This highly acclaimed anthology traces the evolution of horror, from Nathaniel Hawthorn and Edgar Allan Poe to Stephen King. Adopted by colleges across the country to be used in literature courses, The Dark Descent showcases some of the finest horror fiction ever written. Contents: Pt. 1 – The Color of Evil The Reach / Stephen King Evening Primrose / John Collier The Ash-Tree / M. R. James The New Mother / Lucy Clifford There’s a Long, Long Trail A-winding / Russell Kirk The Call of Cthulhu / H. P. Lovecraft The Summer People / Shirley Jackson The Whimper of Whipped Dogs / Harlan Ellison Young Goodman Brown / Nathaniel Hawthorne Mr. Justice Harbottle / J. Sheridan Le Fanu The Crowd / Ray Bradbury The Autopsy / Michael Shea John Charrington’s Wedding / E. Nesbit Sticks / Karl Edward Wagner Larger Than Oneself / Robert Aickman Belsen Express / Fritz Leiber Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper / Robert Bloch If Damon Comes / Charles L. Grant Vandy, Vandy / Manly Wade Wellman Pt. 2 – The Medusa in the Shield The Swords / Robert Aickman The Roaches / Thomas M. Disch Bright Segment / Theodore Sturgeon Dread / Clive Barker The Fall of the House of Usher / Edgar Allan Poe The Monkey / Stephen King Within the Walls of Tyre / Michael Bishop The Rats in the Walls / H. P. Lovecraft Schalken the Painter / J. Sheridan Le Fanu The Yellow Wallpaper / Charlotte Perkins Gilman A Rose for Emily / William Faulkner How Love Came to Professor Guildea / Robert Hichens Born of Man and Woman / Richard Matheson My Dear Emily / Joanna Russ You Can Go Now / Dennis Etchison The Rocking-Horse Winner / D. H. Lawrence Three Days / Tanith Lee Good Country People / Flannery O’Connor Mackintosh Willy / Ramsey Campbell The Jolly Corner / Henry James Pt. 3 – A Fabulous Formless Darkness Smoke Ghost / Fritz Leiber Seven American Nights / Gene Wolfe The Signal-Man / Charles Dickens Crouch End / Stephen King Night-Side / Joyce Carol Oates Seaton’s Aunt / Walter de la Mare Clara Militch / Ivan Turgenev The Repairer of Reputations / Robert W. Chambers The Beckoning Fair One / Oliver Onions What Was It? / Fitz-James O’Brien The Beautiful Stranger / Shirley Jackson The Damned Thing / Ambrose Bierce Afterward / Edith Wharton The Willows / Algernon Blackwood The Asian Shore / Thomas M. Disch The Hospice / Robert Aickman A Little Something for Us Tempunauts / Philip K. Dick