ℭ𝔩𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔦𝔠 𝔖𝔥𝔬𝔯𝔱 𝔖𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔰 𝔬𝔣 ℌ𝔬𝔯𝔯𝔬𝔯

Halloween has come and gone, but Autumn is still a great time for a ghostly scare. I love to hear a good ghost story, especially while gathered around a campfire. Who doesn’t? I thought I would share a few of my very favorite Short Stories of Horror.

(I intended to make this a Top 10 list, but instead, I will (hopefully) make this an ongoing list with new entries from time to time, depending on how it is received.)

For this first edition, I have selected the following three stories:

1. The Cask of Amontillado, by Edgar Allan Poe (1846)
2. The Monkey’s Paw, by W.W. Jacobs (1902)
3. The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892)

So that I do not spoil the frights, I will limit my presentation of each story to a few comments and quotes to tantalize you, and then provide a link to an audio version of the classic. (Note, however, that while these stories are presented brilliantly in the spoken format, there truly is no substitute for reading the authors’ written words.)

With that, let’s get this horrorfest started! Grab a sweater or blanket, snuggle up to the campfire, toast up some S’mores, and prepare to be frightened and captivated by these spooky tales!

1. The Cask of Amontillado, by Edgar Allan Poe (1846)

Poe was the master of the macabre. This is the classic tale of revenge delivered in brilliant Poe fashion. The story itself is frightening and all too believable, but I also love Poe’s presentation. Not dissimilar to some of Poe’s other works, The Cask of Amontillado is presented as though it may be a confession or confidential letter. The pacing and rhythmic meter of the story are eerily hypnotic. I love that Poe adds intrigue through his sentence structure. (Pay attention to how Poe shifts the order of his subject and verb for emphasis.) The narrator and protagonist, Montressor, leads the ill-fated (and ironically-named) Fortunato through a haunting maze of catacombs, presumably to inspect a recent purchase of wine (Amontillado). The opening line of the story is classic.

“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.”

Poe provides no specifics about Fortunato’s “thousand injuries” nor the “insult” inflicted upon Montressor — merely that they have occurred. The specifics are unimportant for the reader to know, but we can presume that the recipient of this letter is someone intimately familiar with Montressor and his reasonings.

“You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat.”

What we learn is that the insult has led Montressor to seek his vengeance upon Fortunato.

“At length I would be avenged.”

However, Montressor has been patient and cunning. He lauds praise upon Fortunato as a wine expert (although he believes Fortunato to be a fool, and Poe presents Fortunato to us during the carnival season dressed as a jester), compliments him (“how remarkably well you are looking today”), and refers to Fotunato as “my good friend”. He is careful also to disguise his ill intentions, insisting he wishes not to impose.

“It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will.”

“My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature. I perceive you have an engagement.”

Pay attention to the prominent role the wine takes throughout the story as a plot device.

“The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled.”

Finally, as is common in many of Poe’s stories, he carefully selects his words. Notice here, for example, how Poe uses the word “immolation” to describe Fortunato’s pending demise. (Immolation suggests something more sinister than mere murder. The word comes from the Latin word immolare, which means “to sacrifice”.)

“I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.”

Have a listen to an Audiobook version of here:

2. The Monkey’s Paw, by W.W. Jacobs (1902)

Be careful what you wish for! That is the theme of this mystical tale. If you have never read this short tale, you are in for a treat. It is an age-old maxim with a macabre slant.

The story opens with a family sitting in a small parlor around a fire. A father and adult son are playing chess while the mother knits. (You will notice later how the chess game becomes symbolic within the story.) Soon, the father, Herbert White, eagerly receives an anticipated guest. The guest, Sergeant Major Morris, shares stories of intrigue and fascination about his world travels.

“At the third glass [of whiskey] his eyes got brighter, and he began to talk, the little family circle regarding with eager interest this visitor from distant parts, as he squared his broad shoulders in the chair and spoke of wild scenes and doughty deeds; of wars and plagues and strange peoples.”

The rugged Sergeant Major soon shifts his storytelling to his travel to India and a curious talisman (or token) he received there. (If you have read Arabian Nights, you may notice some parallels.)

“I should like to see those old temples and fakirs and jugglers,” said the old man. “What was that you started telling me the other day about a monkey’s paw or something, Morris?”

“Nothing,” said the soldier, hastily. “Leastways nothing worth hearing.”

“Monkey’s paw?” said Mrs. White, curiously.

“Well, it’s just a bit of what you might call magic, perhaps,” said the sergeant-major, offhandedly.

His three listeners leaned forward eagerly. The visitor absent-mindedly put his empty glass to his lips and then set it down again. His host filled it for him.

“To look at,” said the sergeant-major, fumbling in his pocket, “it’s just an ordinary little paw, dried to a mummy.”

He took something out of his pocket and proffered it. Mrs. White drew back with a grimace, but her son, taking it, examined it curiously.

“It had a spell put on it by an old fakir,” said the sergeant-major, “a very holy man. He wanted to show that fate ruled people’s lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow. He put a spell on it so that three separate men could each have three wishes from it.”

Mrs. White presses the Sergeant Major for details about the first man’s wishes.

“I don’t know what the first two (wishes) were, but the third was for death.”

The Sergeant Major eventually tosses the paw into the fire to destroy it, but Herbert snatches it out quickly.

“Better let it burn,” said the soldier, solemnly.

“If you don’t want it, Morris,” said the other, “give it to me.”

“I won’t,” said his friend, doggedly. “I threw it on the fire. If you keep it, don’t blame me for what happens. Pitch it on the fire again like a sensible man.”

The Sergeant Major warns the couple that if they must make a wish, “wish for something sensible.”

That is twice in succession the story uses the word “sensible”. (I am sure you can guess how sensible the new bearer of the paw behaves!)

The story reminds us that the desires of our hearts often come with unintended consequences. The Monkey’s Paw becomes a mirror into the soul of its beholder.

Enjoy an Audio Version of the story here:

3. The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892)

This is another one of my all-time favorites! “The Yellow Wallpaper” is written as a woman’s secret diary while locked away in a room. “Rest-cure” was a common 19th-Century treatment for a variety of maladies, and in this instance, the narrator is suffering from what we now might recognize as postpartum depression.

The author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, herself suffered from postpartum depression, and she illuminates the horror faced by woman, especially in a male-dominant era.

The prescribed “rest” is truly a horrifying imprisonment driving the narrator into deeper depression, loneliness and, ultimately, madness.

The narrator’s husband is a doctor and a man of science. He does not believe his wife is truly “sick”, and his refusal to acknowledge her feelings and fears only drives his wife deeper into madness.

The narrator secretly keeps a diary (because her husband does not approve). She expresses her surrender to her husband’s authority, even chiding herself for her feelings, and she accepts her confinement and inability to think for herself.

Her rest becomes a nightmarish prison, represented by the nursery of the Gothic home where they reside, complete with barred windows and yellow wallpaper.

“At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be.”

“I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store.”

Pay close attention to a couple of literary tools Charlotte Perkins Gilman employs to emphasize her points.

First, notice how the narrator’s secret journal entries are written in short sentences, and she signs off abruptly whenever her husband approaches. The short, brisk sentences demonstrate her fear and anxiety. She also adopts the heavy-handedness of her husband, dismissing her own thoughts and feelings, sometimes even mid-sentence.

Second, notice how she uses polysyndeton (the repeated use of conjunctions without commas) to highlight her husband’s ineptitude. We are told that he is a wise man of science, but Perkins Gilman cleverly presents him as foolish, inferior and narcissistic.

Finally, pay attention to the author’s descriptive imagery of the yellow wallpaper, describing it as an “unclean yellow” that has been “faded by the slow-turning sunlight”, and describes the wallpaper as a “sickly sulphur”. We get a sense of the ghastly decay of the narrator’s surroundings as she rapidly slips into a state of madness.

Enjoy an Audio Version of the story here:

What are some of your favorite short stories of horror? What do you like or dislike about these selections?