The Dark Descent

This highly acclaimed anthology traces the evolution of horror, from Nathaniel Hawthorn and Edgar Allan Poe to Stephen King. Adopted by colleges across the country to be used in literature courses, The Dark Descent showcases some of the finest horror fiction ever written.

Contents:

Pt. 1 – The Color of Evil

The Reach / Stephen King
Evening Primrose / John Collier
The Ash-Tree / M. R. James
The New Mother / Lucy Clifford
There’s a Long, Long Trail A-winding / Russell Kirk
The Call of Cthulhu / H. P. Lovecraft
The Summer People / Shirley Jackson
The Whimper of Whipped Dogs / Harlan Ellison
Young Goodman Brown / Nathaniel Hawthorne
Mr. Justice Harbottle / J. Sheridan Le Fanu
The Crowd / Ray Bradbury
The Autopsy / Michael Shea
John Charrington’s Wedding / E. Nesbit
Sticks / Karl Edward Wagner
Larger Than Oneself / Robert Aickman
Belsen Express / Fritz Leiber
Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper / Robert Bloch
If Damon Comes / Charles L. Grant
Vandy, Vandy / Manly Wade Wellman

Pt. 2 – The Medusa in the Shield

The Swords / Robert Aickman
The Roaches / Thomas M. Disch
Bright Segment / Theodore Sturgeon
Dread / Clive Barker
The Fall of the House of Usher / Edgar Allan Poe
The Monkey / Stephen King
Within the Walls of Tyre / Michael Bishop
The Rats in the Walls / H. P. Lovecraft
Schalken the Painter / J. Sheridan Le Fanu
The Yellow Wallpaper / Charlotte Perkins Gilman
A Rose for Emily / William Faulkner
How Love Came to Professor Guildea / Robert Hichens
Born of Man and Woman / Richard Matheson
My Dear Emily / Joanna Russ
You Can Go Now / Dennis Etchison
The Rocking-Horse Winner / D. H. Lawrence
Three Days / Tanith Lee
Good Country People / Flannery O’Connor
Mackintosh Willy / Ramsey Campbell
The Jolly Corner / Henry James

Pt. 3 – A Fabulous Formless Darkness

Smoke Ghost / Fritz Leiber
Seven American Nights / Gene Wolfe
The Signal-Man / Charles Dickens
Crouch End / Stephen King
Night-Side / Joyce Carol Oates
Seaton’s Aunt / Walter de la Mare
Clara Militch / Ivan Turgenev
The Repairer of Reputations / Robert W. Chambers
The Beckoning Fair One / Oliver Onions
What Was It? / Fitz-James O’Brien
The Beautiful Stranger / Shirley Jackson
The Damned Thing / Ambrose Bierce
Afterward / Edith Wharton
The Willows / Algernon Blackwood
The Asian Shore / Thomas M. Disch
The Hospice / Robert Aickman
A Little Something for Us Tempunauts / Philip K. Dick