Blackwater is the saga of a small town, Perdido, Alabama, and Elinor Dammert, the stranger who arrives there under mysterious circumstances on Easter Sunday, 1919. On the surface, Elinor is gracious, charming, anxious to belong in Perdido, and eager to marry Oscar Caskey, the eldest son of Perdido's first family. But her beautiful exterior hides a shocking secret. Beneath the waters of the Perdido River, she turns into something terrifying, a creature whispered about in stories that have chilled the residents of Perdido for generations. Some of those who observe her rituals in the river will never be seen again ...

Originally published as a series of six volumes in 1983, Blackwater is the crowning achievement of Michael McDowell, author of the Southern Gothic classics Cold Moon Over Babylon and The Elementals and screenwriter of Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas. This first-ever one-volume edition, with a new introduction by Shirley Jackson Award-winning author Nathan Ballingrud, marks Blackwater's first appearance in print in three decades and will allow a new generation of readers to discover this modern horror classic.

Surely one of the most terrifying novels ever written. - Poppy Z. Brite

Beyond any trace of doubt, one of the best writers of horror in this or any other country. - Peter Straub

Readers of weak constitution should beware - Publishers Weekly

McDowell has a flair for the gruesome. - Washington Post

After a bizarre and disturbing incident at the funeral of matriarch Marian Savage, the McCray and Savage families look forward to a restful and relaxing summer at Beldame, on Alabama's Gulf Coast, where three Victorian houses loom over the shimmering beach. Two of the houses are habitable, while the third is slowly and mysteriously being buried beneath an enormous dune of blindingly white sand. But though long uninhabited, the third house is not empty. Inside, something deadly lies in wait. Something that has terrified Dauphin Savage and Luker McCray since they were boys and which still haunts their nightmares. Something horrific that may be responsible for several terrible and unexplained deaths years earlier - and is now ready to kill again . . .

A haunted house story unlike any other, Michael McDowell's The Elementals (1981) was one of the finest novels to come out of the horror publishing explosion of the 1970s and '80s. Though best known for his screenplays for Tim Burton's Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas, McDowell is now being rediscovered as one of the best modern horror writers and a master of Southern Gothic literature. This edition of McDowell's masterpiece of terror features a new introduction by award-winning horror author Michael Rowe. McDowell's first novel, the grisly and darkly comic The Amulet (1979), is also available from Valancourt Books.

^{The first-ever collection of Victorian Christmas ghost stories, culled from rare 19th-century periodicals}

^{During the Victorian era, it became traditional for publishers of newspapers and magazines to print ghost stories during the Christmas season for chilling winter reading by the fireside or candlelight. Now for the first time thirteen of these tales are collected here, including a wide range of stories from a diverse group of authors, some well-known, others anonymous or forgotten. Readers whose only previous experience with Victorian Christmas ghost stories has been Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol will be surprised and delighted at the astonishing variety of ghostly tales in this volume.}

^{In the sickly light I saw it lying on the bed, with its grim head on the pillow. A man? Or a corpse arisen from its unhallowed grave, and awaiting the demon that animated it? - John Berwick Harwood, Horror: A True Tale}

^{Suddenly I aroused with a start and as ghostly a thrill of horror as ever I remember to have felt in my life. Something--what, I knew not--seemed near, something nameless, but unutterably awful. - Ada Buisson, The Ghost's Summons}

^{There was no longer any question what she was, or any thought of her being a living being. Upon a face which wore the fixed features of a corpse were imprinted the traces of the vilest and most hideous passions which had animated her while she lived. - Walter Scott, The Tapestried Chamber}

Blackwater is the saga of a small town, Perdido, Alabama, and Elinor Dammert, the stranger who arrives there under mysterious circumstances on Easter Sunday, 1919. On the surface, Elinor is gracious, charming, anxious to belong in Perdido, and eager to marry Oscar Caskey, the eldest son of Perdido's first family. But her beautiful exterior hides a shocking secret. Beneath the waters of the Perdido River, she turns into something terrifying, a creature whispered about in stories that have chilled the residents of Perdido for generations. Some of those who observe her rituals in the river will never be seen again ...

Originally published as a series of six volumes in 1983, Blackwater is the crowning achievement of Michael McDowell, author of the Southern Gothic classics Cold Moon Over Babylon and The Elementals and screenwriter of Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas. This first-ever one-volume edition, with a new introduction by Shirley Jackson Award-winning author Nathan Ballingrud, marks Blackwater's first appearance in print in three decades and will allow a new generation of readers to discover this modern horror classic.

The landmark first collection by one of the masters of 20th-century American horror fiction, back in print at last

Though he published over 350 short stories and more than thirty novels, most of Robert Bloch's work has long been out of print, and many readers today know him only as the author of Psycho. This new edition of his classic first collection, The Opener of the Way (1945), is the first in a series of Bloch reprints from Valancourt which aims to restore Bloch to his rightful place as one of the key 20th-century American writers of horror fiction.

This volume features twenty-one early Bloch stories, most of them originally published in the famous magazine Weird Tales. Included here are such classics as the oft-imitated Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper, the chilling title story The Opener of the Way, in which an expedition to an Egyptian tomb goes horribly awry, and The Shambler from the Stars, a Lovecraftian tale in which Lovecraft himself appears as a character. This edition also features a new introduction by one of today's greatest horror writers, Ramsey Campbell.

Robert Bloch is one of the all-time masters.-Peter Straub

A seminal influence on just about everybody. Any time devoted to studying this master is time well spent.-Fangoria

Theron Ware is a renowned scholar and Doctor of Divinity. He is also secretly one of the world's great Black magicians. And when a rich megalomaniac industrialist, Baines, enlists his aid in summoning a demon from Hell to assassinate the governor of California (in an excess of horror), Ware has no scruples about accepting the assignment. But this terrible and devilish deed is only a warm-up, a test from Baines to see whether Ware can help him to accomplish his ultimate purpose: opening the gates of Hell and allowing the legions of infernal demons to overrun the world ...

Best known as a science fiction writer, James Blish (1921-1975) shows a darker side in his classic Black Easter (1968), a harrowing tale that blends horror, science fiction, fantasy, and a generous dose of black humor. The sequel, The Day After Judgment (1971), is also available from Valancourt.

A fine break-through novel for the public that loved Rosemary's Baby. - Publishers Weekly

A book which will fascinate, absorb and scare the hell out of you. - San Francisco Examiner

The ending is an unexpected shocker. Mr. Blish has a capricious, deadly sense of humor. One you'll remember. - Kirkus Reviews

FROM THE DEEPEST MINE IN TENNESSEE, ENTER THE DARKEST PIT OF HELL . . .

It is the deepest coal mine ever created. But when the miners dig too far, they violate the earth's most ancient and closely guarded secret.

Now blood flows from faucets, and huge thorns tear the ground apart.

Now grotesque, half-seen creatures terrorize the town, as the stench of sulfur fills the air.

Now the legions of Hell itself raise their unspeakable dominion over heaven and earth from

This new edition of Jere Cunningham's The Abyss (1981) features a new introduction by Grady Hendrix and the original cover painting by Terry Oakes.

But Mrs. Allardyce never seems to emerge from her room, and it soon becomes clear that something weird and terrifying is happening in the house. As the suspense builds towards a revelation of what really lies behind that locked door, the Rolfes will discover that their cheap vacation rental comes at a terrible cost . . .

The basis for a classic 1976 film adaptation and an acknowledged influence on Stephen King's The Shining, Burnt Offerings is one of the most original and scariest haunted house novels ever written. This edition, the first in decades, features a new introduction by award-winning author Stephen Graham Jones.

N]ear brilliance . . . a disturbing tale . . . highly recommended. - Stephen King

Burnt Offerings has no peer. Better than Rosemary's Baby, The Other, and The Exorcist. - Hartford Courant

Insidiously frightening . . . It snares you early and draws you inexorably to one of the most nerve-shattering finales in years. - Publishers Weekly

Terrifies even by daylight. - New York Times

Richard Grey wakes up in a hospital with amnesia after a terrorist bombing. His memories gradually start to return, but what he remembers doesn't always seem to coincide with what really happened. And then there is Susan Kewley, an enigmatic young woman whom Richard does not remember but who claims to have been his lover. With her help, Richard will discover the strange and terrible world of the glamour and a remarkable power both of them may possess ...

From the master of mind-bending literary fiction, Christopher Priest (The Affirmation, The Prestige), The Glamour (1984) is both a gripping, page-turning novel of suspense and an intricate puzzle, whose construction is so clever that readers will want to read the novel a second time to see how exactly it was done.

'A story of psychological suspense, mixed with elements of the supernatural. A well-written, thoroughly engrossing tale; highly recommended.' - Library Journal

'A tightly narrated slice of psychological horror.' - The Independent

Somewhere in the darkness it is watching and waiting -- for you!

THE LEGACY

Chester Rawlings is the first victim - he blows his brains out to escape a living death.

THE LEGACY

Then old Sam is discovered lying beside his friend's grave, dead of an unnatural heart attack - two corpse-like fingers clutched in his hand.

THE LEGACY

Now a child watches as her parents struggle in the grip of an unspeakable horror: only the child knows the awful truth - it is already too late to save them from

THE LEGACY

This special new edition of Jere Cunningham's slow-burn occult chiller The Legacy (1977) features the original cover art and a new introduction by Will Errickson.

A classic collection of fifteen chilling horror tales by the author of Psycho

Pleasant Dreams (1960), published just a year after his more famous Psycho, finds Robert Bloch leaving behind his earlier Lovecraftian influences to find his own style and voice in this collection of masterful tales, in which the horror is often laced with an undercurrent of pitch-black humor.

In Catnip, a young bully burns down the neighborhood witch's house and faces a grim reckoning with her black cat. The Light-House is a unique collaboration, in which Bloch completes a rare tale left unfinished by the great master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. That Hell-Bound Train, winner of speculative fiction's most coveted prize, the Hugo Award, is the story of a pact with the devil in which readers may be surprised who gets the better end of the bargain. These and twelve other stories represent some of Bloch's best short fiction. This first-ever unabridged reprint of the original limited edition hardcover includes a new introduction by Joe R. Lansdale.

Bloch is the high priest of chills, the demon prince of sweaty palms, the dark genius behind a thousand nightmares. - Harlan Ellison

A hundred years from now, devotees of this genre will still be reading Robert Bloch. - Richard Matheson

The author of Psycho takes on the famous unsolved slayings of Jack the Ripper!

Robert Bloch gave us fiction's most famous knife-wielding maniac in Psycho's Norman Bates, and in The Night of the Ripper (1984), this master of horror fiction offers his own unique take on history's most infamous unsolved murder case.

Whitechapel, 1888. A madman stalks the foggy streets, murdering prostitutes in acts of unimaginable horror and brutality. Two men - Frederick Abberline of the Metropolitan Police and Mark Robinson, a young American doctor - are determined to find the killer, but the list of suspects is a long one. With the help of a supporting cast of characters that includes Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Elephant Man, the two sleuths must solve the puzzle before it's too late and the Ripper strikes again!

Might be Bloch's best book yet . . . the sort of book that just grabs you and makes you read it. - Peter Straub

May well nudge out Psycho as Bloch's most popular novel. - Washington Post

A must for mystery and horror fans. - Fantasy Review

Readers of weak constitution should beware. - Publishers Weekly

McDowell has a flair for the gruesome. - Washington Post

Welcome to Babylon, a typical sleepy Alabama small town, where years earlier the Larkin family suffered a terrible tragedy. Now they are about to endure another: fourteen-year-old Margaret Larkin will be robbed of her innocence and her life by a killer who is beyond the reach of the law.

But something strange is happening in Babylon: traffic lights flash an eerie blue, a ghostly hand slithers from the drain of a kitchen sink, graves erupt from the local cemetery in an implacable march of terror . . . And beneath the murky surface of the river, a shifting, almost human shape slowly takes form. Night after night it will pursue the murderer. And when the full moon rises over Babylon, it will seek a terrible vengeance . . .

Cold Moon Over Babylon (1980), the second novel by Michael McDowell (1950-1999), author of Blackwater and The Elementals and screenwriter of Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas, is a chilling Southern Gothic tale of revenge from beyond the grave that ranks among his most terrifying books. This first-ever reprint features deliciously creepy new cover art by Mike Mignola.

In John the Balladeer, Manly Wade Wellman created one of the great characters in all of horror and fantasy literature. Armed with his silver-stringed guitar and an endless trove of folk songs, John travels the backwoods of Appalachia, battling supernatural evil with his own brand of down-home charm and endless resourcefulness. In these tales, John wanders the Southern mountains, encountering hoodoo men and witch women, strange supernatural beasts, malevolent spirits, and even George Washington's ghost.

Edited by horror legend Karl Edward Wagner, this volume contains the complete John the Balladeer stories in their original, unaltered form, as they first appeared in magazines and anthologies between 1951 and 1987. Also featured are a foreword by Wellman's friend and literary executor David Drake and an introduction by Wagner.

Just as J. R. R. Tolkien brilliantly created a modern British myth cycle, so did Manly Wade Wellman give to us an imaginary world of purely American fact, fantasy and song. - Karl Edward Wagner

This is the real thing-a book of haunting fantasies with their roots going down deep into the American folk tradition. - Robert Silverberg

Cover by Ilan Sheady

Vampires are usually associated in the popular imagination with Transylvania and other Eastern European locales. But in this new collection, editor Álvaro García Marín has uncovered the earliest appearances of vampires in English literature, revealing their surprising origin in Greece. This volume includes two seminal classic texts, Lord Byron's Fragment of a Novel and John William Polidori's The Vampyre, together with five other rare and never-before-reprinted vampire tales from the early 19th century, including the important and inexplicably neglected The Vampire of Vourla. Also featured is a scholarly introduction by Prof. Marín, delving into this forgotten field of vampire literary history and situating it within the larger Romantic era and 19th-century English attitudes toward Greece.

Shirley Jackson Award Nominee - Longlisted for the Bram Stoker Award

What if there were a whole world of great horror fiction out there you didn't know anything about, written by authors in distant lands and in foreign languages, outstanding horror stories you had no access to, written in languages you couldn't read? For an avid horror fan, what could be more horrifying than that?

For this groundbreaking volume, the first of its kind, the editors of Valancourt Books have scoured the world, reading horror stories from dozens of countries in nearly twenty languages, to find some of the best contemporary international horror stories. The stories in this volume come from 19 countries on 5 continents and were originally written in 13 different languages. All 20 foreign language stories in this volume are appearing in English for the first time ever. The book includes stories by some of the world's preeminent horror authors, many of them not yet known in the English-speaking world.

Unjustly neglected today, Carl Jacobi was a prolific contributor to the pulp magazines of the 1930s and '40s, with many of his stories appearing in the celebrated Weird Tales alongside his more famous contemporaries like H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and Robert E. Howard. Jacobi was perhaps unequaled at creating atmosphere through his precise and careful use of language, and he was a master of the slow-building crescendo of suspense and terror that leads to an explosive final revelation.

Revelations in Black (1947), Jacobi's first and most influential collection, contains twenty-one of his best short stories, including such famous tales as Mive, The Satanic Piano, and the classic vampire story Revelations in Black. This new edition, the first in nearly fifty years, also features a bonus rare Jacobi tale and an introduction by Luigi Musolino.

One of the finest writers to come out of the golden age of fantasy.-Stephen King

Makes the blood run cold and the hair stand up on end.-Clifford D. Simak, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Miss Harriet Brandt, daughter of a mad scientist and a voodoo priestess, comes of age and leaves her home in Jamaica for the first time, travelling to Europe. Beautiful and talented, Harriet will gain the affections of many of the men and women she meets and a bright future seems assured for her.

But there is something strange about Harriet. Everyone she gets close to seems to sicken or die. Doctor Phillips has a theory: the blood of the vampire flows through Harriet's veins, and she is draining the life out of those she loves. Are the misfortunes that seem to follow Harriet merely coincidence? Or is she really afflicted with the curse of the vampire?

One of the strangest novels by the prolific Florence Marryat (1837-1899), The Blood of the Vampire was the other vampire novel of 1897, appearing the same year as Dracula. Marryat's novel is fascinating not only for its sensational plot and bizarre characters, but also because of its engagement with many of the issues that haunted the late Victorian imagination, such as race, heredity, women's roles, Spiritualism, and the occult. This edition includes the unabridged text of the exceedingly rare 1897 first edition and a new introduction by Brenda Hammack.

Fourteen classic tales of terror by the author of Psycho

Midnight Dreams (1987) collects some of Robert Bloch's best tales from later in his career, featuring his trademark blend of spine-chilling terror and gallows humor and an eclectic mix that includes three Halloween-themed stories, a Christmas horror story, and a previously uncollected tale first published in Weird Tales in 1939.

In Pumpkin, a boy wanting to carve a Halloween jack-o'-lantern finds the perfect pumpkin in an unkempt garden, not suspecting whose garden it is or the horror that will follow. In The Night Before Christmas, an adulterous couple looks forward to a quiet evening decorating the tree, but the woman's sadistic husband has other plans. And in Pranks, trick-or-treaters get more than they bargained for when they visit the house of a kindly old couple with a dark and deadly secret. These and eleven other stories represent some of the best of the prolific Bloch's later work. This new edition, the first in decades, features a new introduction by Bloch scholar Bill Gillard.

Just the thing to while away a sleepless night. - The Washington Post Book World

A hundred years from now, devotees of this genre will still be reading Robert Bloch. - Richard Matheson

Robert Bloch has become part of the popular psyche. A dark part, to be sure, but a permanent one. - Gahan Wilson

Any time devoted to studying this master is time well spent. - Fangoria

Nothing much ever happens in the sleepy English town of Warchester. So when a farmer is found savagely killed in some sort of animal attack, it's a big story for local reporter David Pascal. The rich and eccentric Sir Darren Penward tells the police an escaped Siberian tiger from his private zoo is to blame, but Pascal isn't so sure. Especially when one witness describes something impossible: an enormous and deadly creature that has been extinct for sixty million years. What exactly is Penward hiding behind the walls of his massive estate? And can Pascal uncover the truth before Penward's creatures escape to wreak murder and havoc on the unsuspecting populace?

First published in 1984, six years before Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, which shares many of the same plot elements, Carnosaur has become a cult classic among fans of vintage horror, with copies long unobtainable except at exorbitant prices. This edition features a new introduction by Will Errickson.