For the first time ever, in a single volume, a comprehensive guide to horror and the supernatural in all the arts ... More than 50 essays and 600 entries covering authors, composers, visual artists, directors, actors, and movies that are connected in some way to horror tales or the supernatural. Also defines terms used with the supernatural.

The most comprehensive volume ever published on Alfred Hitchcock, covering his career and legacy as well as the broader cultural and intellectual contexts of his work. Contains thirty chapters by the leading Hitchcock scholars Covers his long career, from his earliest contributions to other directors’ silent films to his last uncompleted last film Details the enduring legacy he left to filmmakers and audiences alike

Part of a new six-volume series of the best in classic horror, selected by Academy Award-winning director of The Shape of Water Guillermo del Toro American Supernatural Tales is the ultimate collection of weird and frightening American short fiction. As Stephen King will attest, the popularity of the occult in American literature has only grown since the days of Edgar Allan Poe. The book celebrates the richness of this tradition with chilling contributions from some of the nation's brightest literary lights, including Poe himself, H. P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and—of course—Stephen King. This volumes also includes "The Yellow Sign," the most horrific story from The King in Yellow, the classic horror collection by Robert W. Chambers featured on HBO's hit TV series True Detective. By turns phantasmagoric, spectral, and demonic, this is a frighteningly good collection of stories. Filmmaker and longtime horror literature fan Guillermo del Toro serves as the curator for the Penguin Horror series, a new collection of classic tales and poems by masters of the genre. Included here are some of del Toro’s favorites, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Ray Russell’s short story “Sardonicus,” considered by Stephen King to be “perhaps the finest example of the modern Gothic ever written,” to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, Ted Klein, and Robert E. Howard. Featuring original cover art by Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, these stunningly creepy deluxe hardcovers will be perfect additions to the shelves of horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and paranormal aficionados everywhere.

Stories of vampires, werewolves, zombies, witches, goblins, mummies, and other supernatural creatures have existed for time immemorial, and scary stories are among the earliest types of fiction ever recorded. Historical Dictionary of Horror Literature is an invaluable aid in studying horror literature, including influential authors, texts, terms, subgenres, and literary movements. This book contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 400 cross-referenced entries covering authors, subgenres, tropes, awards, organizations, and important terms related to horror. Historical Dictionary of Horror Literature is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about horror literature.

During the last decades of the nineteenth century, Charles Darwin, Thomas Henry Huxley, Walter Pater and others changed the nature of thought concerning the human body and the physical environment that had shaped it. In response, the 1890s saw the publication of a series of remarkable literary works that had their genesis in the intense scientific and aesthetic activity of those preceding decades—texts that emphasized themes of degeneration and were themselves stylistically decompositive, with language both a surrogate for physical deformity and a source of anxiety. Susan J. Navarette examines the ways in which scientific and cultural concerns of late nineteenth-century England are coded in the horror literature of the period. By contextualizing the structural, stylistic, and thematic systems developed by writers seeking to reenact textually the entropic forces they perceived in the natural world, Navarette reconstructs the late Victorian mentalité. She analyzes aesthetic responses to trends in contemporary science and explores horror writers' use of scientific methodologies to support their perception that a long-awaited period of cultural decline had begun. In her analysis of the classics Turn of the Screw and Heart of Darkness, Navarette shows how James and Conrad made artistic use of earlier "scientific" readings of the body. She also considers works by lesser-known authors Walter de la Mare, Vernon Lee, and Arthur Machen, who produced fin de siècle stories that took the form of "hybrid literary monstrosities." To underscore the fascination with bodily decay and deformation that these writers explored, The Shape of Fear is enhanced with prints and line drawings by Victor Hugo, James Ensor, and other artists of the day. This elegantly written book formulates a new canon of late Victorian fiction that will intrigue scholars of literature and cultural history.

Horror: Another 100 Best Books features one hundred of the top names in the horror field discussing one hundred of the most spine-chilling novels ever written. Each entry includes a synopsis of the work as well as publication history, biographical information about the author of each title, and recommended reading and biographical notes on the contributor. Author Ramsey Campbell also offers a new foreword to the book describing the evolution of horror over the past two decades — from the way it's written by a crop of new and exciting writers to the way it's received by a new market of readers. Horror: Another 100 Best Books will be the definitive guide to the tremendous library of horror fiction available today —a reference that no fan can live without.

The Encyclopedia of Hell is a comprehensive survey of the underworld, drawing information from cultures around the globe and eras throughout history. Organized in a simple-to-use alphabetic format, entries cover representations of the dark realm of the dead in mythology, religion, works of art, opera, literature, theater, music, film, and television. Sources include African legends, Native American stories, Asian folktales, and other more obscure references, in addition to familiar infernal chronicles from Western lore. The result is a catalog of underworld data, with entries running the gamut from descriptions of grisly pits of torture to humorous cartoons lampooning the everlasting abyss. Its extensive cross-referencing also supplies links between various concepts and characters from the netherworld and provides further information on particular theories. Peruse these pages and find out for yourself what history's greatest imaginations have envisioned awaiting the wicked on the other side of the grave.

Beware the curse composed in verse! The night is cold and clear and starry. Don't walk in the woods, or you'll be sorry. ESPECIALLY if you happen to be the last heir of the Hammands! The super-sensitive Miss Luna Bartendale, psychic investigator extraordinaire, has had success in the past laying family curses, but the Monster of Hammand will prove harder than any challenge she has faced before. And Dannow Old Manor is home to more than one secret, with a trail that leads from its Hidden Room to the ancient barrow of a Saxon chieftain and back again -- and from a family legacy birthed in the Bronze Age to the Twilight of the Gods!