Cosimo celebrates Halloween with a selection of spooky tales to creep you out on this scary day.

The Wyvern Mystery: The foremost teller of scary stories in his day and a profound influence on both the novelists and filmmakers of the 20th century, Anglo-Irish author Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (1814–1873) has, sadly, fallen out of scholarly and popular favor, and unfairly so. To this day, contemporary readers who happen across his works praise his talent for weaving a tense literary atmosphere tinged by the supernatural and bolstered by hints of ambiguous magic. An exceptional example of the “sensation novel”—a genre that was wildly popular in the Victorian era, with its focus on lurid crime invading previously cheerful, ordinary, and domestic places—this 1869 classic gives us a rural estate in 1820s England, a happy new bride, and an ancient myth of a “wyvern” dragon to spoil the tranquility. Or perhaps there’s a more rational—and yet more sinister—explanation for the distress afflicting poor Alice Fairfield, née Maybell, lady of Carwell Grange? Redolent of future works including the tales of Sherlock Holmes and the thrillers of Stephen King, The Wyvern Mystery continues to enthrall 21st-century readers. With a series of new editions of Le Fanu’s works, Cosimo is proud to reintroduce modern book lovers to the writings of the early master of suspense fiction who pioneered the concept of “psychological horror.”

In a Glass Darkly: First published in 1872, this collection of Le Fanu’s short fiction includes: “Green Tea,” “The Familiar,” “Mr. Justice Harbottle,” “The Room in the Dragon Volant,” and “Carmilla.”

The House by the Churchyard: Though his best-known works were horror tales, Le Fanu’s first novels were historical in nature. This one, originally published in 1863, bridges the author’s early work and his later experiments in Gothic horror, and is said to have inspired James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. A rambling tale of the charming Irish town of Chapelizod in 1767, it sees men of the Royal Irish Artillery stationed in the village and disrupting the quiet life there… though the brooding Mr. Mervyn and his coffin and the mysterious newcomer Mr. Dangerfield lend elements of the unknown as well.

The Evil Guest: A wonderful example of the Victorian haunted-house tale, this is one of Le Fanu’s almost-forgotten works, yet one that is still hugely enjoyable for today’s readers. Indeed, it calls to mind later books it clearly inspired, from the mysteries of Agatha Christie to the tales of Stephen King.

Wagner, The Wehr-Wolf: Fans of horror and students of the history of pulp fiction will be enthralled by this little-remembered early novel of werewolf fantasy, a “penny dreadful” first published in 1846–7 and written by British author George William Macarthur Reynolds (1814–1879). The veritable Stephen King of his day—his lurid stories were more widely read than Dickens’ work—Reynolds here gives us the strange exploits of Wagner, a 16th-century German peasant who made a pact with the devil for immortality, and hence was cursed to become a werewolf on a disturbingly regular basis. With his beautiful but wicked companion Nisida, he roams a world of Gothic nightmares, of horrifying intrigue, murder, and strange supernatural doings. Cosimo is proud to present this new edition of a forgotten classic, reproduced here in a charming replica of an 1865 edition, complete with the original illustrations.