British Horror Short Stories

Edmund Gill Swain (1861-1938) was an English cleric and author of ghost stories. He was a longtime friend of M. R. James, and his ghost stories show James' influence. 'The Eastern Window', 'The Man with the Roller', 'The Rockery'.

This anthology gathers some of the finest indie horror and zombie authors together in one amazing collection of incredible tales from all across the United Kingdom. Fifteen amazing masters of the craft entertain listeners with 15 thrilling zombie stories set in the United Kingdom.

Algernon Blackwood, a journalist and broadcast narrator, was one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories in the history of the genre. The title story, "The Touch of Pan", explores the lingering presence of myth in everyday life. In "The Glamour of the Snow", Blackwood winds a tale about a man's infatuation with a supernatural winter beauty. In "The Attic", the ghost of an usurer haunts the old Chateaux and, on the anniversary of a young boy's death, the boy's cat brings the family together. "The Willows" follows two campers who are on a canoe trip down the Danube.

In this deliciously strange debut collection, Leon Craig draws on folklore and gothic horror in refreshingly inventive ways to explore queer identity, love, power and the complicated nature of being human. In the 13 darkly audacious stories of Parallel Hells, we meet a golem, made of clay, learning that its powers far exceed its Creator's expectations; a ruined mansion which grants the secret wishes of a group of revellers and a notorious murderer who discovers her Viking husband is not what he seems.

Critically acclaimed audiobook reader Barnaby Edwards (Doctor Who, The Voyage of the Beagle, Space Danger) performs 11 tales of ghostly gothic spookiness. From tales of vampyres and spirits to devil’s deals and ethereal coachmen. Short but oh so sweet, these 11 stories from some of the most lauded authors of the Gothic period prove that you need only a few pages to tell a truly terrifying tale.

Considered by many to be the foremost author of the traditional ghost story, M. R. James was a distinguished scholar who spent his entire adult life in the academic atmospheres of Eton and Cambridge. His classic supernatural tales draw on the trepidations of the everyday, in which documents and objects unleash ghastly forces, often in enclosed confinements and nighttime settings where the imagination runs riot.

While staying at a friend’s house in an apparently humdrum London suburb, the sceptical Hugh Grainger sees and then converses with an unsettling stranger from his bedroom window in the very dead of night. But what could be the meaning of this curious visitation? ‘Hold very tight, please!’ E. F. Benson is well known for his Mapp and Lucia novels but his ghost and supernatural stories are marvellous jewels, combining elegant writing and moments of blood-curdling horror. Here Greg Wagland narrates one of the best of them, for Magpie Audio.

W. W. Jacobs (1863-1941) is best known as a writer of humorous stories and the crafter of the most grisly of horror stories. The following four stories belong firmly in the latter category.

Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936), who wrote as M. R. James, was an English author, medieval scholar, and provost of King's College, Cambridge, and of Eton College. He is best known for his outstanding ghost stories. James reinvented the ghost story for the modern audience by moving away from Gothic elements and using realistic contemporary settings. His protagonists and plots often reflected his own antiquarian interests.

William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918) was an English author of horror, fantastic fiction, and science fiction. Hodgson used his experiences at sea to lend authentic detail to his short horror stories, many of which are set on the ocean. He became one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century. He died in World War I at age 40. 'A Tropical Horror' is the vivid story of a ship which is attacked by a hideous sea serpent.

My body jolted as gravity did its work, drawing my innards and their contents sharply towards the back of my throat. I opened my eyes and sat up with a start. My breathing was heavy and my heart beat uneasy. I felt cold, my body drenched in a clammy sweat, my vision blurred by tears. I looked around, confused as I tried to focus. I was in my bedroom. There was a half empty bottle of vodka on the floor. My lips were dry and my head thumped. With thoughts that were muddled and confused, I tried to make sense of things.

In the beautiful Villa Cascana on the Italian Riviera, all is not as it seems. Why does the hostess leave a perfectly charming bedroom unoccupied? Why does Arthur Inglis present our hero with a caterpillar in a cardboard pill-box one lunchtime? And rather more bizarrely, why do luminous, bloated and gigantic versions of this creature haunt his dreams? Or could it possibly be that he is wide awake?

Edward Frederic Benson (1867 - 1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist, and short story writer, best known as the true master of the gothic occult story. The Horror-Horn tells the story of a skiing holiday in the shadow of the mysteriously named Ungeheuerhorn mountain. Literally the name translates as "Horror-Horn". It appears that a local legend has it that hideous and terrifying monsters live in caves high up on the mountain.

Sir Henry Rider Haggard (1856 - 1925), known as H. Rider Haggard, was an English writer of adventure stories, often set in exotic locations, especially Africa, and a pioneer of the Lost World literary genre. Only a Dream is a ghost story about the strange experience of a widower about to remarry, who is visited on the eve of his wedding by the ghastly apparition of his dead first wife.

Edward Frederic Benson (1867 – 1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist and short story writer, best known as the true master of the gothic ghost story. The Other Bed tells the tale of a hotel guest who is allocated what appears to be a very fine first floor room at a highly reasonable price. There are two beds in the room and even on the first night, the weary traveller develops an inexplicable horror of one of these beds.

Be careful what you wish for. W.W.Jacob's famous horror story about the monkey's paw, a talisman which has had a spell cast on it, enabling three people each to have three wishes... which come true with devastating consequences.

A sinister werewolf story by the master of spooky storytelling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In a small village, high in the tyrolean mountains, an Englishman finds himself caught up in a local mystery. Peasants are being mysteriously attacked and killed by a mysterious figure who appears to live in the nearby woods. Joining forces with the local mayor, pastor and chief of police, the Englishman sets out to solve the mystery.