Horror - The 100 Best Books (Jones and Newman, 1988)

[Coír Draoi Ceítien]

While it may not be to everyone's taste, I feel I would be remiss to leave horror out of the mix. Therefore, I have another list for you, compiled by British authors Kim Newman and Stephen Graham Jones, of the 100 most influential books of horror published by 1988. Now the interesting thing about this list is, aside from once again being arranged chronologically by publishing date, the entries in the book are suggested by other writers - one will list his or her opinion on a significant title, then another will do the same for another, and so on. Therefore, we have quite a varied selection.

Not all of these are necessarily fantastic in nature, nor are others directly what one would consider traditional horror, but quite a few are relevant to fantasy interests, so I feel it's worth mentioning. Also, being from a British perspective, some of the titles are U.K. originals and may not have a direct American equivalent.


1.   The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1604) by Christopher Marlowe
2.   The Tragedy of Macbeth (c. 1603 or 1607) by William Shakespeare
3.   The White Devil (1612) by John Webster
4.   Caleb Williams (1794) by William Godwin
5.   The Monk (1796) by Matthew Gregory Lewis
6.   The Best Tales of Hoffmann (1814-16) by E. T. A. Hoffmann
7.   Northanger Abbey (1817) by Jane Austen
8.   Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley
9.   Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) by Charles Robert Maturin
10.   The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) by James Hogg
11.   Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1839/1908) by Edgar Allan Poe
12.   Twice-Told Tales (1837-1842) by Nathaniel Hawthorne
13.   The Black Spider (1842) by Jeremias Gotthelf
14.   The Wandering Jew (1844) by Eugène Sue
15.   The Confidence-Man (1857) by Herman Melville
16.   Uncle Silas (1864) by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
17.   The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson
18.   She (1887) by H. Rider Haggard
19.   The King in Yellow (1895) by Robert W. Chambers
20.   The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896) by H. G. Wells
21.   Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker
22.   The Turn of the Screw (1898) by Henry James
23.   Heart of Darkness (1902) by Joseph Conrad
24.   The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903) by Bram Stoker
25.   Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904) by M. R. James
26.   The House of Souls (1906) by Arthur Machen
27.   John Silence (1908) by Algernon Blackwood
28.   The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) by G. K. Chesterton
29.   The House on the Borderland (1908) by William Hope Hodgson
30.   The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (1909) by Ambrose Bierce
31.   Widdershins (1911) by Oliver Onions
32.   The Horror Horn (1912-34) by E. F. Benson
33.   A Voyage to Arcturus (1920) by David Lindsay
34.   The Trial (1925) by Franz Kafka
35.   Something About Eve (1929) by James Branch Cabell
36.   Medusa (1929) by E. H. Visiak
37.   The Werewolf of Paris (1933) by Guy Endore
38.   The Last Bouquet (1933) by Marjorie Bowen
39.   The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck (1934) by Alexander Laing
40.   A Second Century of Creepy Stories (1937) edited by Hugh Walpole
41.   The Dark Tower (1938) by C. S. Lewis
42.   Johnny Got His Gun (1939) by Dalton Trumbo
43.   The Outsider and Others (1939) by H. P. Lovecraft
44.   Out of Space and Time (1942) by Clark Ashton Smith
45.   Conjure Wife (1943) by Fritz Leiber
46.   Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1945) by Cornell Woolrich
47.   The Lurker at the Threshold (1945) by H. P. Lovecraft & August Derleth
48.   Deliver Me from Eva (1946) by Paul Bailey
49.   And the Darkness Falls (1946) edited by Boris Karloff
50.   The Sleeping and the Dead (1947) edited by August Derleth
51.   The Track of the Cat (1949) by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
52.   The Sound of His Horn (1952) by Sarban
53.   Lord of the Flies (1954) by William Golding
54.   I Am Legend (1954) by Richard Matheson
55.   The October Country (1955) by Ray Bradbury
56.   Nine Horrors and a Dream (1958) by Joseph Payne Brennan
57.   Psycho (1959) by Robert Bloch
58.   Quatermass and the Pit (1959) by Nigel Kneale
59.   Cry Horror! (1959) by H. P. Lovecraft
60.   The Haunting of Hill House (1959) by Shirley Jackson
61.   The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1964) by Philip K. Dick
62.   The Painted Bird (1965) by Jerzy Kosiński
63.   The Crystal World (1966) by J. G. Ballard
64.   Sub Rosa (1968) by Robert Aickman
65.   The Green Man (1969) by Kingsley Amis
66.   The Compleat Werewolf (1969) by Anthony Boucher
67.   Grendel (1971) by John Gardner
68.   The Exorcist (1971) by William Peter Blatty
69.   The Sheep Look Up (1972) by John Brunner
70.   Worse Things Waiting (1973) by Manly Wade Wellman
71.   Burnt Offerings (1973) by Robert Marasco
72.   'Salem's Lot (1975) by Stephen King
73.   Deathbird Stories (1975) by Harlan Ellison
74.   Murgunstrumm and Others (1977) by Hugh B. Cave
75.   Sweetheart, Sweetheart (1977) by Bernard Taylor
76.   All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By (1977) by John Farris
77.   The Shining (1977) by Stephen King
78.   Falling Angel (1978) by William Hjortsberg
79.   The Wolfen (1978) by Whitley Strieber
80.   The Totem (1979) by David Morrell
81.   Ghost Story (1979) by Peter Straub
82.   The Land of Laughs (1980) by Jonathan Carroll
83.   The Cellar (1980) by Richard Laymon
84.   Red Dragon (1981) by Thomas Harris
85.   The Keep (1981) by F. Paul Wilson
86.   The Dark Country (1982) by Dennis Etchison
87.   In a Lonely Place (1983) by Karl Edward Wagner
88.   The Anubis Gates (1983) by Tim Powers
89.   The Arabian Nightmare (1983) by Robert Irwin
90.   The Wasp Factory (1984) by Iain Banks
91.   The Ceremonies (1984) by T. E. D. Klein
92.   Mythago Wood (1984) by Robert Holdstock
93.   Who Made Stevie Crye? (1984) by Michael Bishop
94.   Song of Kali (1985) by Dan Simmons
95.   The D**nation Game (1985) by Clive Barker
96.   Hawksmoor (1985) by Peter Ackroyd
97.   A Nest of Nightmares (1986) by Lisa Tuttle
98.   The Pet (1986) by Charles L. Grant
99.   Swan Song (1987) by Robert McCammon
100.   Dark Feasts (1987) by Ramsey Campbell

So how does this list rank against the others? How many titles have you heard of? Are there any that you feel are worth checking out?