According to the OED the word horror was used in the sense of a "loathing fear, feeling terror or repugnance", as early as the fourteenth century with one example cited from no less than Chaucer in "The Parson's Tale" from his inestimable Canterbury Tales. So the notion has been around a long time and in use by a broad range of authors.
This anthology provides just such a broad range of writers both famous and those not so well-known. Writers include expected representatives like Poe, Henry James, Balzac, Maupassant, Stevenson, and Bierce, among others. But there are those unexpected and unknown to this reader like Percival Landon D. K. Broster, and Monica Dickens. Those authors are surprisingly few and those who are famous also include twentieth century contributors like Bradbury, William Faulkner, Patricia Highsmith and Roald Dahl. This is a quality collection of some of the best examples of the horror story genre that I would recommend to both beginners and experienced readers of terror-filled and haunting tales. ( )

Contains:
The Monk of horror, or The Conclave of corpses / Anonymous --
The Astrologer's prediction, or The Maniac's fate / Anonymous --
The expedition to Hell / James Hogg --
Mateo Falcone / Prosper Merimee --
The Case of M. Valdemar / Edgar Allan Poe --
Le Grande Breteche / Honore de Balzac --
The romance of certain old clothes / Henry James --
Who knows? / Guy de Maupassant --
The body snatcher / Robert Louis Stevenson --
The death of Olivier Becaille / Emile Zola --
The boarded window / Ambrose Bierce --
Lost hearts / M.R. James --
The sea-raiders / H.G. Wells --
The derelict / William Hope Hodgson --
Thurnley Abbey / Perceval Landon --
The fourth man / John Russell --
In the penal colony / Franz Kafka --
The waxwork / A.M. Burrage --
Mrs. Amworth / E.F. Benson --
The reptile / Augustus Muir --
Mr. Meldrum's Mania / John Metcalfe --
The beast with five fingers / William Fryer Harvey --
Dry September / William Faulkner --
Couching at the door / D.K. Broster --
The two bottles of relish / Lord Dunsany --
The man who liked Dickens / Evelyn Waugh --
Taboo / Geoffrey Household --
The thought / L.P. Hartley --
Comrade death / Gerald Kersh --
Leningen versus the ants / Carl Stephenson --
The brink of darkness / Yvor Winters --
Activity time / Monica Dickens --
Earth to Earth / Robert Graves --
The dwarf / Ray Bradbury --
The Portabello Road / Muriel Spark --
No flies on Frank / John Lennon --
Sister Coxall's revenge / Dawn Muscillo --
Thou shalt not suffer a witch ... / Dorothy K. Haynes --
The terrapin / Patricia Highsmith --
Man from the south / Roald Dahl --
Uneasy home-coming / Will F. Jenkins --
The Aquarist / J.N. Allan --
An interview with M. Chakko / Vilas Sarang.