The Dark Descent [Paperback]

Winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology. A gigantic, superlatively edited historical overview of horror fiction. Chicago Sun-Times

InThe Dark Descent, hailed as one of the most important anthologies ever to examine horror fiction, editor David G. Hartwell traces the complex history of horror in literature back to the earliest short stories.The Dark Descent showcases the finest of these ever written--from the time-honored classics of masters of the form, including:

Edgar Allan Poe
D.H. Lawrence
Edith Wharton
Flannery O'Connor
Henry James
Ambrose Bierce
Shirley Jackson
Stephen King
Clive Barker
Ray Bradbury
John Collier
H.P. Lovecraft
Harlan Ellison
Robert Bloch
Richard Matheson
Philip K. Dick
Joyce Carol Oates

and many more.

Introduction

PART I: The Color of Evil

The Reach, by Stephen King

Evening Primrose, by John Collier

The Ash-Tree, by M. R. James

The New Mother, by Lucy Clifford

There's a Long, Long Trail a-Winding, by Russell Kirk

The Call of Cthulhu, by H. P. Lovecraft

The Summer People, by Shirley Jackson

The Whimper of Whipped Dogs, by Harlan Ellison

Young Goodman Brown, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Mr. Justice Harbottle, by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

The Crowd, by Ray Bradbury

The Autopsy, by Michael Shea

John Charrington's Wedding, by E. Nesbit

Sticks, by Karl Edward Wagner

Larger Than Oneself, by Robert Aickman

Belsen Express, by Fritz Leiber

Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper, by Robert Bloch

If Damon Comes, by Charles L. Grant

Vandy, Vandy, by Manly Wade Wellman

PART II: The Medusa in the Shield

The Swords, by Robert Aickman

The Roaches, by Thomas M. Disch

Bright Segment, by Theodore Sturgeon

Dread, by Clive Barker

The Fall in the House of Usher, by Edgarló¾