August 11, 2010

Best of the Dark Side: 13 Best Horror Literature Resources

Besides having tons of links to etext versions of ghost and horror stories, the "dliterature.html" page had info on the goth/horror literature genres, communities devoted to those topics, and then lots of links to story collections and archives. Following are some resources that are still good, useful and a bit spooky.

1. Darkling Tales

A Livejournal community where they discuss classic and Edwardian ghost stories, fear, the supernatural, and "the literature of terror." They try to stay away from modern US gore/horror such as King, Koontz and Clegg. There are high quality posts here from mature people who think before they type, so I would like to recommend this community to fans of horror stories. Currently around 300 members belong to this community.

http://community.livejournal.com/darkling_tales

2. Elizabeth Miller's Dracula page

This Dracula resource has been around forever, and was one of my very first 500 or so links. Ms. Miller is one of the preeminent experts on Dracula in the world. Don't let the old-fashioned webpage design deter you from researching Dracula here. (I design old-style websites too!)

http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~emiller/

Elizabeth Miller's Livejournal

3. The Dracula Society

A United Kingdom-based organization for fans of vampire and supernatural stories (Edgar Allan Poe, LeFanu, etc., not just Dracula). They are quite active, with many meetings in London every year,

http://www.thedraculasociety.org.uk/

4. Fantasy With Bite

An active Livejournal community focusing on fantasy a bit off the mainstream: fantasy with gothic, surreal or supernatural elements. As you can imagine, there are a lot of book reviews here, but not the type solely written for affiliate link purposes. Instead, passionate fans write thoughtful reviews on the books they've just read.

http://community.livejournal.com/fantasywithbite/

5. Horror Novels

Over 500 members have joined this LJ community to share their interest in horror books. I like that the reviews aren't just of new books now hitting the shelves. Because there are reviews of older books, I can find out about books I might have missed a few years back.

http://community.livejournal.com/horror_novels/

6. Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies

I can't believe they are still on cheapo Homestead.com, but this scholarly journal is still going strong. Currently on their eighth issue.

http://irishgothichorrorjournal.homestead.com/

7. The Literary Gothic

If I had to choose to recommend only ONE link from Dark Side of the Net to someone, this would be the one. A 15 year old, very important resource for the study of gothic literature. Jack Voller really knows what he's talking about, and his passion for gothic literature shines boldly across this excellent site. (I probably have a little webcrush on him, because this site is so cool!) Pop in and read some of the articles, or treat yourself to making time to read a couple of the archived short stories here.

http://www.litgothic.com/index_fl.html

8. Classic Ghost Stories and Urban Legends

Quick, fun reads when you need to kill some time with a little something dark.

http://www.castleofspirits.com/classic.html

9. HorrorMasters

This website offers a free story every day - but also an archive with 2906 titles from 427 writers, and a dark poetry archive of over 600 poems. Uh, if you plan to visit this site, try to set aside more than a couple hours. You'll love it!

http://www.horrormasters.com/

10. Temple of Dagon Lovecraft Archive

This fabulous (and handsomely designed) resource includes Lovecraft's stories (from "At the Mountains of Madness" to "What the Moon Brings"), poetry, and essays.

http://www.templeofdagon.com/lovecraft-archive/

11. Edgar Allan Poe Archive

There are a lot of Edgar Allan Poe archives out there, but this one seems (at least to me) the most complete, and best organized. Browsing here is a pleasure. I think I'll steal a moment away from this blog post to go re-read The Island of the Fay. (Be aware that you might encounter a 12 second annoying ad you have to skip or watch before you can read some of the stories here. Grr).

http://www.online-literature.com/poe/

12. Clark Ashton Smith

A nicely designed archive of his stories, including a couple story fragments.

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/

13. Gaslight Etexts

Though focusing mostly on the mystery genre, this archive also features weird or horror stories written between the years 1800 and 1919. I enjoyed discovering some more obscure authors I'd not yet heard of here.

http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/contents.htm

Happy reading!

--Carrie Carolin

Dark Side of the Net

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