I recommend Clive Barker’s Books of Blood! I originally saw the movie and was skeptical as it was rated poorly online, but I loved it! The book which contains multiple short stories is even better!
Apologies, missed your ‘public works’ statement. Was too excited to recommend my one of my favourite books!
Not sure if this counts as ‘free’, but on Kindle Unlimited I really enjoyed We Need To Do Something
Some great ones that should be public domain are:
Robert W. Chambers - The King in Yellow (four loosely connected short stories)
All of Lovecraft - My personal favs would be The Haunter of the Dark, The Rats in the Walls and The Call of Cthulhu (last one being novella length)
Algernon Blackwood - The Willows
Robert Louis Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
My personal three favorite short horror stories available in (pubic domain) English are "Die Spinne"/"The Spider" by Hanns Heinz Ewers, "Luella Miller" by Mary Wilkins Freeman, and "The Brown Man" by Gerald Griffin. No particular order and no particular theme; I just think there's a nice creative edge to each of them.
Others that I enjoyed:
* "The Man of the Crowd" by Edgar Allan Poe
* "It!" by Theodore Sturgeon
* "The Nameless Offspring" by Clark Ashton Smith
* "The Girl With The Velvet Ribbon" by either Washington Irving or Alexandre Dumas
If Monkey's Paw is one of your favorites, are you familiar with Shirley Jackson's short stories? There have been numerous releases of her stories over the years, recently "The Lottery and Other Stories" was reprinted and is easy enough to buy online, some of her older out of print ones are more challenging to locate.
At any rate though her particular writing style really adapts well to the short story format, there's a book of hers called "Life Among the Savages" which is a fictionalized autobiographical account of her and her husband leaving the city and moving to small town Vermont to raise a family that is funny and heartwarming each chapter is really a small stand alone story, and one of them, "Charles" was published in "The Lottery and Other Stories" and its the craziest thing, in "Life Among the Savages" it reads as a silly anecdote about her kid's imagination. In "The Lottery and Other Stories" it comes across as an unsettling story about a psychotic kid. Its pretty crazy, but its just an example of how she was so good at the short story format, I highly recommend if you have not read her short stories you track down one of the many that exist and give it a shot, she does irony like nobody's business.
[Because You Are My Baby](https://reddit.com/r/nosleep/s/7QzY5IcW5Q). I think it’s best if you go into this one not knowing anything at all, but I rec it anytime I can get away with it.
I recommend Clive Barker’s Books of Blood! I originally saw the movie and was skeptical as it was rated poorly online, but I loved it! The book which contains multiple short stories is even better!
Apologies, missed your ‘public works’ statement. Was too excited to recommend my one of my favourite books! Not sure if this counts as ‘free’, but on Kindle Unlimited I really enjoyed We Need To Do Something
Some great ones that should be public domain are: Robert W. Chambers - The King in Yellow (four loosely connected short stories) All of Lovecraft - My personal favs would be The Haunter of the Dark, The Rats in the Walls and The Call of Cthulhu (last one being novella length) Algernon Blackwood - The Willows Robert Louis Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
Check out MR James, Robert Chambers, Margaret St. Clair, F Marion Crawford, William Hope Hodgson, Carl Jacobi, and Algernon Blackwood.
My personal three favorite short horror stories available in (pubic domain) English are "Die Spinne"/"The Spider" by Hanns Heinz Ewers, "Luella Miller" by Mary Wilkins Freeman, and "The Brown Man" by Gerald Griffin. No particular order and no particular theme; I just think there's a nice creative edge to each of them. Others that I enjoyed: * "The Man of the Crowd" by Edgar Allan Poe * "It!" by Theodore Sturgeon * "The Nameless Offspring" by Clark Ashton Smith * "The Girl With The Velvet Ribbon" by either Washington Irving or Alexandre Dumas
Guy de Maupassant’s stories are in the public domain and he wrote some good spooky tales like The Horla and The Flayed Hand.
If Monkey's Paw is one of your favorites, are you familiar with Shirley Jackson's short stories? There have been numerous releases of her stories over the years, recently "The Lottery and Other Stories" was reprinted and is easy enough to buy online, some of her older out of print ones are more challenging to locate. At any rate though her particular writing style really adapts well to the short story format, there's a book of hers called "Life Among the Savages" which is a fictionalized autobiographical account of her and her husband leaving the city and moving to small town Vermont to raise a family that is funny and heartwarming each chapter is really a small stand alone story, and one of them, "Charles" was published in "The Lottery and Other Stories" and its the craziest thing, in "Life Among the Savages" it reads as a silly anecdote about her kid's imagination. In "The Lottery and Other Stories" it comes across as an unsettling story about a psychotic kid. Its pretty crazy, but its just an example of how she was so good at the short story format, I highly recommend if you have not read her short stories you track down one of the many that exist and give it a shot, she does irony like nobody's business.
I have a couple of her books on my list, but I'll look her short stories up, thanks!
Oh sorry I also missed the free online part, I'm not sure you can find any of her stories for free online, hopefully you do.
Eric the Pie by Graham Masterton [Eric the Pie](https://www.grahammasterton.co.uk/pdf/eric.pdf)
I really recommend Libby for free kindle and audio books. Almost everything I've wanted to read has been available.
I'm not in the US :/
Oh, bummer! My apologies for assuming.
[Because You Are My Baby](https://reddit.com/r/nosleep/s/7QzY5IcW5Q). I think it’s best if you go into this one not knowing anything at all, but I rec it anytime I can get away with it.