The #1 New York Times bestselling author's all-time horror classic
Now with a new introduction by Peter Straub

Few modern horror novels have been able to stand the test of time like Shadowland. Now, with a new introduction from Peter Straub, this classic becomes a collectible for his insatiable fans-and for new readers who have just discovered Straub through the bestselling Black House, co-written with Stephen King....

A Washington Post Best Book of the Year

Peter Straub—bestselling author and 8-time Bram Stoker Award winner—has gathered here 24 bone-chilling, nail-biting, frightfully imaginative stories that represent the best of contemporary horror writing.

Dan Chaon “The Bees”
Elizabeth Hand “Cleopatra Brimstone”
Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem “The Man on the Ceiling”
M. John Harrison “The Great God Plan”
Ramsey Campbell “The Voice of the Beach”
Brian Evenson “Body”
Kelly Link “Louise’s Ghost”
Jonathan Carroll “The Sadness of Detail”
M. Rickert “Leda”
Thomas Tessier “In Praise of Folly”
David J. Schow “Plot Twist”
Glen Hirshberg “The Two Sams”
Thomas Ligotti “Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story”
Benjamin Percy “Unearthed”
Bradford Morrow "Gardener of Heart”
Peter Straub “Little Red’s Tango”
Stephen King “The Ballad of a Flexible Bullet”
Joe Hill “20th Century Ghost”
Ellen Klages “The Green Glass Sea”
Tia V. Travis “The Kiss”
Graham Joyce “Black Dust”
Neil Gaiman “October in the Chair”
John Crowley “Missolonghi 1824”
Rosalind Palermo Stevenson “Insect Dreams”...

In life, not every sin goes unpunished.

GHOST STORY

For four aging men in the terror-stricken town of Milburn, New York, an act inadvertently carried out in their youth has come back to haunt them. Now they are about to learn what happens to those who believe they can bury the past -- and get away with murder.

Peter Straub's classic bestseller is a work of "superb horror" (The Washington Post Book World) that, like any good ghost story, stands the test of time -- and conjures our darkest fears and nightmares....

From the incomparable master of horror and suspense comes an electrifying collection of contemporary literary horror, with stories from twenty-five writers representing today’s most talented voices in the genre.

Horror writing is usually associated with formulaic gore, but New Wave horror writers have more in common with the wildly inventive, evocative spookiness of Edgar Allan Poe than with the sometimes-predictable hallmarks of their peers. Showcasing this cutting-edge talent, Poe’s Children now brings the best of the genre’s stories to a wider audience. Featuring tales from such writers as Neil Gaiman and Jonathan Carroll, Poe’s Children is Peter Straub’s tribute to the imaginative power of storytelling. Each previously published story has been selected by Straub to represent what he thinks is the most interesting development in our literature during the last two decades.

Selections range from the early Stephen King psychological thriller “The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet,” in which an editor confronts an author’s belief that his typewriter is inhabited by supernatural creatures, to “The Man on the Ceiling,” Melanie and Steve Rasnic Tem’s award-winning surreal tale of night terrors, woven with daylight fears that haunt a family. Other selections include National Book Award finalist Dan Chaon’s “The Bees”; Peter Straub’s “Little Red’s Tango,” the legend of a music aficionado whose past is as mysterious as the ghostly visitors to his Manhattan apartment; Elizabeth Hand’s visionary and shocking “Cleopatra Brimstone”; Thomas Ligotti’s brilliant, mind-stretching “Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story”; and “Body,” Brian Evenson’s disturbing twist on correctional facilities.

Crossing boundaries and packed with imaginative chills, Poe’s Children bears all the telltale signs of fearless, addictive fiction.


From the Hardcover edition....

MYSTERY.  Tom Pasmore, ten years old, survives a near fatal accident.  During his long recovery, he becomes obsessed with an unsolved murder and finds he has clues to solving it that he shouldn’t.  Lamont von Heilitz has spent his life solving mysteries, until he wanted to know nothing more of the terror of life and the horror of death.  When a new murder disrupts their world of wealth, power, and pleasure, the two must form an unlikely partnership to confront demons from the past and the dark secrets that still haunt the present....

From the incomparable master of horror and suspense comes an electrifying collection of contemporary literary horror, with stories from twenty-five writers representing today’s most talented voices in the genre.

Horror writing is usually associated with formulaic gore, but New Wave horror writers have more in common with the wildly inventive, evocative spookiness of Edgar Allan Poe than with the sometimes-predictable hallmarks of their peers. Showcasing this cutting-edge talent, Poe’s Children now brings the best of the genre’s stories to a wider audience. Featuring tales from such writers as Neil Gaiman and Jonathan Carroll, Poe’s Children is Peter Straub’s tribute to the imaginative power of storytelling. Each previously published story has been selected by Straub to represent what he thinks is the most interesting development in our literature during the last two decades.

Selections range from the early Stephen King psychological thriller “The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet,” in which an editor confronts an author’s belief that his typewriter is inhabited by supernatural creatures, to “The Man on the Ceiling,” Melanie and Steve Rasnic Tem’s award-winning surreal tale of night terrors, woven with daylight fears that haunt a family. Other selections include National Book Award finalist Dan Chaon’s “The Bees”; Peter Straub’s “Little Red’s Tango,” the legend of a music aficionado whose past is as mysterious as the ghostly visitors to his Manhattan apartment; Elizabeth Hand’s visionary and shocking “Cleopatra Brimstone”; Thomas Ligotti’s brilliant, mind-stretching “Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story”; and “Body,” Brian Evenson’s disturbing twist on correctional facilities.

Crossing boundaries and packed with imaginative chills, Poe’s Children bears all the telltale signs of fearless, addictive fiction....