We all have fears. They may be irrational, dark or even logically coherent, but we all believe that, at some point, we will be subject to their grasp and punishment. Here our classic authors ladle up stories that both shock and resonate.

Deep within us is the dread of dying of moving on from life to another state of being. We assume it comes about through accident, perhaps even murder or disease that can be sudden or can take years to pull us into oblivion. But perhaps trumping all of these is the fear of being buried alive. The sheer terror of being totally trapped, unable to summon help and escape, fills one and all with a deeply unique terror.In this volume such icons as Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce and Honor...

An author’s talents may seem obvious and indisputable as they move words and ideas into gathered phrases and stories.But where do these ideas and stories come from? A lonely thought that suddenly gathers form? An inspiration from a Muse? A suggestion from an everyday event?Perhaps in the case of their darker, more malevolent stories, other forces are at work. They help to nourish single words into sentences and paragraphs that ease themselves from the shadows and are sudden...

The cliché is of the artist starving in his garret. Be it poet or author it seems romantic but lacks somewhat in the comforts and quality of life.Somewhat better then to live and write in perhaps the Classical Cultural centre of the world; Italy. A gloried land that sates the appetite yet something increases its ambition and its yearning for further reach. Being an English author in a new and different culture seems to work its magic when these two are placed together in the same s...

Twenty ghostly tales from the supernatural masters of the Victorian age. Wimbourne Books presents the fourth in a series of rare or out-of-print ghost stories from Victorian authors. With an introduction by author Alastair Gunn, Volume 4 in the series spans the years 1835 to 1869 and includes stories from a wide range of male authors; English, Irish, Scottish and American. Includes tales by Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Washington Irving. Readers new to this genre will discover ...

There is something about the number 3.The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two.Most religions also have 3 this and 3 that and, of course, in these more modern times, three’s a crowd may be too many, except when it’s a ménage à trois. It seems good things usually come in threes.Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore them...

Wimbourne Books presents the tenth in a series of rare or out-of-print ghost stories from Victorian authors. With an introduction by author Alastair Gunn, Volume 10 in the series spans the years 1838 to 1898 and includes stories from a wide range of authors; English, Irish, Scottish and American. Includes tales by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edith Nesbit and Margaret Oliphant. Readers new to this genre will discover its pleasures; the Victorian quaintness, the sometimes sho...

For almost all of us the idea of being locked away in prison is a dreadful thought to consider. To be in that position, to get put away, for whatever reasons, for whatever pain or injury that was caused, whatever law was broken, the probability of years in a small, cramped space holds no appeal to anyone of reason and is almost always an absolute deterrent.Whilst some of the characters in these stories deserve prison, others are the victims of a mis-carriage. Our authors including ...

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be publishe...

An author’s talents may seem obvious and indisputable as they move words and ideas into gathered phrases and stories.But where do these ideas and stories come from? A lonely thought that suddenly gathers form? An inspiration from a Muse? A suggestion from an everyday event?Perhaps in the case of their darker, more malevolent stories, other forces are at work. They help to nourish single words into sentences and paragraphs that ease themselves from the shadows and are sudden...

William Mudford ws born in 1782. He was a writer, essayist, translator and journalist.This short story was first published in 1830 and, it is claimed, influenced Edgar Allan Poe. Such was its impact that it was reprinted many times over the succeeding decades.He died in 1848.

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society.In literature the ambition is much narrower. In order to be known, to be popular, you had to be published. And for that people had to know you existed and your ideas worth reading. Obviously for most of humanity’s time people couldn’t read and texts couldn’t be publishe...