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.
Dark bleatings, my spooky tribe! ‘Tis the season, and I have the perfect seasonal read for you. The title alone simply does not do this book justice, and if you enjoy classic horror literature, this is an absolute must-have.
I normally speak a little about each individual story in an anthology but I’m refraining from doing that here because I realised something as I read them, and that’s that quite often in such classic texts, the story (though enjoyable) is secondary to the atmosphere. Don’t get me wrong, each story is about something and tells a spooky tale, but the answer to which particular scary thing is afoot is quite often delivered almost as a punchline right at the end. It’s been a while since I read anything older that a century, and I forgot that this was the popular story-telling style of the time. Scary stories in days past feel like they served more as warnings for what might be lurking in the dark, rather than having the need for the living to always triumph at the end. It was lovely to bask in thick, building tension again, and to read stories that were written to spook, to unsettle, and to unnerve, before delivering any sort of explanation for exactly what makes you feel that way.
I love sprinting zombies and nuclear apocalypses, amongst other horrendous things, but it was a real joy to return to horror that reflected its more folky, gothic roots. Witches, spirits, weird noises and sprites – this is the stuff of vintage horror, and there was something particularly entertaining in reading it, and absorbing how people viewed these elements in the 1700’s and 1800’s.
This anthology not only contains perfect, creepy horror stories, but a reflection of horror fiction and society as mirrored in it a few hundred years back.
I’m particularly impressed by the stories and poems that the editor managed to compile here, because I looked each of them up afterwards, only to find most of them very hard to get in any sort of physical format. This isn’t just a collection of classic, seasonal stories, it’s a real achievement from someone who clearly has great passion for this area of horror.
I would absolutely recommend this to horror fans looking for something on the charming but spooky side, particularly if you’re someone with a keen interest in classic horror and literature in general.
If you’d like to check out the book or the editor, I’ve popped some links below for you:
Bleeeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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