Want to find scary short stories to read as inspiration for your own short story, or just for fun?
Some writers who have written excellent scary short stories:
- Ambrose Bierce (see the link below)
- H.P. Lovecraft
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Shirley Jackson
- Roald Dahl (for example, from the bundle The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl (1991))
- Stephen King
- R.L. Stine
- Neil Gaiman
You can find many collections of short stories and other books in the online Gutenberg library. This online database gives you free access to many (older) literary works, of which the U.S. copyright has expired. You can read the texts online or download it as an eBook. Very handy when you want to browse through or read scary, short stories or other literary classics indeed...
Project Gutenberg
Use this database to find digitized literary works.
Present at a Hanging, and other ghost stories by Ambrose Bierce
An example of what you can find in the Gutenberg library: This is a collection of short stories by Ambrose Bierce
Halloween stories
Here is a collection of scary short stories that include supernatural phenomena, named 'Halloween stories' by the author of the list because they are meant to get you into the Halloween spirit. The collection includes stories from several of the writers in the above mentioned list.