As Stephen King will attest , the popularity of the occult in American literature has only grown since the days of Edgar Allan Poe. American Supernatural Tales 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. By turns phantasmagoric, spectral, and demonic, this is a frighteningly good addition to Penguin Classics.
This is an excellent collection of horror tales ranging from the days of Washington Irving to modern day writers. Joshi has selected the cream of the crop for this anthology, some of which can be hard to locate nowadays especially in ebook format. Some of the offerings within include classics like:
The Fall of the House of Usher by Poe The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft Night Surf by Stephen King Long Distance Call by Richard Matheson The Vanishing American by Charles Beaumont The Yellow Sign by Robert Chambers The Girl With the Hungry Eyes by Fritz Leiber
A must have for horror fans everywhere. My only regret is that there is none of Rod Serling's works included here, for he would fit right in with such a illustrious collection of Ametican masters.
