"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."

Spooktober 2026

Ladies and gentlemen, here we are! And yes, I know, the banner appeared a little too soon, this year, but I’m abroad without my computer and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to bring it up. But I’ve got you covered.

All month long, we’ll be publishing one classic horror story a day, mostly Gothic and horror fiction from the 19th and early 20th centuries by authors who invented or perfected the mechanisms that makes us shivering today. No jump scares, I promise: just prose, pacing, and the old, sturdy art of suggesting more than you show.

Some of these stories are short and fit neatly into a single post. Others are longer and will run in installments, a bit like an old serial read by candlelight.

This year’s lineup ranges from names everyone recognizes — Dickens, Conan Doyle, Maupassant — to voices less commonly read but just as unsettling: Marjorie Bowen (a classic of our Octobers), William Hope Hodgson, Gustav Meyrink, Arlton Eadie. Railway ghosts, family mirrors, inns that smell of blood, hands that move on their own. The classic horror repertoire.

Starting tomorrow, one well-written piece of darkness a day. Get ready. And maybe leave a light on.

Enjoy the spooky season!

books and literature

Selma Lagerlöf’s The Ring of the General

Ah, Selma Lagerlöf. I haven’t read anything of hers since I was a kid and now, all of a sudden, I find myself reading three works of hers in two months. The first one was Men and Troll, a collection of short stories, and it’s

Read More »
Spooktober

Spooktober 17 – Bal Macabre

“Bal Macabre” (1908) is one of Gustav Meyrink’s most striking occult short stories: a hallucinatory, symbol-laden tale set in a decadent nightclub that turns into a vision of death, poison, and a secret society of the “apparently dead.” You might know the guy for The

Read More »
Spooktober

Spooktober 16 – The Red Inn

Honoré de Balzac’s “The Red Inn” (L’Auberge rouge) is a short story first published in 1831 and later included among the Études philosophiques of La Comédie humaine. It’s a story-within-the-story. I’m not particularly fond of Balzac, but maybe you’ll enjoy it. In I know not

Read More »
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Selma Lagerlöf’s The Ring of the General

Ah, Selma Lagerlöf. I haven’t read anything of hers since I was a kid and now, all of a sudden, I find myself reading three works of hers in two months. The first one was Men and Troll, a collection of short stories, and it’s

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Spooktober 17 – Bal Macabre

“Bal Macabre” (1908) is one of Gustav Meyrink’s most striking occult short stories: a hallucinatory, symbol-laden tale set in a decadent nightclub that turns into a vision of death, poison, and a secret society of the “apparently dead.” You might know the guy for The

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Spooktober 16 – The Red Inn

Honoré de Balzac’s “The Red Inn” (L’Auberge rouge) is a short story first published in 1831 and later included among the Études philosophiques of La Comédie humaine. It’s a story-within-the-story. I’m not particularly fond of Balzac, but maybe you’ll enjoy it. In I know not

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