In the flickering candlelight of pitchy Autumn nights, malevolent spirits crowd the gloom and weird, terrible things come to pass. Ever since the days of the druidic Samhain, storytellers have observed the tradition of spinning tall, twisted tales of dark magic, spectral stalkings and unearthly creatures to mark this festival’s uniquely frightening aura.

Collecting up a haunting haul of tales and a handful of weird seasonal poetry from across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this new volume celebrates the riotous weird of the Halloween season through the works of legendary ghost story writers such as Edith Wharton alongside rare literary treats, rediscovered by Johnny Mains and returning to print for the first time since their original publication.