The Monkey's Paw

An American family buys a haunted English castle and refuses to be scared, leaving its centuries-old ghost humiliated and desperate. Funny and spooky at the same time, the perfect first ghost story.

Oscar Wilde

Schoolteacher Ichabod Crane rides home through a haunted valley and meets the Headless Horseman. The legendary American ghost story behind countless Halloween traditions.

Washington Irving

A lonely railway signalman is haunted by a ghostly figure that appears before every disaster on the line. A quiet, chilling ghost story by the author of A Christmas Carol.

Charles Dickens

A nervous narrator swears he is not mad while telling how a beating heart gave away his crime. Poe's most famous short story, a classic read in middle school classrooms.

Edgar Allan Poe

Two old school friends remember a strange Latin teacher, a mysterious message and the night something came for him. A short ghost story set in a boys' boarding school.

M. R. James