Get a scary 15% off my horror books through Sunday, October 26th

Get a scary 15% off my books through Sunday, October 26th. Online use coupon code: JP4KGWP3JPAGF  A best bet for Halloween is 6a66le: The Best Horror Short Stories 1800-1849.

An anthology finalist award winner in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards and a Gothic Readers Book Club Choice Award Winner, The Best Horror Short Stories 1800-1849 delivers 12 of the greatest horror stories for the first half of the 19th century.

Andrew Barger, author of the award winning Coffee with Poe: A Novel of Edgar Allan Poe's Life as well as Edgar Allan Poe Annotated and Illustrated Entire Stories and Poems, read over 300 horror short stories to compile the 12 best. At the back of the book he includes a list of all short stories he considered along with their dates of publication and author, when available. He includes background for each of the stories and author photos. A number of the stories were published in leading periodicals of the day such as Blackwood's and Atkinson's Casket. Read 6a66le:The Best Horror Short Stories 1800-1849 tonight!

• 1836 The Old Man's Tale About the Queer Client by Charles Dickens (1812 -1870)
• 1817 The Deserted House by E.T. A. Hoffmann (1776 - 1822)
• 1836 The Minister's Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 - 1864)
• 1843 The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849)
• 1830 The Mysterious Mansion by Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)
• 1828 The Severed Hand by Wilhelm Hauff (1802 - 1827)
• 1826 The Lighthouse by George Soane (1789 - 1860)
• 1842 The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849)
• 1832 The Executioner by Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)
• 1832 The Thunder-Struck and the Boxer by Samuel Warren (1807 - 1877)
• 1845 The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar by Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849)
• 1839 The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849) 

Metamorphosis - a Horror Insect Story

To me, at least in his later years, Franz Kafka was our whiny man of literature. This is never so true as when he berated his family during the time of Metamorphosis and his portrayal of his family's treatment of him in the horror story. Where is the thanks and gratitude? But if you have never read it, you give it a spin.

One of the best things about Kafka, however, are his quotes on literature. Consider this one he wrote when 20 years old to his friend Oskar Pollak in January of 1904:

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide.

First out of body experience in a horror short story

Richard Harris Barham (1788-1845)

One of the first short stories in the English language to feature an out of body experience is A Singular Passage in the Life of  the Late Henry Harris D.D. The early horror story was published in Blackwood's Magazine by Richard Harris Barham (1788-1845). This is little surprise given the many early horror tales Blackwood's published by authors mostly in the UK.

Without giving too much of this excellent story away, the protagonist finds her "spirit" teleported to another place where she does not want to be with people she would rather avoid as they practice their dark arts. Published in 1831, this story is ranked 35th in the Top 40 horror short stories from 1800-1849. Still, it is well worth a read to learn about this dark secret.

New Poe Statue in Boston Featuring Tell-Tale Heart Motif

Any attention brought to Poe is much needed in this country, over two hundred years after the birth of one of its greatest and most mysterious authors. That's why I was glad to hear about a new Poe statue.

The Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston has commissioned a statue of Poe that is shown in their photo above. It features poe in his trademark cravat, carrying his valise that oddly has a heart spilling out the back of it in remembrance of "his most famous short story" The Tell-Tale Heart. In my view The Fall of the House of Usher is Poe's finest horror short story (and scariest short story), but hey. In the foreground of the statue is, of course, a raven modeled after his famous poem that is still read today in schools throughout the world.

Read more about it in the Boston Magazine.

Get 15% off my books through Sunday January 2nd at Barnes and Noble online

A Superbowl Sunday for horror books! Get 15% off my books through Sunday January 2nd at Barnes and Noble online. (Andrew Barger books at BN.com) Just use coupon code: 5B63U2CQNTQ61

Happy Birthday to Edgar Allan Poe - The Great Horror Short Story Author

Happy 205th birthday to Edgar Allan Poe!

“Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man. For my own part, there is no seducing me from the path. I shall be a litterateur, at least, all my life; nor would I abandon the hopes which still lead me on for all the gold in California.”

EDGAR ALLAN POE TO FREDERICK WILLIAM THOMAS
FEBRUARY 14, 1849”

Shifters: The Best Werewolf Short Stories 1800-1849 anthology is a Gothic Readers Choice Award Winner

GOTHIC READERS CHOICE AWARD WINNER

By Gothic Readers Book Club on January 2, 2014

Although lycanthropy and shapeshifting legends have existed for countless centuries, werewolves are not considered a staple of the Gothic literary tradition. Editor Andrew Barger gives us evidence to the contrary with his collection of the best of the wolf stories from the early modern period. Many of these stories have not been republished in over 150 years. There are more than just ghosts and vampires lurking in the 1800s!

If You Like: Edgar Allan Poe, Honor de Balzac, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Prosper Mrime, James Hogg.