The HorrorBabble Podcast

"The Transfer" is a short story by Algernon Blackwood. The tale, which was first published in the magazine, Country Life, in 1911, tells of a child’s fascination with a barren patch of land in a big garden known as the Forbidden Corner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Sunken Land" by George W. Bayly was first published in the May-June-July, 1924 edition of Weird Tales. It is the story of a strange journey into the heart of Canada's Northwest Territories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Sweets to the Sweet" is a short story by Robert Bloch. The story, which first appeared in Weird Tales in March 1947, tells of an eight-year-old girl with uncanny abilities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Afterward" is a short story by Edith Wharton. It was first published in the 1910 edition of The Century Magazine and in her books, The Collected Short Stories of Edith Wharton and Tales of Men and Ghosts, 1910. It is an ironic ghost story about greed and retribution. The ghost comes for one of the main characters long after a business transgression where the character wronged another. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Lady in Gray" is a short story by the American author, Donald Wandrei. The tale first appeared in Weird Tales in its December 1933 edition, and was described by the magazine as follows: “The story of a strange woman and a loathsome gray slug that came to a sleeper in his dreams..." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Written in French by Russian author, Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy in 1839, "The Family of the Vourdalak" tells a tale of vampirism in rural Serbia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Rats" is a short story by the British author, F. A. M. Webster. First published under a pseudonym in the 1931 anthology, At Dead of Night, the tale tells the story of Mike Halliday, a man determined to make the most of a problematic holiday in dreary England. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Unnamable" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft. In the tale, the antiquarian Randolph Carter tells a close friend the tale of an indescribable entity that allegedly haunts a dilapidated house near an old cemetery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Dread Summons" is a short story by the regular Weird Tales contributor, Paul Ernst. The tale was given the following synopsis back in November 1937: “The old butler heard a scream, muffled by the street noises from outside, and when he investigated he found that a dread summons had been answered.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Creeper in Darkness" is a short story by Frank Belknap Long, which first appeared in Strange Stories in April 1939. The tale tells of a disturbing encounter with a witch's familiar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Black Bargain" first appeared in Weird Tales in May 1942, and tells of a situation involving a man who is quite literally afraid of his own shadow. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Imp of the Perverse" is a short story by 19th-century American author and critic Edgar Allan Poe. Beginning as an essay, it discusses the narrator's self-destructive impulses, embodied as the symbolic metaphor of The Imp of the Perverse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Nobody's House" is a short story by the British writer, A. M. Burrage. In the story, which first appeared in his 1927 collection, SOME GHOST STORIES, a prospective homebuyer visits an old house, eager to hear of its haunted history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Mortal Immortal" is a short story from 1833 written by Mary Shelley. It tells the story of a man named Winzy, who drinks an elixir which makes him immortal. At first, immortality appears to promise him eternal tranquility. However, it soon becomes apparent that he is cursed to endure eternal psychological torture, as everything he loves dies around him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Seven Seas Are One" by American author Allison V. Harding, first appeared in Weird Tales Magazine in September 1944. The magazine described the tale as follows: “The Captain knew that somehow, some day his fate was coming—out of the sea and the wind!” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Supernumerary Corpse" is a short story by the American author, Clark Ashton Smith. The tale, which first appeared in Weird Tales in November 1932, was described by the magazine as follows: “Jasper Trilt was dead—but what was the thing in his likeness that lay supine on the floor of the laboratory?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"It All Came True in the Woods" is a short story by American author, Manly Wade Wellman. If first appeared in the July 1941 edition of Weird Tales Magazine... “If you should speak in the woods of Amasookit, your words are clothed with flesh and blood. So the Indians believed…” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Black Was the Night" is a rare weird tale by the little-known author, Laurence Bour, Jr. The story, which first appeared in Weird Tales in May 1940, tells of a long-awaited encounter in a crumbling, haunted house. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Polar Vortex" is a short story by the obscure American author, Malcolm Ferguson. The story first appeared in Weird Tales Magazine in September 1946. The magazine described the story as follows: "A curiously terrible experiment of blasphemous implications!" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Night Ocean" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft and R. H. Barlow. Barlow drafted the tale, and handed it to Lovecraft to edit in the summer of 1936. It first appeared in the magazine The Californian, in its Winter 1936 edition. It tells of an unnamed artist, who, whilst vacationing by the beach, becomes increasingly unsettled by the presence of the ocean. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Candle-Light" is a rare tale by the little-known author, Louise Garwood. A classic ghost story, the work debuted in the November 1925 edition of Weird Tales. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Green Flame" is a short story by Donald Wandrei. The tale, which tells of a strange jewel, debuted in Weird Tales Magazine in July 1930. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Fessenden's Worlds" is a tale of cosmic horror by Edmond Hamilton. The story, which first appeared in Weird Tales in April 1937, was described as follows: “Like a young god, Fessenden created a miniature universe, but his unholy meddling with the lives and destinies of his creations brought about a startling catastrophe…” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Thing on the Doorstep" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, part of the Cthulhu Mythos universe. It was written in August 1933, and first published in the January 1937 issue of Weird Tales. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Body Snatcher" is a short story by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894). First published in the Pall Mall Christmas "Extra" in December 1884, its characters were based on criminals in the employ of real-life surgeon Robert Knox (1791–1862) around the time of the notorious Burke and Hare murders (1828). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"A Neighbour's Landmark" is a short story by M. R. James, from his collection, 'A Warning to the Curious'. It is often cited as a classic example of 'Sylvan Dread', the inexplicable fear of woods or forests. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Cask of Amontillado" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in the November 1846 issue of Godey's Lady's Book. The story, set in an unnamed Italian city at carnival time in an unspecified year, is about a man taking fatal revenge on a friend who, he believes, has insulted him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Night Wire", by American author, H. F. Arnold, tells of two night wire operators, one of whom receives a disturbing report of a mysterious fog enveloping a small, unfamiliar town by the name of Xebico. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Magic Mirror" is a short story by the British author, Algernon Blackwood. The tale, which first appeared in Weird Tales Magazine in September 1938, tells of a stranger from Tibet, and a peculiar devil-mirror famed for bringing both death and riches. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Lure of Atlantis" by the five-time Weird Tales contributor, Joel Martin Nichols, Jr., debuted in WT in its April 1925 edition. The story tells of an expedition into the heart of the lost city of Atlantis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Horror in the Lighthouse" is a finished version of Poe's last work, "The Light-House". Robert Bloch, who quite literally picked up where Poe left off, completed the story and saw it published in the magazine FANTASTIC in 1953. The 2019 movie "The Lighthouse" began as an attempt to adapt Poe’s fragment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Uneasy Lie the Drowned" is a short story by Donald Wandrei. The tale, concerning a troubling lake crossing, first appeared in Weird Tales Magazine in December 1937. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Nameless Offspring" is a short story by Clark Ashton Smith. The tale, which first appeared in Strange Tales of Mystery in Terror back in June 1932, tells of a man's troubling stay at a remote property in the English countryside. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Uncharted Isle" is a short story by Clark Ashton Smith. The tale tells of a sailor lost at sea, who happens upon an island previously unknown to man. The story first appeared in the November 1930 issue of Weird Tales. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Rats in the Walls" is a short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. Written in August–September 1923, it was first published in Weird Tales, March 1924. The story tells of an American named Delapore, who restores an ancestral estate in rural England following the death of his son in the First World War. Unfortunately, and to the dismay of his neighbours, Delapore—with the exception of his cat—isn't the priory's only occupant... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Warning Wings" by the mysterious author, Arlton Eadie, first appeared in the September 1929 edition of Weird Tales. In the story, a man recounts an experience he once had involving a seemingly insignificant white moth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Suzanne” by J. Joseph-Renaud, first started to bloom in the April 1930 edition of Weird Tales Magazine. The tale was described as follows: “A grisly plant horror was spawned in the steaming vapors of Dr. Salzmann’s nursery—a giant, man-eating Nepenthes.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Abductor Minimi Digit" is a short story by the little-known author, Ralph Milne Farley. It first appeared in Weird Tales in its January 1932 edition, described as “A peculiar little story about a man who learned how to move his left little toe by will-power.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In "The Dream Snake", first published in the February 1928 edition of Weird Tales Magazine, a terrified individual recounts the details of a strange, recurring nightmare. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Nameless City" is a horror story written by American writer H. P. Lovecraft in January 1921 and first published in the November 1921 issue of the amateur press journal The Wolverine. It is often considered the first Cthulhu Mythos story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Grave" by the one-time Weird Tales contributor, Orville R. Emerson, tells of a soldier who finds himself buried alive in Flanders. The story appeared in the first ever edition of Weird Tales magazine, in March of 1923. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Damned Thing" is a horror short story written by American Civil War soldier, wit, and writer Ambrose Bierce. It first appeared in Tales from New York Town Topics on December 7, 1893. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Gorgon" is a short story by Clark Ashton Smith. The tale, which first appeared in Weird Tales back in April 1932, was described as follows: “A thrill-tale of the snaky-locked Medusa and a fantastic adventure in modern London.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Penned by British writer, William Hope Hodgson, "The Voice in the Night" tells of a schooner at sea, approached in the middle of the night by a small rowboat. The passenger aboard the boat, who refuses to bring his boat close alongside and requests that the sailors on the schooner put away their lanterns, tells a disturbing tale. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Parasitic Hand" is a short story by the author and editor, R. Anthony. A work of body horror, the tale first appeared in Weird Tales in its November 1926 edition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Open Window" tells the tale of Framton Nuttel, a nervous man, who has come to stay in the country for his health. His sister, who thinks he should socialise while he is there, has given him letters of introduction to families in the neighbourhood whom she got to know when she was staying there a few years previously. Framton goes to visit Mrs Sappleton and, while he is waiting for her to come down, is entertained by her fifteen-year-old, witty niece. The niece tells him that the French window is kept open, even though it is October, because Mrs Sappleton believes that her husband and her brothers, who were killed in a shooting accident three years before, will come back one day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Horla" is an 1887 horror story by French author, Guy de Maupassant. In the tale, a man is haunted by an invisible presence, an entity with attributes and motivations beyond his capability to comprehend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Dark Mummery" is a short story by the American author, Thorp McClusky. It first appeared in Weird Tales in November 1944, and was given the following synopsis: "Beware of a 'reputedly' haunted house. The reputation may be well earned." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"A Hunger Artist" (German: "Ein Hungerkünstler") is a short story by Franz Kafka first published in Die neue Rundschau in 1922. The story was also included in the collection A Hunger Artist (Ein Hungerkünstler), the last book Kafka prepared for publication, printed by Verlag Die Schmiede after Kafka's death. The protagonist, a hunger artist who experiences the decline in appreciation of his craft, is an archetypical creation of Kafka: an individual marginalized and victimized by society at large. The title of the story has been translated also to "A Fasting Artist" and "A Starvation Artist". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"The Silver Coffin" by American author, Robert Barbour Johnson, first appeared in Weird Tales Magazine back in January 1939. The story tells of an ancient, metal coffin, and the legend surrounding what lies within. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices