The Monkey's Paw

A narrator insists he is sane while describing, step by careful step, how he killed an old man. Poe's 1843 tale is the purest lesson in suspense ever written, down to the heartbeat under the floor.

Edgar Allan Poe

A prisoner of the Inquisition wakes in total darkness, then watches a blade swing lower with every minute. Poe turns a countdown into one of the most nerve-racking short stories in English.

Edgar Allan Poe

A visitor arrives at a decaying mansion to help his sick friend Roderick Usher, and the house itself seems to be listening. Poe's 1839 tale builds to a storm, a scream and a collapse you can feel coming.

Edgar Allan Poe

During carnival, Montresor leads a drunken rival deep into his family catacombs with the promise of rare wine. You know where this is going long before the victim does, and that is exactly the point.

Edgar Allan Poe

A lonely railway signalman keeps seeing a figure at the tunnel mouth, and each time, disaster follows. Dickens's 1866 ghost story is quiet, eerie and builds to a devastating last line.

Charles Dickens