Aaron Worth

From the fungus-webbed House of Usher to the maddening, fungus-like wallpaper of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's classic tale of madness, and Ray Bradbury's account of insidious mushroom dispersal via the US postal system, weird fiction has harboured a thriving culture of fungal horrors throughout the past two centuries.

With stories of mycological possession alongside dark, pulpy science fiction monstrous fruiting bodies run amok, this new anthology collects the classic with the lost and obscure to trace our fascination with a spore-infested branch of British and American fiction.

British Library Tales of the Weird

Spores of Doom: Dank Tales of the Fungal Weird

Eleanor Scott

Nine Nightmares

Randalls Round

Nisi Shawl

Patrick Lacey

Marlena Frank

Michael Picco

Richard Barber

Betty Rocksteady

Johann Thorsson

Pete Kahle

John Taff

Wednesday Friday

Leigh Harlen

B. T. Joy

Shawn Francis

Erin Jendras

Jared Adams

Sallie McDaniel

Logan Noble

Jenny Orosel

Meryl Stenhouse

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD VENTURE OUT OF YOUR HIDING PLACES, HERE COMES ANOTHER HORDE OF HORRORSSlithering, wriggling, lurking, and creeping. Leaving slick trails of pustulent slime behind them. These aren't your run-of-the-mill monsters populating the pages of this tome. No, these critters feed on the fear that bubbles up inside you when all appears lost and the scent of blood is on the wind. Now is the time to face these demons and read on. NOT YOUR AVERAGE MONSTER, VOL. 2:A MENAGERIE OF VILE BEASTS 19 more creatures gestated in the sick minds of: Jared Oliver AdamsRichard Farren BarberShawn FrancisMarlena FrankWednesday Lee FridayLeigh HarlenErin Michelle JendrasB.T. JoyPatrick LaceySallie McDanielLogan NobleJenny OroselMichael PiccoBetty RocksteadyNisi ShawlMeryl StenhouseJohn F.D. TaffJohann ThorssenAaron Worth THIS NIGHTMARE HAS JUST BEGUN!

A Menagerie of Vile Beasts

Not Your Average Monster, Vol. 2

A tale of callous murder and deranged revenge rings out from fifteenth century Italy. A witch-finder’s great triumph is also the herald of his own doom in sixteenth-century Britain. A prisoner’s fate at the hands of the Inquisition in seventeenth-century Mexico leads to an encounter with the bestial and bizarre beneath the waves.

Readers and writers have been fascinated with the past long before the term ‘historical fiction’ became recognised as its own genre of writing. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, tellers of strange tales saw the weird potential in setting stories within the realms of previous centuries, and the chance to evoke terrors throughout time.

This new collection summons stories from the eras of witchcraft, the English Civil War, tall-ship high seas exploration and ante-revolution New England, with contributions by M P Shiel, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Shelley and many more.

Tales of Haunting History

Out of the Past

Vernon Lee

I entered the church...It struck me suddenly that all this crowd of men and women standing all round, these priests chanting and moving about the altar, were dead... Vernon Lee was a polymath whose copious writings include deeply learned studies of art, music, literature, and history, but also a small but exquisitely crafted group of Gothic tales, most of which first appeared in fin de siècle periodicals including the iconic Yellow Book. In these stories of obsession and possession, transgressive desire reaches out from the past -- through a haunting portrait, a murdered poet's lock of hair, the uncanny voice of a diabolical castrato -- dragging Lee's protagonists to their doom. Among those haunted by Lee's 'spurious ghosts' was Henry James, who praised her 'gruesome, graceful...ingenious tales, full of imagination'. This new edition includes Lee's landmark 1890 collection Hauntings complete, along with six additional tales and the 1880 essay 'Faustus and Helena', in which Lee probes the elusive nature of the supernatural as a 'vital...fluctuating...potent' force that resists definite representation. Aaron Worth's contextual introduction, drawing upon Lee's newly published letters, reassesses her place in the pantheon of the fantastic. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

And Other Stories

The Virgin of the Seven Daggers

Aaron Worth

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