There is nothing like reading a horror story in the middle of the night, by the light of a lamp and with silence as the only company. For lovers of sensations, we have prepared a list of the best horror books , ideal for sleeping with one eye open and not recommended for insomniacs.
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15 horror books that will not leave anyone indifferent
The following stories manage to make us feel that chill in the spine that makes good horror books so special.
15. American Psycho (Bret Easton Ellis, 1991)
Patrick Bateman is a successful young executive who works at a successful company in 1980s Manhattan. However, he combines his opulent life with his dark fantasies in which he unleashes his most sadistic murderous instincts.
We open the list with a horror novel written in the first person (where the disturbed mind of this serial killer is reflected) and which was successfully adapted to the cinema in 2000, in a movie starring Christian Bale.
14. Mr. X (Peter Straub, 1999)
Peter Straub, friend and collaborator of Stephen King in two of his novels (The Talisman and its continuation, Black House), is the author of this terrifying narrative.
In it, he tells us that Ned Dunstan has been having recurring nightmares for years, in which a strange being dressed in black appears to him, calling himself ‘Mister X’, whom he sees committing authentic massacres. The curious thing is that these visions coincide with the dates close to his birthday … But why do you feel this supernatural connection with said evil entity?
13. The highway (Cormac McCarthy, 2006)
The highway is one of the horror books set in post-apocalyptic scenarios that have received the most applause in recent years.
Earth has been devastated by a cataclysm that has wiped out almost all life. The few that remain are dedicated to prowling in search of survivors to feed on them. In the midst of this hostile landscape, a father and his son try to stay alive as they can , wandering and hiding from this looming danger.
This few-page novel was adapted into a film by John Hillcoat in 2009 and starred Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smith-Mcphee.
12. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Washington Irving, 1820)
You may also know it by another title (The Legend of the Headless Horseman) and you have surely seen the film adaptation by Tim Burton. However, this movie is based on a gothic horror book from the 19th century..
The story begins when Ichabod Crane moves to the small town of Sleepy Hollow to teach at the school. There, he falls in love with the daughter of one of the wealthiest landowners in the area , in addition to knowing the legend that terrifies the inhabitants of the place about a spectral figure without a head, which moves on the back of a huge black horse and dedicated to cutting heads.
11. The country of October (Ray Bradbury, 1955)
If you like short horror stories, this is your book. Written by a literary genius like Ray Bradbury, in The Country of October we have a compilation of no less than 19 stories.
Although we warn you that you will want to read them all once you start, we highlight El enano, Esqueleto, La alcantarilla or Reunion de familia.
10. Book Demon (Clive Barker, 2007)
Stephen King himself pointed to it as ‘the future of terror’, after Clive Barker published his first novel, Hellraiser, in 1987.
It was then that his meteoric career as a writer of movies began. horror books, of which we will mention Book Demon, a novel in which the author knocks down the fourth wall and writes a story in which the devil himself addresses the viewer to tell him about his exploits and plans. In this way, the book becomes a dangerous object from which the reader cannot part.
9. The Exorcist (William Peter Blatty, 1972)
Few know that the mythical horror film of the same name is based on a book written a year earlier by William Peter Blatty, who would also collaborate in writing the script for it.
Inspired by a case of exorcism that took place in 1949 on a young man named Roland Doe, The Exorcist began to be written a year later, although it would not be published until 1972, after an arduous task of research on this phenomenon.
Her plot is about a girl who begins to suffer symptoms that can make her believe that she is being besieged by a demonic entity that little by little is taking control of her body. In order to drive away this demon , her mother will ask an experienced priest for help to perform an exorcism on her.
8. The Monk (Matthew G. Lewis, 1796)
This is one of the oldest horror books on record, and which motivated, among others, geniuses of the genre such as HP Lovecraft.
The Monk is about Ambrosio, a Spanish monk who must avoid succumbing to the temptations of the Devil , incarnated under the tender guise of a beautiful lady.
As it could not be treated in any other way, this novel was banned for several decades until the writing managed to recover and be published again.
7. IT (Stephen King, 1986)
We could have chosen any of the books we know as ‘the horror master’ to occupy a position on our list, but we decided to keep IT, which for many is one of his masterpieces .
Narrated in two different times, 1957 and 1985, it tells the story of the childhood and adult life of the seven survivors of the spiral of murders that has devastated their hometown every 27 years, where terror has taken the charming form of a clown that appears to take the children . Only these seven intrepid boys will muster enough courage to face him.
- You may be interested: 20 books by Stephen King that you have to read before you die.
6. Another Turn of the Screw (Henry James, 1898)
A young governess moves to an old Victorian-style mansion to take a job caring for two children. She, however, does not know that paranormal phenomena occur in that place that have to do with strange presences . Everything seems to indicate that these appearances are related to the strange death of the servants and the governess whom she replaces, but in what way?
One of the phantasmagoric horror books with a very interesting psychological background to analyze.
5. Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (Mary Shelley, 1818)
The young English writer published this novel, considered one of the typical titles of the Gothic genre and one of the best horror books of all time.
Victor, a young medical student with claims to God, ignores all the precepts of medical ethics by creating a being built from pieces of different corpses and that acquires a life of its own. This misunderstood monster flees from the laboratory and, feeling the rejection of society due to his fearsome appearance, dedicates himself to reaping the lives of anyone who is in his path.
Victor, who cannot avoid the guilt for what he has done, must make a decision when he sees that his creation is going after his loved ones.
4. The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886)
When his friend Dr. Henry Jekyll dies, the executor of his will discovers that he has bequeathed everything to Edward Hyde , a criminal who is closer the deceased than it may seem. How did it happen
? Why does the good doctor leave everything to a murderer?
This horror novel, one of the classics of the 19th century , is a metaphor for dissociative identity disorder , a pathology that causes the sufferer to have two or more differentiated personalities within his being…
3. The Myths of Chtulhu (HP Lovecraft, 1921 – 1935)
We cannot design a list of the best horror books without dedicating a space to Lovecraft, one of the most important authors of horror and science fiction, creator of an entire universe of his own about parallel worlds, ghosts and monstrous creatures that hide in the corners most inaccessible on the planet.
Some of the stories that we will find in this collection are: The Call of Chtulhu, The Declaration of Randolph Carter or The Thing on the Threshold.
2. Extraordinary narratives (Edgar Allan Poe, 19th century) Poe
‘s long bibliography of horror stories is collected under this title, although it can also be found as Complete Stories. This compilation brings together some of his most mythical titlesand that they are a benchmark of the gothic and police novel: The black cat, The mask of the red death, The well and the pendulum or The premature burial, among others.
Without a doubt, one of the best horror books of the last century. Poe, creditor of the detective and horror novel, is a classic that every reader should know.
- You may be interested: The 5 best Edgar Allan Poe stories and their impact.
1. Dracula (Bram Stoker, 1897)
“Strigoi! Strigoi!” shouted Bram Stoker on his death bed, pointing his finger at a corner of the dark wall of the room where he was. However, there was no one there… They say that the Irish writer spent his last moments harassed by visions of the monster protagonist of his most successful book: Count Dracula.
Dracula is about Jonathan Harker, a young man who must go to the castle of the eccentric count, to get him to sign some documents on the sale of some properties. However, Dracula’s plans are different, so he decides to lock the boy in his castle while he travels to London to try to seduce his fiancee and make him forget Harker.
dracula,central novel about vampirism , has become one of the best valued and most read horror books by lovers of the genre.
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