Favorite dark works of fiction
Explore a curated list of favorite dark fiction books, from chilling thrillers to haunting classics. Discover gripping tales that delve into the shadows of human nature and the macabre.
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Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories
by Algernon Blackwood
By turns bizarre, unsettling, spooky, and sublime, Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories showcases nine incomparable stories from master conjuror Algernon Blackwood. Evoking the uncanny spiritual forces of Nature, Blackwood's writings all tread the nebulous borderland between fantasy, awe, wonder, and horror. Here Blackwood displays his best and most disturbing work-including "The Willows," which Lovecraft singled out as "the single finest weird tale in literature"; "The Wendigo"; "The Insanity of Jones"; and "Sand." For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
by Oscar Wilde
Basil Hallward, an artist, meets Dorian Gray and paints his portrait. The artist is so infatuated with Dorian's beauty that he begins to believe it is the reason for his quality of art. Dorian becomes convinced that beauty is all-important and wishes his portrait could age instead of him. Beware of what you have wish for! Each time Dorian commits a sin his portrait ages, showing him what is happening to his soul.
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The New Annotated Dracula
by Bram Stoker
The bestselling author of "The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes" returns with this spectacular, lavishly illustrated homage to Bram Stoker's "Dracula." 35 color and 400 b&w illustrations.
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Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad, was originally a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine in 1899. It is a story within a story, following a character named Charlie Marlow, who recounts his advanture to a group of men onboard an anchored ship. The story told is of his early life as a ferry boat captain. Although his job was to transport ivory downriver, Charlie develops an interest in investing an ivory procurement agent, Kurtz, who is employed by the government.
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Carmilla
by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Before DRACULA came CARMILLA A Strange Agony The exquisite and deadly vampire Carmilla haunts J. Sheridan LeFanu's influential novel. A Gothic tale of blood and terror, Carmilla inspired later classics by Bram Stoker and Robert Louis Stevenson, ever shadowed by a love that dare not say its name.