Scary Stories

story time image

W
hat would Halloween be without a little trick-or-treating? This year, make exploring some of these classic spooky tales part of your treat. Discover who famously uttered "nevermore," why Van Helsing was forced to behead the "bloofer lady" and how Ichabod Crane met his untimely end in a tranquil glen called Sleepy Hollow.

Since we've digitized the full text of these stories and novels, you can search every word. But that's not all -- whenever you see a "Download" link, you're free to download, save and print a PDF version to read at your own pace. And if you decide you want to buy a bound copy, "All editions" will show you multiple editions, many of which are available for purchase.

We hope that Google Books helps you discover some great new authors -- and maybe even sends a shiver or two down your spine.

Dracula
Bram Stoker
“How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams.”
All Editions

Frankenstein
Mary Shelley
"Unfeeling, heartless creator! You had endowed me with perceptions and passions, and then cast me abroad, an object for the scorn and horror of mankind."
All Editions

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Washington Irving
"There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted region; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land."
All Editions

The Black Cat
Edgar Allan Poe
"Yet, mad am I not -- and very surely do I not dream. But tomorrow I die, and today I would burthen my soul."
All Editions

The Tell-Tale Heart
Edgar Allan Poe
"I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him."
All Editions

The Premature Burial
Edgar Allan Poe
"To be buried while alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of these extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality."
All Editions

The Fall of the House of Usher
Edgar Allan Poe
"Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within this region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant."
All Editions

The Raven
Edgar Allan Poe
"And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor, Shall be lifted -- never more?"
All Editions

The Body-Snatcher
Robert Louis Stevenson
"A horrible sense of blackness and the treachery of fate seized hold upon the soul of the unhappy student."
All Editions

The Canterville Ghost
Oscar Wilde
"When Mr. Hiram B. Otis, the American Minister, bought Canterville Chase, every one told him he was doing a very foolish thing, as there was no doubt at all that the place was haunted."
All Editions

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson
"I thus drew steadily nearer to the truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two."
All Editions

Uncle Silas
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
"I could hardly believe my eyes -- such white hair -- such a white face -- such mad eyes -- such a death-like smile."
All Editions

The Damned Thing
Ambrose Bierce
"By extending an arm any one of them could have touched the eighth man, who lay on the table, face upward, partly covered by a sheet, his arms at his sides. He was dead."
All Editions

The Death of Halpin Frayser
Ambrose Bierce
"As he pressed forward he became conscious that his way was haunted by invisible existences whom he could not definitely figure to his mind."
All Editions

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Ambrose Bierce
"Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud plash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and dark."
All Editions

Moxon's Master
Ambrose Bierce
"His face was ghastly white, and his eyes glittered like diamonds. Of his antagonist I had only a back view, but that was sufficient; I should not have cared to see his face."
All Editions

The Withered Arm
Thomas Hardy
"A short time ago this would have given no concern to a woman of her common-sense. But she had a haunting reason to be superstitious now..."
All Editions

The Mark of the Beast
Rudyard Kipling
"People write and talk lightly of blood running cold and hair standing up and things of that kind. Both sensations are too horrible to be trifled with."
All Editions

The Minister's Black Veil
Nathaniel Hawthorne
"A sad smile gleamed faintly from beneath the black veil, and flickered about his mouth, glimmering as he disappeared."
All Editions

The Other Wing
Algernon Blackwood
"And it was usually while he lay waiting for sleep, tired both of the curtain and the coal games, on the point, indeed, of saying, 'I'll go to sleep now,' that the puzzling thing took place."
All Editions

The Turn of the Screw
Henry James
"My face must have shown him I believed him utterly; yet my hands -- but it was for pure tenderness -- shook him as if to ask him why, if it was all for nothing, he had condemmed me to months of torment."
All Editions

The Return
Walter De la Mare
"With that anxious irresolution which illness so often brings in its train he had hesitated for a few minutes before actually entering the graveyard."
All Editions

The Eyes
Edith Wharton
"There they hung in the darkness, their swollen lids dropped across the little watery bulbs rolling loose in the orbits, and the puff of flesh making a muddy shadow underneath..."
All Editions

The Four-Fifteen Express
Amelia Edwards
"They were there one moment -- palpably there, talking, with the gaslight full upon their faces; and the next moment they were gone."
All Editions

The White People
Arthur Machen
"She knew how to do all the awful things, how to destroy young men, and how to put a curse on people, and other things that I could not understand."
All Editions

The Last Heir of Castle Connor
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
"As M'Donough uttered these words, I felt that sudden sinking of the heart which accompanies the immediate anticipation of something dreaded and dreadful."
All Editions

Note that some print versions of these books may not be in the public domain everywhere in the world. Where copyright status is in question, we do not enable Full View access or downloading. We hope you bear with us as we confirm the status and, whenever appropriate, change the settings.