Ghost Stories, Monster Legends, Supernatural Tales

When it comes to Halloween, nothing says "boo" like a great ghost story or spooky legend. Here are several free online books you can read, from Dracula to Frankenstien to some good old-fashioned ghost stories that are guaranteed to entertain you on a dark, stormy night.



These books are all available in the Public Domain (which means they are no longer copyrighted) for all to enjoy. Most of the books featured here were written in the late eighteen-hundreds to the early nineteen hundreds and contain some excellent fictional ghost and monsters stories.

Famous Modern Ghost Stories

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: The Imperishable Ghost by Dr. Dorothy Scarborough

2. The Willows by Algernon Blackwood
Algernon Blackwood has handled almost all known aspects of the supernatural, and from his many stories, he has selected for this volume The Willows as the best example of his ghostly art. (*Sidenote*) This is a long story, but well worth reading!

3. The Shadows on the Wall by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
A wonderfully original ghost story in the method of its horrific manifestation. Isn't it more devastating to one's sanity to see the shadow of a revenge ghost cast on the wall - than to see the specter himself?

4. The Messenger by Robert W. Chambers
An admirable example of the supernatural. This story has various thrills, with its river of blood, its death's head moth, and the ancient but very active skull of the Black Priest.

5. Lazarus by Leonid Andreyev
This is the story of a man who came back from the grave, living, yet dead, with the horror of the unknown so manifest in his face that those who looked into his deep eyes met their doom.

6. The Beast with Five Fingers by W. F. Harvey
Who can doubt that a bodiless hand leaping around on its errands of evil has a menace that a complete six-foot frame could not duplicate?

7. The Mass of Shadows by Anatole France
Here we read about the spirits of those who had sinned for love could meet and celebrate mass together in one evening of the year.

8. What Was It? by Fitz James O'Brien
The dreadful presence of a ghost that one cannot see is more unbearable than the specter that one can locate and attempt to escape from.

9. The Middle toe of the Right Foot by Ambrose Bierce
The thrill of horror is intensified by the fact that the dead woman who comes back in revenge to haunt her murderer, has one toe lacking as in life.

10. The Shell of Sense by Olivia Howard Dunbar
Another instance of jealousy reaching beyond the grave. A possessive wife dies and returns to "visit" her beloved, only to learn that love has blossomed between her sister and husband.

11. The Woman at Seven Brothers by Wilbur Daniel Steele
The author skillfully combines elements of awe and ghostly madness with the supernatural, giving this story a chill of fear which each concept.

12. At The Gate by Myla Jo Closser
Everybody who has had affection for a dog will appreciate the pathos of this ghost story.

13. Ligeia by Edgar Allan Poe
One of the best stories in any language, Poe's "Ligeia" reveals the unrelenting will of the dead to effect their desire - the dead wife triumphantly coming back to life through the second wife's body.

14. The Haunted Orchard by Richard Le Gallienne
The delicate beauty of many of the modern ghostly stories is apparent in this prose poem and has an appeal of tenderness rather than of terror.

15. The Bowmen by Arthur Machen
This purely fictitious account of an angel army that saved the day at Mons was so vivid that its readers accepted it as truth and obstinately clung to that idea in the face of Mr. Machen's persistent and bewildered explanations that he had invented the whole thing.

16. A Ghost by Guy de Maupassant
A chance meeting with an old friend and a strange encounter with the friend's dead wife has left this eighty-two year old Marquis with the nightmare of his life.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

I. A Scandal in Bohemia
The very first Sherlock Holmes short story. An actress by the name of Irene Adler has threatened to reveal damaging evidence of her affair with the king of Bohemia. Holmes must go undercover to stop the potential damage, and finds himself in the position of being bested by an equally intelligent adversary.

II. The Red-headed League
A pawnbroker named Wilson learns from an assistant about a wealthy foundation called the Red-Headed League. This league is dedicated to the "propagation and spread of... redheads. Since Wilson is a redhead, he applies for consideration and is given a strange job copying an encyclopedia by hand, alone in a small office. After seeing notice of the League's dissolution, Wilson approaches Holmes and Dr. Watson whom ultimately gets to the bottom of things.

III. A Case of Identity
A heartbroken fiance meets with Holmes, asking him to investigate the disappearance of her fiance. It appears that he had set out for the wedding, never to appear at the intended location.

IV. The Boscombe Valley Mystery
A farmer's son is accused of murdering his father. With only circumstantial evidence against him, and a young lady who declares that he's innocent, Holmes and Watson travel to west England to investigate this case.

V. The Five Orange Pips
Sherlock Holmes is asked to investigate the mysterious deaths of John Openshaw's uncle and father. The two men, and now John, all inherited and lived in a house in Horsham. All 3 men have recieved strange letters containing nothing but five dried orange pips and a message that said simply "KKK". Is it possible for Holmes to solve this case before this young man also meets an untimely death?

VI. The Man with the Twisted Lip
Dr. Wastson has gone to rescue a friend from an East End opium den. While there, he discovers his ally Sherlock Holmes, diguised as an old man, working on a case. It appears that a Mrs. St. Clair is concerned because her husband has disappeared and she is quite certain that she last saw him in an upstairs window in the rough part of town near the docks.

VII. The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
This mystery takes place during the Christmas season. John Horner, a plumber, is accused of stealing a precious blue carbuncle from the suite of the Countess of Morcar and is subsequently arrested on that suspicion. Worse, Horner has a previous conviction for robbery. Interestingly enough, Police Commissionaire Peterson finds the carbuncle in a goose which was dropped by some other man in a scuffle on the street.

VIII. The Adventure of the Speckled Band
Dr. Grimesby Roylott insists that his step-daughter, Miss Helen Stoner, move into a particular room of his ancestral home which contains some strange peculiarities. As this was also the same room in which Helen's sister had slept in before she died under suspicious circumstances, Miss Stoner is also suspicious as to why he would want her there and so engages the services of Holmes and Watson.

IX. The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb
Accepting a job offered to him by Colonel Lysander Stark, Mr. Victor Hatherley, an engineer, is driven to a very distant house to examine a hydraulic press. Upon closely examining it, Hatherley realizes that this press is not used to press fuller's earth. Narrowly escaping being crushed to death when the machine is suddenly turned on, Hartherly has his thumbed severed and ends up at Dr. Watson's, where Holmes takes up the case.

X. The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor
Lord St. Simon engages Sherlock Holme's services to investigate the disappearance of his new bride, Hatty Doran. It appears that immediately following the ceremony Hatty's mood changed. A series of incidents preceded the news that Hatty had left the house during their wedding breakfast after talking to her maid. It was reported that Hatty was seen entering Hyde Park and eventually her wedding dress and ring were found washed up on the shore of the Serpentine.

XI. The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet
A prominent client takes a loan of £50,000 from a banker, Mr. Alexander Holder. In return, the client leaves the very valuable Beryl Coronet as security. Holder does not wish to leave this valuable asset in his personal safe at the bank, so he takes it home to lock up. In the night, he wakes up to find his son Arthur holding the coronet and trying to bend it. On top of this, 3 of the beryls are missing. Holmes, not completely convinced of Arthur's guilt, sets about digging deeper to solve the case.

XII. The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
Violet Hunter is offered the position of a governess with a the phenomenal salary. However, the job comes with some very strange peculiarities, one of which is to cut her hair off, with an additional salary raise if she does. Miss Hunter accepts the job despite her suspicions. However, within 2 weeks she sends a telegram to Sherlock Holmes and beseeches him to come to Winchester.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Carnacki, The Ghost Finder

Table of Contents

The Gateway of the Monster
"...From Anderson, I knew already that the room had a history extending back over a hundred and fifty years. Three people had been strangled in it--an ancestor of his and his wife and child. This is authentic, as I had taken very great pains to discover; so that you can imagine it was with a feeling I had a striking case to investigate that I went upstairs after dinner to have a look at the Grey Room...."

The House Among The Laurels
"This is a curious yarn that I am going to tell you," said Carnacki, as after a quiet little dinner we made ourselves comfortable in his cozy dining room. "Wentworth, a friend of mine, has lately had rather an unexpected legacy, in the shape of a large estate and manor. It seems that there had been always curious stories told about the place, which in the early days was called Landru Castle, and that within the last seven years there had been two extraordinary deaths there."

The Whistling Room
"I have just got back from Ireland, again," he said. "And I thought you chaps would be interested to hear my news. Besides, I fancy I shall see the thing clearer, after I have told it all out straight. I must tell you this, though, at the beginning--up to the present moment, I have been utterly and completely 'stumped.' I have tumbled upon one of the most peculiar cases of 'haunting'--or devilment of some sort--that I have come against. Now listen."

The Horse of the Invisible
When we had spent a quiet hour at the table we pulled our chairs 'round and made ourselves snug and Carnacki began: "I've been North," he said, speaking slowly and painfully between puffs at his pipe. "Up to Hisgins of East Lancashire. It has been a pretty strange business all 'round, as I fancy you chaps will think, when I have finished. I knew before I went, something about the 'horse story,' as I have heard it called; but I never thought of it coming my way, somehow. Also I know _now_ that I never considered it seriously--in spite of my rule always to keep an open mind. Funny creatures, we humans!"

The Searcher of the End House
"I was living with my mother when it occurred, in a small house just outside of Appledorn, on the South Coast... Now I must remind you at the beginning that my mother and I had lived in that little house for two years; and in the whole of that time there had not been a single peculiar happening to worry us... And then, something happened."

The Thing Invisible
Dinner over, Carnacki snugged himself down into his great chair... "I have just come back from Sir Alfred Jarnock's place at Burtontree, in South Kent," he began, without removing his gaze from the fire. "Most extraordinary things have been happening down there lately and Mr. George Jarnock, the eldest son, wired to ask me to run over and see whether I could help to clear matters up a bit. I went... I found that they have an old Chapel attached to the castle which has had quite a distinguished reputation for being what is popularly termed 'haunted.'"