Tales of the Weird
Updated to 2026
British Library Tales of the Weird The Tales of the Weird series began in 2018 with the publication of five story collections, and it has been gathering a cult fanbase throughout the years since, reviving unjustly neglected stories from the realms of classic gothic, supernatural and horror fiction to terrorise and beguile the minds of modern readers. With single-author collections from masters of the macabre such as Ambrose Bierce, Eleanor Scott and Algernon Blackwood, and thematic anthologies on topics as disparate as the botanical gothic, occult detection, uncanny mathematics and the edible weird, you’re sure to find something new to be afraid of in these striking volumes. Each anthology features original artwork and a newly commissioned introduction as well as fascinating notes by expert editors. In 2023 the British Library Shop launched a subscription service, and a strand of novels joined the expertly curated anthologies of the series. In June 2024 the British Library published the 50th title in the series, Deadly Dolls, and in September of that year the Library’s explorations of the Weird reached new heights with our Weird Walk collaboration, the rambling-themed anthology The Haunted Trail. Still enthralling new fans and delivering rare material to the devotees of classic uncanny fiction, the Tales of the Weird series is now a cornerstone of today’s weird publishing scene; its continuing success a testament to the enduring allure of the supernatural and macabre. This catalogue contains information on forthcoming titles and backlist for the series, along with a section listing the titles in the hardback sister series, the British Library Gilded Nightmares.
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British Library Tales of the Weird New Titles 2026
Bird of Ill Omen
The Gothic Tales of Catherine Crowe Edited by Ruth Heholt When morning broke, the ravages of this strange visitant were but too visible – graves had been opened, and the remains of the dead, frightfully torn and mutilated, lay scattered upon the earth. A village is driven to a murderous frenzy by the wolf walking among them. In the moonlit chill of a monastery, a knifewielding sleepwalker re-enacts a past tragedy. In Paris, officers edge towards a monstrous truth while investigating a spate of grisly grave-robbings.
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712355995 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm January 2026
Catherine Crowe (1790–1872) was a celebrated British ghost hunter and author, penning ‘real’ ghost stories from her own experiences and from public correspondence, as well as popular Gothic tales. Hers was a household name on par with Dickens and Thackeray during the Victorian era, though after a possible nervous breakdown during which she was found wandering the streets of Edinburgh naked, her reputation slipped, falling foul of contemporary sensibilities.
During the Victorian era, Catherine Crowe became a household name on par with Dickens for her innovative retellings of “true” ghost stories, in which she treated readers to glimpses of the “night side of nature”—until her reputation was tarnished following a public breakdown. Seeking to restore Crowe’s place in the canon of strange and ghostly fiction, Ruth Heholt presents some of her best tales of “real” phenomena, alongside her darker Gothic stories. Together, they demonstrate Crowe’s singular gifts as a master storyteller.
Tales of the Weird New Titles 2026
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The Black Fox
A Novel of the Eighteen-Seventies Gerald Heard, with an introduction by Aaron Worth Two small green-silver spots, almost like small fragments of reflected moonlight, shone up at them… Then, as they watched, the two points moved, trailing after them a smear of black…
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712369053 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm February 2026
Gerald Heard was a pen name of Henry Fitzgerald Heard (1899–1971), a writer of crime, horror and science fiction stories as well as works on religion and philosophy. Heard gained fame as a BBC science broadcaster in Britain before moving to California in 1937.
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When Canon Throcton is passed up for promotion to Dean of the Cathedral in favour of his rival, a faint knell of disorder rings out over the Close. Believing that suspicions over his scholarly work on Hebrew and Arabian texts led to his snubbing, Throcton nurses his pride with the invocation of a simple curse—a relic of an ancient Eastern sorcery, but surely no more than an antiquated trifle in these days of Victoria’s reign? And yet a dark force answers the call—something bestial and immortal, dragging pestilential vengeance and corruption to the very heart of the Cathedral. First published in 1950, Heard’s classic novel of occult horror and religious turmoil in 1870s Britain remains a key text of mid-century weird fiction, a brooding masterpiece oozing with inexorable dread.
Tales of the Weird New Titles 2026
The New Flesh
Tales of Shapeshifters and Strange Transformations Edited by Mark Morris It had taken, at most, three seconds for the elevator to pass downwards from the sixteenth to the twelfth… Mr Meldrum had ceased to be, and something hideously different took his place. A man’s gnawing sense that he is gaining a phantom beak presages an awful metamorphosis. Those who scorn the warnings about harefolk in the countryside pay for their scepticism with blood. A girl’s mockery of an ancient festival brings about a cruel transfiguration.
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712369152 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm March 2026
Mark Morris is, in the words of Clive Barker, “one of the finest horror writers at work today”, whose oeuvre includes novels, short stories and award-winning audio dramas. As an editor, he compiles the ABC of Horror anthology series from Flame Tree Press.
For millennia, tales of strange transformations have grappled with a terrifying question: what if our flesh and form were unfixed and liable to deceive us? Tracing this thread through the annals of horror fiction, Mark Morris has assembled thirteen metamorphic tales featuring shapeshifting beasts, sly flatworms, insectoid hybrids and altered humans. Including classics by Roald Dahl, Joan Aiken, Mary Shelley and Charles Beaumont, this volume invites you to bask in the dark comedy, seething horror and weird beauty of the new flesh.
Tales of the Weird New Titles 2026
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The Luck of the Town
Marion Fox, with an introduction by Douglas A. Anderson
“Much more than a ghost story… One might say that Fox is haunted by the spirit of the place and time of which she writes, and she is able to reproduce in a remarkable way that sense of foreboding and mystery that all of us have experienced.” – The Argus
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712369251 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm April 2026
Marion Fox (1885–1973) was an English poet and novelist who wrote historical romances and innovative ghost stories. Between 1910 and 1928 she published seven novels, including Ape’s Face, The Mystery Keepers and The Luck of the Town, in which supernatural forces from the past return to haunt and destabilise the modern world. In The Week magazine, 2016, China Miéville listed Ape’s Face as one of his six favourite novels.
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Where once a Romano-British settlement sprawled across the hills in the north of England, there lies a modern town. Caught in a tense struggle between the growth of the university and industrial expansion, its fate veers towards the uncanny when a discovery is made beneath the old town hall. Into the possession of the university comes the skeleton of a woman, found buried along with a mysterious tablet bearing a cryptic message, and as the ratcheting tension between the townspeople is compounded by an unseasonal heat and sightings of a shadowlike figure haunting the streets, the vengeful grip of a long-buried curse pushes the town towards a night of flames and carnage.
Tales of the Weird New Titles 2026
Beasts with Five Fingers Strange Tales of Disembodied Hands Edited by Brian J. Showers He looked up at the picture rail, and there was the hand holding on to a hook with three fingers, and slowly scratching the head of the parrot with the fourth.
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712369350 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm May 2026
Brian J. Showers is an award-winning writer, editor and founder of Swan River Press, originally from Wisconsin but now living in Dublin. His short story collection The Bleeding Horse won the Children of the Night award in 2008, while his edited collection of Sheridan Le Fanu-inspired stories, Dreams of Shadow and Smoke, won a Ghost Story Award in 2014. He is the editor of the influential journal The Green Book, and the Uncertainties series of new weird fiction.
In 1919, W. F. Harvey published ‘The Beast with Five Fingers’, his quintessential tale of the disembodied hand with a murderous mind of its own, and its position as one of weird fiction’s true classics was cemented by the 1946 film adaptation. Seeking to trace the origins of the haunted hand story back into the nineteenth century, and to showcase its influence on writers of weird fiction from the 1920s to the modern day, horror expert Brian J. Showers presents a new collection of classics from the well-thumbed oeuvres of Sheridan Le Fanu and Guy de Maupassant through to miniature masterpieces from the hands of Jean Ray, Mark Valentine and many more. Featuring ghostly hands, hands possessed by demons and unexplained hands where no hands should be, prepare to enter a world of nightmares run amok as the vice-grip of terror takes hold.
Tales of the Weird New Titles 2026
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Haunted Yorkshire
Ghostly Tales from God’s Own County Edited by Elizabeth Dearnley The stars gave light enough for me to discern the figure as that of a man, but I could scarcely discover more. “Dark night, this,” I said. “Darker below,” he muttered, as though to himself; “darker, darker, darker.” Yorkshire: a land entwined with a distinctive tradition of uncanny literature and folklore, home to twilit towns thronging with restless ghosts, woods alive with the whispers of fairies and vast moorlands stalked by boggarts and barghests after dark.
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712369459 256 pages, 190 x 130 mm June 2026
Elizabeth Dearnley is a folklorist, writer, artist and Lecturer in Creative Writing whose work explores fairy tales, horror, eerie landscapes and collaborative storytelling. Her collections for the Tales of the Weird include Into the London Fog and Deadly Dolls, and she is also the editor of the Gilded Nightmares anthology Fearsome Fairies. She grew up in Bradford, and has a keen interest in Yorkshire’s ghostly heritage.
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Exploring Yorkshire’s position as a heartland of British supernatural fiction, the stories and poems gathered here trace its weird literary heritage from medieval tales of shapeshifting spirits to the Gothic worlds of the Brontë sisters, and from wartime hauntings to modern folk horror. Including local legends from rare sources and unsettling stories from Arthur Machen, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Andrew Michael Hurley and many more, this collection offers glimpses of a stranger England hidden among the shadows of the dales.
Tales of the Weird New Titles 2026
Danse Macabre Strange Stories from France Edited by Mike Ashley Spurned lovers return from the grave to haunt their partners, ghost ships materialise on the sea, a bird’s eerie cry lures the unsuspecting to their deaths in a marsh... Welcome to the unsettling world of the French weird. From German-inspired gothic tales to chilling contes cruels, the stories in this anthology follow the evolution of uncanny fiction in France from the post-revolutionary turmoil of the early nineteenth century, through World War Two and into the early 2000s. They’re tales influenced by, and often seeking to justify, civil and political unrest, populated by those forced to cope with constant change and rebellion, seeking some solace amongst the chaos.
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712369602 304 pages, 190 x 130 mm July 2026
Mike Ashley is a British bibliographer, author and editor of science fiction, mystery, and fantasy. He edited the long-running Mammoth Book series of short story anthologies, and won the Edgar Award for The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Modern Crime Fiction. He has published more than 100 books, including his magnum opus of bibliographical criticism, the multi-volumed The History of the Science-Fiction Magazine.
Featuring strange stories from Gallic literary heavyweights Charles Nodier, Théophile Gautier and Guy de Maupassant, as well as unsettling tales from voices less well known outside France, such as Nathalie Henneberg, Claude Seignolle and Christine Renard, Danse Macabre is a beguiling concoction of fractured melodies that moves to its own unique rhythm.
Tales of the Weird New Titles 2026
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The Black Mirror
Winifred Duke, with an introduction by Johnny Mains
In the dock stood a girl, but could she be the one who had lately entered and was seated between her female companions?… Even the judge, sitting in Mr. Justice Deidpole’s seat, was unfamiliar, a wraith from another century. A faint perfume, as of herbs or wholesome flowers, stole to the young man’s nostrils… Was it reality, this scene, or a form of nightmare?
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712369756 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm August 2026
Compared to Charlotte Brontë in her lifetime, Winifred Duke (18901962) was a prolific author, writing both fiction and books on Scottish history and the legal system from the early 1920s through to the mid-1950s. By the late 1940s, she’d become fascinated by the way that eras entwined, and how the effects of something that happened in the past affects the present, themes she explores in both 1948’s The Black Mirror and Dirge for a Dead Witch (1949).
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In the 1930s, when a string of pearls is stolen from a wealthy guest at the Wheatsheaf hotel in Derriford, suspicion quickly falls on Ann Bacon, an 18-yearold maid. Though she protests her innocence, she is arrested and hauled up in front of the county court. In 1752, a rich traveller stays at the Cock Inn just outside the town, where she, too, is relieved of her pearls. Everyone is convinced of the guilt of Patience Passey, an 18-year-old serving girl at the inn, and she too is arrested and tried at the local assizes. Linking the two eras is a marshal of the court, who starts to realise he may be the only person able to witness both cases first-hand.
Tales of the Weird New Titles 2026
Fiendish Felines
Terror Australis
Twisted Tales of Uncanny Cats Edited by Janette Leaf
Dark Tales from Down Under Edited by James Doig
Aloof and haughty, slinking and sometimes sinister, cats are a mainstay of weird fiction for good reason: for all that we love them, they’re unknowable, unpredictable and a little uncanny. And so, cats loom large in this collection that ranges from the sinister stories of Victorian greats such as Edgar Allen Poe, Bram Stoker and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu through to twentieth-century tales from renowned authors Dorothy L. Sayers, E. F. Benson and Gans T. Field.
The Australian landscape is one that lends itself to the uncanny. It has birthed a weird tradition that is often quirky, disorientating and unexpected; uniquely blending imported gothic tropes with Aboriginal folklore and colonial horror.
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712369060 336 pages, 190 x 130 mm September 2026
These twelve terrifying tales of bloodthirsty bunyips, displaced phantoms and strange ancient magic, taking place in Aboriginal settlements, dusty desert camps, remote country towns and bustling coastal cities, create chills enough to quell the most shimmering-hot Australian summer day. Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712369619 352 pages, 190 x 130 mm October 2026
Tales of the Weird New Titles 2026
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A Walk on the Weird Side
The Sinister Shorter Fiction of Robert Westall
The Unwelcome Claude Seignolle, with an introduction by Lucie McKnight Hardy
Edited by Fiona Cameron
Known to those who grew up in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s for his unsettling children’s novels such as The Scarecrows and The Machine Gunners, Robert Westall looms large over many a British childhood. But he was just as proficient and prolific when it came to short fiction – and sometimes a lot more terrifying. The new collection brings together several of his most chilling stories from long-forgotten collections such as The Haunting of Chas McGill, Ghosts and Journeys, and Demons and Shadows, ready to induce nightmares in a whole new generation of readers.
In France’s rural Sologne region a century ago, when witchcraft was just as acceptable to its people as any modern scientific advances, sixteen-year-old Jeanne is out of control – burning hayricks and playing lovers off against each other with terrible consequences. But can she really be blamed when a sense of evil seems to linger around her family like mist over the local marsh? Might it be due to the statue her father unearthed while ploughing? Unpublished in English since the 1960s, this novel is perfect for lovers of Saltwash by Andrew Michael Hurley and Bluff by Francine Toon.
Final cover TBC Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712369763 352 pages, 190 x 130 mm November 2026
Final cover TBC Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712369817 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm December 2026
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Tales of the Weird
Previous British Library Tales of the Weird
Possessed
A Lost Novel of the Occult Rosalie and Edward Synton, and introduction by Johnny Mains
The Haunted Library
All the Fear of the Fair
Tales of Cursed Books and Forbidden Shelves Edited by Tanya Kirk
Uncanny Tales of Circus and Sideshow Edited by Edward Parnell
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712355391 224 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712355292 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712355094 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
The Tiger Skin
The Wayfarer’s Weird
And Other Tales of the Uneasy by Violet Hunt Edited by Melissa Edmundson
Wild Tales of Uncanny Rambles Edited by Weird Walk
The Lost Stradivarius
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712355780 320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712355483 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
J. Meade Falkner, with an introduction by Mike Ashley
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712355384 224 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Tales of the Weird
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Phantoms of Kernow
Return of the Ancients
Medusa
Classic Tales of Haunted Cornwall Edited by Joan Passey
Unruly Tales of the Mythological Weird Edited by Katy Soar
A Novel of Mystery, Ecstasy and Strange Horror E. H. Visiak, and introduction by Aaron Worth
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712355773 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712355674 320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712355728 224 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Spores of Doom
Julia Roseingrave
Weird Sisters
Dank Tales of the Fungal Weird Edited by Aaron Worth
Robert Paye, and an introduction by John C. Tibbetts
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712355629 320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712355322 256 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712355223 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
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Tales of the Weird
Tales from the Queens of the Pulp Era Edited by Mike Ashley
Summoned to the Séance Spirit Tales from Beyond the Veil Edited by Emily Vincent
The Haunted Vintage
Marjorie Bowen, and an introduction by Michael Dirda
The Weird Tales of Dorothy K. Haynes Edited by Craig Lamont, and a foreword by Johnny Mains
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712355919 304 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712355865 304 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712355766 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
The Haunted Trail
Eerie East Anglia
The Human Chord
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712355810 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712355711 320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712355414 208 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Classic Tales of the Rambling Weird Edited by Weird Walk
Fearful Tales of Field and Fen Edited by Edward Parnell
Algernon Blackwood, and an introduction by Mike Ashley
Tales of the Weird
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Deadly Dolls
The Night Land
Out of the Past
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712355704 320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £10.99 ISBN 9780712355759 512 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712355605 304 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Fear in the Blood
The Undying Monster
Doomed Romances
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712355650 336 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354936 304 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712355551 304 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Midnight Tales of Uncanny Playthings Edited by Elizabeth Dearnley
Tales from the Dark Lineages of the Weird Edited by Mike Ashley
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William Hope Hodgson
Tales of Haunting History Edited by Aaron Worth
A Tale of the Fifth Dimension Strange Tales of Uncanny Love Jessie Douglas Kerruish, introduction by Mike Ashley Edited by Joanne Ella Parsons
Tales of the Weird
Circles of Stone
Roads of Destiny
The House on the Borderland
Weird Tales of Pagan Sites and Ancient Rites Edited by Katy Soar
And Other Tales of Alternative Histories and Parallel Realms Edited by Alasdair Richmond
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354592 240 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354394 352 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354646 208 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Dead Drunk
The Lure of Atlantis
The Uncanny Gastronomic
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354981 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354288 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Tales of Intoxication and Demon Drinks Edited by Pam Lock
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354097 272 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Strange Tales from the Sunken Continent Edited by Michael Wheatley
William Hope Hodgson and introduction by Ann VanderMeer
Strange Tales of the Edible Weird Edited by Zara-Louise Stubbs
Tales of the Weird
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The Ways of Ghosts
The Flaw in the Crystal
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354134 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354974 320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354776 352 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Polar Horrors
Haunters at the Spectral Sounds Unquiet Tales of Hearth
Holy Ghosts
Classic Tales of the Ecclesiastical Uncanny Edited by Fiona Snailham
Strange Tales from the World’s Ends Edited by John Miller
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354424 352 pages, 190 x 130 mm
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And Other Dark Tales by Ambrose Bierce Edited by Mike Ashley
And Other Uncanny Stories by May Sinclair Edited by Mike Ashley
Eerie Tales for Christmas Nights Edited by Tanya Kirk
Acoustic Weird Edited by Manon BurzLabrande
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354271 320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354172 320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Tales of the Weird
The Horned God
Our Haunted Shores
The Night Wire
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354967 320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354219 320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354110 320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
The Ghost Slayers
Shadows on the Wall
Sunless Solstice
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354165 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354066 304 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354103 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Weird Tales of the Great God Pan Edited by Michael Wheatley
Thrilling Tales of Occult Detection Edited by Mike Ashley
And Other Tales of Weird Media Tales from the Coasts Edited by Aaron Worth of the British Isles Edited by Emily Alder, Jimmy Packham, and Joan Passey
Dark Tales by Mary E Wilkins Freeman Edited by Mike Ashley
Strange Christmas Tales for the Longest Nights Edited by Tanya Kirk and Lucy Evans
Tales of the Weird
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Randalls Round
I Am Stone
Cornish Horrors
Nine Nightmares by Eleanor Scott Edited by Aaron Worth
The Gothic Weird Tales of R Murray Gilchrist Edited by Daniel Pieterson
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354059 240 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712354004 320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712353991 384 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Crawling Horror
Minor Hauntings
Heavy Weather
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712353496 320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712353199 320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712353588 336 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Creeping Tales of the Insect Weird Edited by Daisey Butcher and Janette Leaf
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Chilling Tales of Spectral Youth Edited by Jen Baker
Tales of the Weird
Tales from the Land’s End Edited by Joan Passey
Tempestuous Tales of Stranger Climes Edited by Kevan Manwaring
Dangerous Dimensions
Mind-bending Tales of the Mathematical Weird Edited by Henry Bartholomew
Chill Tidings Dark Tales of the Christmas Season Edited by Tanya Kirk
Queens of the Abyss
Lost Stories from the Women of the Weird Edited by Mike Ashley
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712353687 336 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712353236 224 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712353915 352 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Weird Woods
Into the London Fog
A Phantom Lover
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712353762 320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712353816 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Tales from the Haunted Forests of Britain Edited by John Miller
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712353427 240 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Eerie Tales from the Weird City Edited by Elizabeth Dearnley
And Other Dark Tales by Vernon Lee Edited by Mike Ashley
Tales of the Weird
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Tales of the Tattooed
Roarings from Further Out
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712353861 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712353304 320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712353052 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Promethean Horrors
Evil Roots
Doorway to Dilemma
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712352840 272 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712352291 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
The Outcast
And Other Dark Tales by E F Benson Edited by Mike Ashley
Classic Tales of Mad Science Edited by Xavier Aldana Reyes
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An Anthology of Ink Edited by John Miller
Killer Tales of the Botanical Gothic Edited by Daisy Butcher
Tales of the Weird
Four Weird Novellas by Algernon Blackwood Edited by Xavier Aldana Reyes
Bewildering Tales of Dark Fantasy Edited by Mike Ashley
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712352635 304 pages, 190 x 130 mm
The Weird Tales of William Hope Hodgson
The Face in the Glass
Edited by Xavier Aldana Reyes
The Gothic Tales of Mary Elizabeth Braddon Edited by Greg Buzwell
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712352338 240 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712352086 352 pages, 190 x 130 mm
The Platform Edge
Spirits of the Season
Uncanny Tales of the Railways Edited by Mike Ashley
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712352031 304 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Christmas Hauntings Edited by Tanya Kirk
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712352529 320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Tales of the Weird
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Mortal Echoes Encounters with the End Edited by Greg Buzwell
Glimpses of the Unknown Lost Ghost Stories Edited by Mike Ashley
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712352819 288 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712352666 336 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Haunted Houses
From the Depths
Two Novels by Charlotte Riddell Edited by Andrew Smith
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712352512 336 pages, 190 x 130 mm
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Tales of the Weird
And Other Strange Tales of the Sea Edited by Mike Ashley
Paperback £9.99 ISBN 9780712352369 320 pages, 190 x 130 mm
Chill Tidings Dark Tales of the Christmas Season Edited by Tanya Kirk In this glittering new clothbound edition of the beloved Christmas chiller, the gifts are unwrapped, the feast has been consumed and the fire is well fed – but the ghosts are still hungry.
Hardback £14.99 ISBN 9780712369565 224 pages, 216 x 138 mm October 2026
Special Edition Hardback
Tanya Kirk is Librarian at St John’s College, Cambridge. She has edited four volumes of ghostly Christmas stories for the Tales of the Weird series, and co-curated both the Terror and Wonder and Fantasy: Realms of Imagination exhibitions at the British Library.
Chill Tidings ushers in a host of ghastly phantoms and otherworldly intruders bent on ruining, or partaking in, the most wonderful time of the year. With classic tales from Algernon Blackwood, Elizabeth Bowen, Charlotte Riddell and L. P. Hartley, jostling with rare pieces from the sleeping periodicals and literary magazines of the British Library collections, it’s time to open the door and let the real festivities begin. Welcome to this beautiful new edition of the beloved collection of Christmas nightmares that have been scaring readers since 2020. Celebrate the timeless tradition of cosying up during the cold winter nights whilst these dark tales send a chill down your spine.
Opposite by Alfred Leete from The Sketch, 2 January 1907 from the British Library Collections.
Featured Title
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B R I T I S H L I B R A RY
GILDED NIGHTMARES Venture into the realm of the weird with the British Library Gilded Nightmares, a series of beautiful and collectable hardbacks brimming with rediscovered classic horror tales. Boasting anthologies by literary heavyweights such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Sheridan Le Fanu and Edgar Allan Poe, alongside thematically curated collections, these glinting volumes promise to thrill and instil fear in equal measure. Embrace the nightmares with over twenty titles to choose from including Celtic Weird, Fearsome Fairies, Visions of the Vampire and Halloweird.
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Tales of the Weird
New Gilded Nightmares 2026
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New British Library Gilded Nightmares 2026
Shadows Over Cymru Uncanny Stories of the Welsh Weird Edited by Aaron Worth I looked down and saw the pure white mist tracking the outline of the river like a shroud… I saw under a grey sky a country that was still all mystery. From the peaks of Eryri to hidden valleys and haunted mines, the storied landscapes of Wales have inspired centuries of myth and folklore. Over time, these tales of the unexplained and the Otherworld have formed a unique strain of weird fiction.
Hardback £16.99 ISBN 9780712369503 274 pages, 210 x 149 mm May 2026
Aaron Worth is professor of Rhetoric at Boston University. He introduced and edited the Tales of the Weird anthologies Randalls Round, The Night Wire, Out of the Past and Spores of Doom and was the author of Imperial Media, a study of how advances in media and technology shaped the British literary imagination in the late nineteenth century.
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Delving into this rich vein of uncanny literature, Aaron Worth returns with twenty tales that tell of eerie encounters with ghosts, dragons, fairies, sin-eaters, Mabinogion-inspired sorcerers and primeval gods. With classics by Dylan Thomas and Arthur Machen alongside rarities from Margiad Evans, Christianna Brand and many more, this volume invites you to tread the paths of a Cymru overcast by the shadow of the strange.
New Gilded Nightmares 2026
Forthcoming British Library Gilded Nightmares
The Show Goes On Strange Stories of Ramsey Campbell Edited by Jeremy Dyson “The circular booths, the long target galleries, the low roller coaster, the ark and the crazy house draped shadow over each other and merged with the dimness of the paths between. Even the merrygo-round was hooded by darkness hanging from its canopy… But between the silent machines and stalls one ride was faintly illuminated: the ghost train.”
Hardback £16.99 ISBN 9780712369114 352 pages, 210 x 149 mm September 2026
Jeremy Dyson is the co-creator and co-writer of multi-awardwinning comedy show The League of Gentlemen. He is also a novelist and co-writer of the Oliviernominated play Ghost Stories. Ramsey Campbell is one of the most prolific and honoured British horror writers, with forty novels and several hundred short stories to his name. The Washington Post sums up his work as “one of the monumental accomplishments of modern popular fiction.”
A child returns from the fire that consumed him on Guy Fawkes Night, two girls come face to face with an Aztec god in a graffiti-strewn underpass, malevolent witches stalk the streets of Liverpool and the fells of Cumbria, ancient folk rituals usher evil in to an English village… Welcome to the weird and unsettling world of Ramsey Campbell. In this chilling new collection, spanning Campbell’s entire career from the mid-1970s to the present day, novelist, playwright and The League of Gentlemen alumnus Jeremy Dyson hand-picks his favourite tales by one of Britain’s greatest living horror writers.
New Gilded Nightmares 2026
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Previous British Library Gilded Nightmares
Illusions of Presence
Lost Christmas Ghost Stories Edited by Johnny Mains
The Strange The Dead of Stories of John Summer Strange Tales of May Eve Buchan Edited James Machin
and Midsummer Edited by Johnny Mains
Hardback £16.99 ISBN 9780712355209 288 pages, 210 x 149 mm
Hardback £16.99 ISBN 9780712355827 240 pages, 210 x 149 mm
Hardback £16.99 ISBN 9780712355285 256 pages, 210 x 149 mm
Bewitched
Halloweird
The Ghost Stories of Wilkie Collins
The Ghostly Tales of Edith Wharton Edited by Mike Ashley
Hardback £16.99 ISBN 9780712355872 288 pages, 210 x 149 mm
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Classic Stories from the Season of Samhain Edited by Johnny Mains
Hardback £16.99 ISBN 9780712355025 320 pages, 210 x 149 mm
Gilded Nightmares
Edited by Xavier Aldana Reyes
Hardback £14.99 ISBN 9780712355964 256 pages, 210 x 149 mm
Uncanny Ireland
Scotland the Strange
The Burial of the Rats
Hardback £16.99 ISBN 9780712355209 288 pages, 210 x 149 mm
Hardback £16.99 ISBN 9780712354547 320 pages, 210 x 149 mm
Hardback £14.99 ISBN 9780712354448 256 pages, 210 x 149 mm
Penny Bloods
Celtic Weird
The Little Blue Flames
Otherworldly Tales of the Strange and Sublime Edited by Maria Giakaniki
Gothic Tales of Dangerous Women Edited by Nicole C Dittmer
Hardback £14.99 ISBN 9780712354189 256 pages, 210 x 149 mm
Weird Tales from Storied Lands Edited by Johnny Mains
Tales of Wicked Folklore and Dark Mythology Edited by Johnny Mains
Hardback £16.99 ISBN 9780712354325 336 pages, 210 x 149 mm
And Other Tales of the Macabre by Bram Stoker Edited by Xavier Aldana Reyes
And Other Uncanny Tales by A. M. Burrage Edited by Nick Freeman
Hardback £14.99 ISBN 9780712354127 256 pages, 210 x 149 mm
Gilded Nightmares
33
The Whisperers Fearsome and Other Stories Fairies
Playing with Fire
A Lifetime of the Supernatural Algernon Blackwood, edited by Mike Ashley
Haunting Tales of the Fae Edited by Elizabeth Dearnley
Hardback £14.99 ISBN 9780712354264 320 pages, 210 x 149 mm
Hardback £16.99 ISBN 9780712354301 336 pages, 210 x 149 mm
Hardback £16.99 ISBN 9780712354257 304 pages, 210 x 149 mm
The Open Door
Visions of the Vampire
The Gothic Tales of Sheridan Le Fanu
And Other Stories of the Seen and Unseen Margaret Oliphant, edited by Mike Ashley
Hardback £14.99 ISBN 9780712353540 256 pages, 210 x 149 mm
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Two Centuries of Immortal Tales Edited by Sorcha Ní Fhlainn and Xavier Aldana Reyes
Hardback £16.99 ISBN 9780712353922 320 pages, 210 x 149 mm
Gilded Nightmares
The Weird Tales of Arthur Conan Doyle Edited by Mike Ashley
Edited by Xavier Aldana Reyes
Hardback £14.99 ISBN 9780712353960 256 pages, 210 x 149 mm
The Gothic Tales of H. P. Lovecraft
The Ghost Stories of M. R. James
Hardback £14.99 ISBN 9780712352468 224 pages, 210 x 149 mm
Hardback £14.99 ISBN 9780712352505 208 pages, 210 x 149 mm
Edited by Xavier Aldana Reyes
Edited by Roger Luckhurst
The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Tales Edgar Allan Poe
Hardback £14.99 ISBN 9780712357548 208 pages, 210 x 149 mm
Gilded Nightmares
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Tales of the Weird
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Visit bl.uk for more detail and news about the British Library Cover design by Mauricio Villamayor with illustration by Mag Ruhig. Illustration on page 25 by Mag Ruhig. Specifications, prices and covers in this catalogue are subject to change prior to publication. Catalogues of backlist Non-fiction and fiction in the British Library Crime Classics, Tales of the Weird, Gilded Nightmares and Women Writers series may be viewed alongside this catalogue online at issuu.com/bl_publishing