 | Edgar Allen Poe: Complete Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
Buy new: $9.35 / Used from: $5.88 The godfather of dark American fiction.
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 | Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (Modern Library)
Buy new: $17.13 / Used from: $14.44 Absolutely essential. Contains some of THE best defining short horror stories of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century.
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 | The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre by H.P. Lovecraft
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $4.40 More classic Lovecraft, including "The Rats in the Walls," "The Call of Cthulhu," And "The Colour Out of Space."
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 | WEIRD TALES THE MAGAZINE THAT NEVER DIES by Marvin and Saralee Kaye
Buy used from: $2.95 A wonderful hodgepodge of stories from the heyday of one of America's top venues for short, dark fiction.
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 | Complete Stories of Robert Bloch: Final Reckonings (Complete Stories of Robert Bloch, Volume 1) by Robert Bloch
Buy new: $13.57 / Used from: $9.00 Bloch wrote PSYCHO, and was a top short horror writer in the mid-twentieth century.
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 | Richard Matheson: Collected Stories, Vol. 1 by Richard Matheson
Buy new: $11.53 / Used from: $9.49 Matheson, perhaps best-known for the novella "I am Legend," was a top short-horror writer in the mid-twentieth century.
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 | Night Shift by Stephen King
Buy new: $23.10 / Used from: $6.36 A modern classic -- some top early King stories.
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 | Skeleton Crew by Stephen King
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $0.01 Ditto above.
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 | Nightmares & Dreamscapes by Stephen King
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $1.59 This one came out in the 90s, and is another good King shortie collection.
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 | Blue World by Robert R. McCammon
Buy used from: $22.99 Worth tracking down. McCammon is an awesome writer, and some of these stories are great.
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 | Taverns of The Dead
Buy used from: $48.00 A neat Cemetery Dance magazine antho built around the theme of bars, pubs, and other assorted watering holes.
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 | Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Buy used from: $0.01 Geared towards a young adult audience, some of these stories are pretty darned good. And the illustrations are downright creepy. This series gave me the heebiejeebies big-time when I was a kid, and probably began my love of short horror.
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 | The Barrens and Others by F. Paul Wilson
Buy new: $14.39 / Used from: $11.04 One of my favorite authors, Wilson is best known for his novels, but as he shows here, he's pretty adept at short stories, too. It even includes a Repairman Jack short.
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 | Nocturnes by John Connolly
Buy new: $11.70 / Used from: $2.50 Horror-crime novelist John Connolly demonstrates his versatility in this shortie collection. Many are traditional-style ghost stories, but the collection also includes a novella featuring Connolly's recurring protagonist, Charlie Parker
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 | High Cotton: Selected Stories of Joe R. Lansdale by Joe R. Lansdale
Buy new: $10.85 / Used from: $9.27 There are some messed-up stories in this one.
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 | The Best of Cemetery Dance, Volume 2 by Various
Buy new: $19.00 / Used from: $2.74 Some prime cuts from one of the top short horror venues of the last couple decades.
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