As Stephen King will attest, the popularity of the occult in American literature has only grown since the days of Edgar Allan Poe. American Supernatural Tales celebrates the richness of this tradition with chilling contributions from some of the nation’s brightest literary lights, including Poe himself, H. P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and—of course—Stephen King. By turns phantasmagoric, spectral, and demonic, this is a frighteningly good addition to Penguin Classics. Contents: The Adventure of the German Student • (1824) • Washington Irving Edward Randolph's Portrait • (1838) • Nathaniel Hawthorne The Fall of the House of Usher • (1839) • Edgar Allan Poe What Was It? • (1859) • Fitz-James O'Brien The Death of Halpin Frayser • (1891) • Ambrose Bierce The Yellow Sign • (1895) • Robert W. Chambers The Real Right Thing • (1899) • Henry James The Call of Cthulhu • (1928) • H. P. Lovecraft The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis • (1932) • Clark Ashton Smith Old Garfield's Heart • (1933) • Robert E. Howard Black Bargain • (1942) • Robert Bloch The Lonesome Place • (1941) • August Derleth The Girl with the Hungry Eyes • (1949) • Fritz Leiber The Fog Horn • (1951) • Ray Bradbury A Visit • (1952) • Shirley Jackson Long Distance Call • (1953) • Richard Matheson The Vanishing American • (1955) • Charles Beaumont The Events at Poroth Farm • (1972) • T.E.D. Klein Night Surf • (1974) • Stephen King The Late Shift • (1980) • Dennis Etchison Vastarien • (1987) • Thomas Ligotti Endless Night • (1987) • Karl Edward Wagner The Hollow Man • (1991) • Norman Partridge Last Call for the Sons of Shock • (1991) • David J. Schow Demon • (1996) • Joyce Carol Oates In the Water Works (Birmingham, Alabama 1888) • (2000) • Caitlín R. Kiernan