The bees / Dan Chaon -- Cleopatra Brimstone / Elizabeth Hand -- The man on the ceiling / Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem -- The great god Pan / M. John Harrison -- The voice on the beach / Ramsey Campbell -- Body / Brian Evenson -- Louise's ghost / Kelly Link -- The sadness of detail / Jonathan Carroll -- Leda / M. Rickert -- In praise of folly / Thomas Tessier -- Plot twist / David J. Schow -- The two Sams / Glen Hirshberg -- Notes on the writing...

"Edgar Allan Poe, 'the father of the detective story' and a master of horror, is one of the greatest American short story writers. In these stories we meet people struggling with fear, revenge, mental illness and death. Which of them will win - and which will lose - their battles?"--P. [4] of cover.

An anthology of modern horror fiction features tales from twenty-five masters of the genre, with such selections as Stephen King's "The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet," Dan Chaon's "The Bees," and Peter Straub's "Little Red."

Readers are well aware that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein: few know how many other tales of terror she created. In addition to Uncle Toms Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote some surprisingly effective horror stories. The year after Little Women appeared, Louisa May Alcott published one of the first mummy tales. These ladies werent alone. From the earliest days of Gothic and horror fiction, women were exploring the frontiers of fear, dreaming dark...