Lesser known supernatural horror fiction you can highly recommend
By "little known," I mean aside from classics like Dracula or Frankenstein or The Hunting of Hill House, or more contemporary bestsellers like Stephen King or Peter Straub or Joe Hill.
Lately I've been reading some great horror books published by a smaller press called Valancourt Books, which has a lot of undiscovered clasics. My favorites so far have been The Elementals by Matthew McDowell, Burnt Offerings (which is perhaps better known because of the famous movie) by Robert Marasco, and some very creepy novellas and stories by Robert Westall (collected in Antique Dust, The Stones of Muncaster, and Spectral Shadows). I also have read some great and very unsettling short stories by the mid-century British writer Robert Aickman re-issued from Faber & Faber. Anything along these lines to recommend? I prefer unsettling, creepy stories to gory ones.
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | January 6, 2025 9:01 PM
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Thanks, OP for reminding me to pick up Burnt Offerings.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | January 4, 2025 7:14 PM
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I don't have anything to contribute, OP, but I will bookmark and follow this thread. Thanks for starting it.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | January 4, 2025 7:18 PM
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I liked some of Clive Barkers books. And Dean Koontz has some supernatural horror. Thanks for recs OP!
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | January 4, 2025 7:40 PM
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Peter Straub’s Ghost Story was really good.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | January 4, 2025 7:50 PM
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Op, while Dracula is true horror, interestingly, as a book Frankenstein isn’t particularly
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | January 4, 2025 8:03 PM
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The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
The Uninvited by Dorothy Macardle
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Don't Look Now by Daphne du Maurier
The Old Dark House by J.B. Priestley
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
In the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | January 4, 2025 8:14 PM
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The Corpse Danced at Midnight by J.B. Fletcher
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | January 4, 2025 8:15 PM
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The supernatural novels such as Craven Manor and The Carrow Haunt by Darcy Coates are underrated gems. They’re going to be new classics in 50 years.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | January 4, 2025 9:53 PM
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I don't know if I'd describe them as lesser known, but horror short stores by M. R James are always entertaining, quick reads
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | January 4, 2025 9:57 PM
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Quite a few people recommended Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts but I just couldn’t finish it. I got bored and was tired of the wish-washing of “Are there really ghosts or are they just insane?”
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | January 6, 2025 8:57 PM
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I second The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | January 6, 2025 9:01 PM
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