My Favorite Horror Story

[Shear]

I will cheat and give a five way tie:

Aickman - The Houses of the Russians
Christopher Harman - Bad Teeth
Fritz Leiber - The Inheritance
Hoffmann - The Sandman
R.B. Russell - Blue Glow (though hard to pluck a favorite from one of the best collections of weird fiction in the last thirty years)

[GirlyGirlMask]

The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Gospel According to St. Mark - Jorge Luis Borges

The Minister's Black Veil - Nathaniel Hawthorne

Alice's Last Adventure - Thomas Ligotti

A Collapse of Horses - Brian Evenson (has not endured the test of time, but as of now, I'm in love)

[njhorror]

Quote Originally Posted by Aetherwing

You are correct, sir. O'Brien it is. Thanks for the memory-jog, DF. For your prize, I would reward you with your very own Star Vampire, but I see you already have your own... _Aether

YouTube

[Speaking Mute]

Lovecraft - The Whisperer in the Darkness, Hypnos, The Quest of Iranon
Blackwood - The Willows
Leiber - The Black Gondolier
Collier - Evening Primrose
Grabinski - The Glance, In the Compartment, On a Tangent, Szamota's Mistress
Ligotti - The Town Manager, Our Temporary Supervisor
Wittkrop - Idalia on the Tower, A Descent
Krzhizhanovsky - The Collector of Cracks
Akutagawa - Spinning Gears; not really a horror story and not really fiction, but reading it coupled with the knowledge that Akutagawa committed suicide shortly after writing it left me physically sick with depression. I'm not sure I would consider or recommend it as a "favorite", but it is the only piece of writing that's ever had a visceral effect on me.

[Mr. Veech]

Quote Originally Posted by GirlyGirlMask

The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Gospel According to St. Mark - Jorge Luis Borges The Minister's Black Veil - Nathaniel Hawthorne Alice's Last Adventure - Thomas Ligotti A Collapse of Horses - Brian Evenson (has not endured the test of time, but as of now, I'm in love)

"The Minister's Black Veil" - great pick! Hawthorne is absolutely amazing.

[Druidic]

All Lovecraft.

The Colour out of Space

The Dunwich Horror

The Rats in the Walls

The Shadow Over Innsmouth

The Picture in the House

At some point, I'd jump over to Blackwood's "Willows," "Wendigo" and "The Man Whom the Trees Loved."

One tale per author.

Short stories/novellas:

The Inner Room by Robert Aickman
Seaton's Aunt by Walter de la Mare
A Warning to the Curious by M. R. James
The White People by Arthur Machen
The Beckoning Fair One by Oliver Onions
Three Miles Up by Elizabeth Jane Howard
Amour Dure by Vernon Lee
The Demon Lover by Elizabeth Bowen
The End of a Summer's Day by Ramsey Campbell
Gas Station Carnivals by Thomas Ligotti
The Spider by Hanns Heinz Ewers
The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H. P. Lovecraft
The Sand-Man by E. T. A. Hoffman
Ligeia by Edgar Allan Poe
The Willows by Algernon Blackwood
Schalcken the Painter by Sheridan Le Fanu
In the Hills, the Cities by Clive Barker
Flowers of the Sea by Reggie Oliver
The Summer People by Shirley Jackson
The Minister's Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Petey by T. E. D. Klein
The Hanging Balloons by Junji Ito
The Button Molder by Fritz Leiber

Novels:

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Sound of His Horn by Sarban (underrated in these parts)
The House on the Borderland & The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson
Salem's Lot by Stephen King
Our Lady of Darkness & Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Hanns Heinz Ewers

[GirlyGirlMask]

Does O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" qualify as horror?

[Mr. Veech]

Quote Originally Posted by GirlyGirlMask

Does O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" qualify as horror?

The story made me very queasy, in a very good way, after reading it, so I would definitely say "yes." Just thinking about it makes my stomach churn.

However, the paradigm for horror is, in my humble opinion, Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher." Even though it doesn't conform to the "horror"or "story" labels, I would also include Baudelaire's The Flowers of Evil. A few of Ligotti's stories are up there as well, though I'm too tired to think of which ones at the moment.

I have not read as much as many on here, but so far my favorites are these:

"The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood
"The Motion Demon" by Stefan Grabinski
"The Inner Room" by Robert Aickman
"The Hospice" by Robert Aickman
"The White People" by Arthur Machen
"The Colour Out of Space" by Lovecraft
"The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe
"Shiva, Open Your Eye" by Laird Barron
"Alice's Last Adventure" by Thomas Ligotti
"In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land" by Thomas Ligotti
The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat
Beautiful Darkness by Fabien Vehlmann and Kerascoët