‘Tis the season for a good spooky story, and unsurprisingly, Folio Society has got you covered. The publishers of handsome, newly illustrated literary classics (and friends of Flavorwire) have just released The Folio Book of Horror Stories. Edited and introduced by British horror writer Ramsey Campbell, it features stories by the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, Thomas Ligotti, and Stephen King, all supplemented by new illustrations from Corey Brickley.
It makes an excellent companion to their earlier Folio Book of Ghost Stories , featuring an introduction by Kathryn Hughes, illustrations by David McConochie, and stories by Charles Dickens, Ambrose Bierce, Vladimir Nabokov, A. S. Byatt, Arthur Conan Doyle, and many more. Both volumes are available on Folio Society’s site, but we were lucky enough to get a taste of their terrifying illustrations, which we hope you’ll enjoy as much as we do.
(Corey Brickley for ‘The Folio Book of Horror Stories’)
From Arthur Machen’s ‘The White People’: “The lady would lie down under the trees . . . and from every part of the wood great serpents would come . . . And they all came to her, and twisted round her, round her body, and her arms, and her neck, till she was covered with writhing serpents.”
(Corey Brickley for ‘The Folio Book of Horror Stories’)
From Thomas Ligotti’s ‘Vastarien’: “For several more nights, as the outlines of Vastarien slowly pushed through the obscurity of his sleep, a vast terrain emerged from its own profound slumber and loomed forth from a place without coordinates or dimension.”
(Corey Brickley for ‘The Folio Book of Horror Stories’)
From Reggie Oliver’s ‘Flower of the Sea’: “At first it looked like an abstract shape, round and bulbous with a long, curving neck or stalk; then it resolved itself into a kind of plant with various roots or tendrils and a central pod with an opening in it like a kind of mouth.”
(Corey Brickley for ‘The Folio Book of Horror Stories’)
From Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’: “While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened – there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind – the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight – my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder.”
(David McConochie, ‘The Folio Book of Ghost Stories’)
From Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Captain of the Pole-Star’: “I saw his dark figure already a long way off, running with prodigious speed across the frozen plain.”
(David McConochie, ‘The Folio Book of Ghost Stories’)
From Elizabeth Bowen’s ‘The Demon Lover’: “As things were—dead or living—the letter-writer sent her only a threat”
(David McConochie, ‘The Folio Book of Ghost Stories’)
From F. Marion Crawford’s ‘The Upper Berth’: “It was something ghostly, horrible beyond words.”
(David McConochie, ‘The Folio Book of Ghost Stories’)
From Oliver Onions’ ‘The Cigarette Case’” “As we came round the angle we saw a couple of women’s figures hardly more than twenty yards ahead—don’t know how they got there so suddenly, I’m sure.”
The Folio Book of Horror Stories ($56.95) and The Folio Book of Ghost Stories ($53.95) are available for purchase at the Folio Society site.