Books like Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories

Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories by Roald Dahl reads as eerie, suspenseful. These 12 books share its genome — matched by how they actually read, not just their shelf label.

What Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories is like to read

An anthology of classic ghost stories meant to be read one at a time, each delivering an atmospheric chill rather than sustained dread — a mix of Victorian and Edwardian supernatural craft curated by Dahl. Best for: readers who enjoy classic literary ghost stories and want a curated anthology for dipping into at night.

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

Montague Rhodes James · 1904

A quartet of understated, slow-creeping ghost stories rendered in graphic form, trading gore for dread and suggestion, each tale unfolding as its own contained haunting.

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The Haunting of Hill House

Shirley Jackson · 1959

A haunted house consumes its inhabitants through slow psychological erosion — Jackson's accumulating, ornate sentences turn domestic unease into dread, culminating in Eleanor's dissolution rather than her escape.

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Dark Matter

Michelle Paver · 2010

A creeping Arctic ghost story built on isolation and encroaching polar darkness — the dread accumulates as the sun disappears and escape becomes impossible.

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The Restless Dead

Deborah Noyes · 2007

Shares the vspare thread

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

Laird Koenig · 1973

Shares the vspare thread

Apartment 16

Adam Nevill · 2010

A slow-burn haunted-house horror where inherited art and a malevolent presence unravel a woman's grip on reality, delivered in Nevill's dense, oppressive atmosphere.

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Revenge of the Dolls

Carol Beach York · 1979

Shares the vspare thread

MASTERPIECES OF TERROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL

Marvin Kaye · 1985

An anthology grab-bag of classic and modern horror/supernatural tales meant to be dipped into rather than read straight through — variable tone from gothic dread to eerie whimsy.

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The Arbor House Treasury of Horror and the Supernatural

Bill Pronzini · 1981

A sprawling anthology moving story to story across a century of horror styles, from Poe's gothic cruelty to Lovecraftian cosmic dread to modern psychological unease — the experienc

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The houseguest and other stories

Amparo Dávila · 2018

Quiet domestic scenes curdle into dread as ordinary anxieties—an unwelcome guest, insomnia, jealousy—metastasize into something uncanny; the horror is atmospheric and psychological rather than explicit.

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