Recommended Reading: Short Horror stories

How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction (1987)

The recommended reading list of horror novels at the end of How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction makes for interesting reading. It is, I think, professional log-rolling by editor Williamson and publisher Writers Digest, carefully calculated not to burn bridges. (The novel list could also have used further proofreading).

The short story list following it is more interesting, since it cannot rely on bestseller lists. 

Williamson compiles titles aspiring writers should know about. He states the list "represents the favorite fiction of over 120 active professional and semiprofessional writers, reviewers, illustrators, editors, agents, publishers, and—above all—admiring readers with long memories."

Williamson should have mentioned that the 120 listers provided work only from the 20th century, for the most part post-1945. I think the oldest horror writer noted is Lovecraft.

SHORT STORIES

A

Abartis, Cezarija, "The Rocking Horse"

Aickman, Robert "Pages from a Young Girl's Diary" 

"The Swords" 

Aiken, Conrad, "Silent Snow, Secret Snow"

Alarcon, J., "Friend of Death"

Anderson, Kevin J., "Heroes Never Die" 

"Redmond's Private Screening"

Attansio, A. A., "The Star Pool"

B

Barker, Clive, "Dread" 

"In the Hills, the Cities"

"The Last Will and Testament of Jacqueline Ess"

"Midnight Meat Train" 

"Pig Blood Blues" 

"Rawhead Rex" 

"Son of Celluloid" 

"The Yattering and Jack" 

Bates, Harry, "Lila the Werewolf"

Beaumont, Charles, "The Beautiful People"   

"The Crooked Man" 

"The Customers"   

"The Devil, You Say"  

"Elegy" 

"Fair Lady" 

"Father, Dear Father"

"Free Dirt" H

"The Howling Man" 

"The Hunger" 

"In His Image" 

"Miss Gentilbelle" 

"Mourning Song" 

"The Music of the Yellow Brass" 

"The Neighbors" 

"Night Ride"

"Perchance to Dream" 

Bertin, Eddy C, "My Beautiful Darling" 

Bester, Alfred, "The Animal Fair" 

Birkin, Charles, "The Hitch" 

Bixby, Jerome, "It's a Good Life!"

Bloch, Robert, "Beelzebub"

"A Case of the Stubboms"

"Catnip" 

"The Cure" 

"Daybroke" 

"Double-Cross" 

"Enoch" 

"Head Man" 

"The Man Who Collected Poe" 

"Murder Castle" 

"The New Season"   

"Picture" 

"Shadow from the Steeple" 

"Sweets to the Sweet" 

"That Hell-Bound Train" 

"Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" 

Bradbury, Ray,

"The Crowd" 

"Heavy-Set" 

"The Homecoming" 

"The Man Upstairs" 

"The Night" 

"The Pedestrian" 

"Pillar of Fire" 

"The Playground"   

"Skeleton" 

"The Small Assassin" 

"The Town Where No One Got Off" 

"The Veldt"

Brandner, Gary, "Julian's Hand" 

Brennan, Joseph R, "Canavan's Back Yard" 

"Slime" 

Brown, Fredric,  "Armageddon" 

"Come and Go Mad"   

"Don't Look Behind You" 

"The Geezenstacks" 

"Reconciliation"   

Bruce, David, "Pillowman's Lover" 

Bryant, Edward, "Dark Angel" 

"Strata" 

"Teeth Marks" 

Burke, John, "Party Games" 

Butler, Octavia, "Bloodchild" 

C

Campbell., John W., "Who Goes There?"

Campbell, Ramsey, "Again" 

"The Brood" 

"Call First" 

"The Chimney" 

"The Companion" 

"The Gap" 

"Heading Home" 

"MacKintosh Willie" 

"Through the Walls" 

"The Trick" 

"The Words that Count" 

Campton, David, "At the Bottom of the Garden"

Capote, Truman, "A Tree of Night" 

Card, Orson Scott, "Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory"   

Carrington, Leonara, "White Rabbits" 

Cartmill, Cleve, "The Shape of Desire" 

Castle, Mort "And of Gideon" 

"Love, Hate and the Beautiful Junkyard Sea"  

Cave, Hugh B., "From the Lower Deep" 

Chetwin-Hayes, R., "The Ghost Who Limped" 

Clee, Mona B., "Dinosaurs" 

Cohen, Jan, "I Don't Know Why She Swallowed the Fly" 

Collier, John, "Evening Primrose"

"Thus I Refute Beelzey"

Counselman, Mary Elizabeth, "Seventh Sister"

"The Three Marked Pennies" 

Cross, John Keir, "Miss Thing and the Surrealist" 

D

Dahl, Roald, "Lamb to the Slaughter" 

"Man from the South" 

"The Rat-Catcher" 

"Royal Jelly" 

Dann, Jack, "Camps" 

Davidson, Avram, "Naples" 

Derleth, August, "The Lonesome Place" 

"Mr. George" 

Disch, Thomas, "Descending" 

"The Roaches" 

Doctorow, E. L., "Waterworks"  

Drake, David, "Dancer in the Flames" 

Drippe, Colleen, "The Women of Rattlesnake Hill" 

du Maurier, Daphne, "The Pool" 

E

Effinger, George Alec,"The Thing from the Slush" 

Ellin, Stanley, "The Specialty of the House" 

Ellison, Harlan, "All the Birds Come Home to Roost" 

"Basilisk" 

"Crotoan" 

"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" 

"The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World" 

"Shattered Like a Glass Goblin"

"The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" 

Ely, David, "The Academy" 

Etchison, Dennis, "Daughters of the Golden West" 

"It Only Comes Out at Night" 

"Sitting in the Corner Whimpering Quietly" 

"Talking in the Dark" 

F

Fancett, Elizabeth, "When Morning Comes" 

Faulkner, William, "A Rose for Emily"  

Fitzgerald, F. Scott, "News of Paris—Fifteen Years Ago" 

Fox, Janet, "The Babysitter"   

"The Bug Boy"   

"Garage Sale" 

"To a Crow, All Crows Are White" 

"Witches" 

Frahm, Leanne, "High Tide" 

Fritch, Charles E., "The One-Eyed Moth B-Longs to Sum Buddy Else" 

G

Glass, Mignon, "River"   

Gleisser, Benjamin, "The Dark" 

Grant, Charles L., "Essence of Charlotte" 

"Garden of Blackred Roses" 

"If Damon Comes" 

Gresham, Stephen, "The One Left Behind" 

Grabowski, William J., "Squirrel"   

Grubb, Davis, "The Horsehair Trunk" 

H

Haining, Robert, "Montage of Death" 

Hamilton, Dennis, "The Alteration" 

Hammell, Dale, "Children of the Hurda" 

Harding, Ralph, "The Song" 

Hoch, Edward, "The Oblong Room" 

Home, William Scott, "The Lamps are Lighted in the House of Hicks"  

Hopper, Jeannette M., "The Vigil"   

Howard, Robert E., "Garden of Fear" 

"The Horror from the Mound" 

"Pigeons from Hell" 

"Valley of the Worm" 

J

Jackson, Shirley, "The Beautiful Stranger" 

"The Lottery" 

"One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts'

"The Witch" 

James, Adobe, "The Road to Mctantecutli" 

K

Keel, John A., "Follow the Bouncing Ball"  

Keefauver, John, "Kill for Me"   

Keller, David H., "The Thing in the Cellar" 

Kersh, Gerald, "Men Without Bones" 

King, Stephen, "Apt Pupil" 

"The Boogeyman" 

"Children of the Corn" 

"Crouch End" 

"Do The Dead Sing?" (a.k.a "The Reach") 

"Gramma" 

"I am the Doorway" 

"The Mist" 

"The Monkey" 

"Night Surf" 

"Nona" 

"Popsy" 

"Quitters, Inc." 

"The Raft" 

"Sometimes They Come Back" 

"The Strawberry Spring"  

"Survivor Type" 

Kiplinger, Christina, "Bookin"   

Kirk, Russell, "There's a Long Trail a' Winding" 

Kisner, James, "The Litter" 

"The Stoner"   

"The Willies"   

Klein, T. E. D., "Black Man with a Horn" 

"Children of the Kingdom" 

"Petey" 

Koontz, Dean R., "Down in the Darkness" 

"Snatchers" 

Kress, Nancy, "Green Thumb"  

Kube-McDowell, Michael P., "Slippage" 

L 

Lafferty, R. A., "Thou White Wall" 

Laidlaw, Marc, "Tissue" 

Lansdale, Joe. R., "Down by the Sea Near the Great Big Rock" 

"The Pit" 

"Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back" 

Langelaan, George, "The Fly" 

Lee, Tanith, "Elle Est Trois (La Mort)" 

"Magritte's Secret Agent"  /

Leiber, Fritz, "The Dreams of Albert Moreland" 

"Ghost Light" 

"The Girl with the Hungry Eyes"

"Smoke Ghost" 

Leming, Ron, "Fox Goes Fission" 

"Through a Glass Darkly"   

Leonard, Michael, "Ghosts of Christmas Past"   

Ligotti, Thomas, "Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech" 

Lovecraft, H. R, "Cool Air"

Lumley, Brian, "Dylath-Leen" 

"Snarker's Son" 

M

Maclay, John, "Locking Up"   

"The Step Beyond"   

"Who Walks the Night" 

Martin, George R. R., "Nightflyers" 

"Remembering Melody" 

"SandKings"  

Matheson, Richard,  "Being" 

"Blood Son" 

"Born of Man and Woman" 

"The Children of Noah"   

"Dance of the Dead" 

"The Distributor" 

"Duel" 

"Little Girl Lost"  

"Long Distance Call" 

"Mute" 

"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" 

"Prey" 

"Retch" 

"The Test"

Matheson, Richard & Richard Christian, "Where There's a Will"   

Matheson, Richard Christian, "The Dark Ones" 

"Goosebumps"   

"Holiday" 

"Red" 

"Sentences"   

"Third Wind" 

Mayhar, Ardath, "Crawfish" 

"A Night in Possum Holler" 

"The Tuck at the Foot of the Bed"   

McCammon, Robert R., "The Deep End"   

"1 Scream Man"  

"Nightcrawlers" 

McHardy, Vincent, "Angst for the Memory" 

"Take a Ticket"   

Mclntyre, Vonda N., "Aztecs" 

Miller, J. J. & James Moore, "Incident at Smuggler's Gap"   

Miller, P. Schuyler, "Spawn" 

Mishima, Yukio, "Patriotism" 

Morlan, A. R. "Does it Ploop?"   

N

Nicoll, Gregory, "The Man Who Collected Lovecraft" 

Nolan, William F, "Ceremony" 

"Dead Call" 

"The Halloween Man"   

"He Kilt It with a Stick" 

"The Pool"   

"Underdweller" 

"The Yard"   

Norden, Eric, "Primary Solution" 

O

O'Connor, Flannery, "A Good Man is Hard to Find" 

"River" 

Olson, Paul, "Valley of the Shadows" 

P

Pickett, Stephen Charles, "Mirrors"   

Plath, Sylvia, "Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams"  

R

Reamy, Tom, "Under the Hollywood Sign" 

Reed, Kit, "Chicken Soup" 

Relling, Jr., William, "The King" 

Russell, Ray, "The Cage"   

"Comet Wine" 

"Czadek" 

"The Devil's Mirror"   

"Ghost of a Chance" 

"I am Returning"   

"Sanguinarius"  

"Sardonicus" 

"The Secret of Rowena"  

"Skin Deep" 

"Xong of Xuxan" 

Ryan, Alan, "Hear the Wind Blowing" 

S

Sallee, Wayne, "Rapid Transit" 

Sarrantonio, Al, "Corn Dolly" 

"Two"   

Schweitzer, Darrell, "The Clock"   

Shea, Michael, "The Autopsy" 

Sheckley, Jay, "Bargain Cinema"   

Silva, David B., "Ice Sculptures" 

"The Turn of Time" 

Skipp, John & Craig Spector, "Shells" 

Slesar, Henry, "The Jam"  

Strieber, Whitley, "Perverts" 

Stuart, Kiel, "Chinese Lullaby"   

Sturgeon, Theodore, "Bianca's Hands" 

"It" 

"Shottle Bop"  

"Vengeance As" 

Sullivan, Thomas, "The Man Who Drowned Puppies" 

Taylor, David W., "The Dew Drop Inn"   

Tern, Steve Rasnic, "Derelicts" 

"Motherson"   

Timlett, Peter Valentine, "Without Rhyme or Reason" 

Tiptree Jr. , James, "Things to Rats"  

Tuttle, Lisa, "The Bug House"

W

Wagner, Karl Edward, "Beyond Any Measure" 

"River of Night's Dreaming" 

"Sticks" 

".220 Swift" 

Wellman, Manly Wade, "The Desrick on Yandro" 

"One Other" 

"Owls Hoot in the Daytime" 

Williams, Tennessee, "Desire and the Black Masseur" 

Williamson, J. N., "The Book of Webster's" 

"The Bountiful Spirit"   

"The Dotted Line"   

"The Gap Nearly Closed Tonight" 

"Hellter-Shelter" 

"House Mothers" 

"The House of Life" 

"I'll Give You Magic if You'll Give Me Love" 

"The Night Seasons" 

"They Never Even See Me" 

Wilson, F. Paul, "Soft" 

Wilson, Gahan, "The Substitute" 

Winter, Douglas E., "Office Hours"   

Wolfe, Gene, "The Death of Doctor Island"  

"The Island of Dr. Death"  

"The Nebraskan and the Nereid"  

Wolfenbarger, Billy, "The Attic" 

Yarbro, Chelsea Quinn, "Disturb Not My Slumbering Fair" 

"Savoury, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme" 

Jay

aimage