Looking for some good horror books

[Art]

Hello folks. this is my first post here.
as the title says, I'm looking for some good horror books. my favorite genre/sub-genre (if we could say that) are :

- The haunted house stories
- The well-written ghost stories (not cheesy ones)
- Gothic style horrors
- The dark-atmospheric stories about a mysterious -bad- character

my favorite writer of all time is Poe. so I've practically read all of his stories. and by the way I'm not into electric horror (if there's such a thing out there!), I mean the books with mobile-phones,computer systems and all those electrical-related horror books. although I don't have any problem with stories that happen in a modern society. and I don't like hard sci-fi (mixed in horror), although I don't have any problem with a decent fantasy/horror book. and I seriously hate Twilight series and Darren Shan Books and things like that. here's some of my favorites :

- Everything by Poe
- The Shining
- Frankenstein
- Dracula
- We Have Always Lived in the Castle
- The Haunting of the Hill House
- The Castle of Otranto
- The Picture of Dorian Gray
- Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
- The Hound of the Baskerville
- Araminta Spookie Series

Thanks in Advance

 

[sparkchaser]

Welcome to BAR. I think Will can come up with a nice list for you.

 

[Will]

Hi Art,

You've quite a nice list of strong horror/gothic/supernatural books there. I'd agree very much with most of those, barring Otranto. I know it's key to the history of the gothic novel, but it's really not such a well written book...

Now, I've a couple of suggestions for you as regards your query, but I won't swamp with lists or anything.

- The haunted house stories (you've already mentioned Hill House and The Shining)
* 'Hell House' by Richard Matheson
* 'Haunted' by James Herbert
* 'Ghosts of Sleath' by James Herbert

- The well-written ghost stories (not cheesy ones)
* Anything by M R James, ditto Robert Aickman (though his stuff is quite surreal). 'The Turn of the Screw' by Henry James also worth checking out. I read a couple of Arthur Conan Doyle's supernatural tales the other day, from a collection of his work, and they were quite interesting. They're out of copyright now so you should be able to Google a a few of those to see if there's anything that you like.

- Gothic style horrors
* Wilkie Collins for the gothic in general.
* Quite alot of Anne Rice's stuff, especially her vampire books.

- The dark-atmospheric stories about a mysterious -bad- character
I'll go for something old and something new for this one. Have you tried 'The Beetle' by Richard Marsh - more popular than Stoker's 'Dracula' in its day? Newer, check out Adam Nevill's 'Apartment 16'. The latter is a supernatural chiller, very well written, very scary.
* 'The Doll Who Ate His Mother' by Ramsey Campbell

It's great that you've mentioned 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'. I really do love that book so much!

 

[Anamnesis]

Right now, I can only suggest Poppy Z. Brite's Drawing Blood. It's about a drifter who returns home and discovers his childhood house is haunted. Warning you now: some scenes are not for the close-minded/homophobic.