local journals and newspapers. In his brief but prolific career, he produced dozens of short stories, poems and essays. He migrated from city to city, living at times in Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City.In 1836, Poe married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm, who died of tuberculosis eleven years later. Poe would use Virginia and her death as the inspiration for many of his dark tales of loss and yearning.Poe was known for his macabre and morbid fiction, his short stories and poems often featuring haunted characters, cursed houses, murder, mayhem and often gory and disturbing assaults. He is also known as the inventor of ‘detective fiction’ for his creation of the Sherlock Holmes prototype C. Auguste Dupin.A lifelong alcoholic who often suffered from severe bouts of depression and mental illness, Poe was found wandering about the streets of Baltimore on October 3, 1849 and was brought to Washington Medical Hospital where he died four days later. His cause of death has been widely speculated upon as being from liver failure, cholera, meningitis, syphilis or, possibly, a combination of factors.Edgar Allan Poe remains one of America’s most celebrated and widely-read authors and his works have been adapted into dozens of films and dramatic productions.
More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
751,632 Ebooks in this category
