Pretty much the title.
I want to get into the genre, but I have absolutely no idea about it, aside from some Poe and Stephen King I had to read in class.
Can be about anything as long as it's good and gives me the spooks.
Preferably short (less than 400 pages), as i'm just now starting to read off my own volition instead of for school.
Also, why is there no horror thread already?
There is no horror thread because it's not a very good genre. Read Lovecraft like everyone else, although I'd recommend against talking about him here due to some unfortunate memes.
There are very few good horror writers because a lot of authors incorporate horror elements into their story without the stories itself becoming the genre.
Ring, Koji Suzuki
It reads like you watch a good japanese horror flick,
Thomas Ligotti
Lovecraft
Utopian novels aren't horror
STARTER PACK user DO NOT IGNORE:
LOVECRAFT
BIERCE
BLACKWOOD
MACHEN
C.A SMITH
RADCLIFFE
HODGSON
then you may continue as you please
It was scary to me
H. P. Lovecraft - read all of his horror stories. I would recommend going through them chronologically. However, if you would rather start off with some of his best work, then go for The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Call of Cthulhu.
William Hope Hodgson - start with The House on the Borderland.
Algernon Blackwood - start with The Willows.
Arthur Machen - start with The Great God Pan.
Thomas Ligotti - start with Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe.
Richard Matheson - start with I Am Legend.
M. R. James - Collected Ghost Stories
Shirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
Bram Stoker - Dracula
Robert W. Chambers - The King in Yellow (warning: only 3 of the stories are horror)
That doesn't cover everything, but it's a good starting point.
The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum
I feel like there should be a lot of traditional folk tales and ghost stories but I can't recall any in particular that I really think of as high quality.
There's nothing that's really the prototypical ghost story in the same way Psyche and Cupid is the prototypical fairy tale romance.
Seconding, throwing in The King In Yellow, and Robert Aickman
And if you like this, read about the real life situation it was based on: The Indians Torture Slaying by John Dean. Fucking terrifying. And real. One of the most unsettling books I have ever read
*Indiana not Indians
>king in yellow
>horror
Horror is actually the best genre, it just gets the lowest critical consideration because pompous retards pretending to be intellectuals think it's supposed to be "scary" and "ooky spooky" when it's really revealing the darkest aspects of humanity in the form of metaphor and allegory.
You left out Hawthorne.
this will fit your age
i thought there was a genreshit containment thread, but i guess it's not for all genreshit, but it should be
Poe
Gustavo Adolfo Becquer: Legends
not sure how it's translated in english, in spanish it's usually published as a compilation "Rhymes And Legends", but the rhymes are not horror
Ignore everything else in this thread and just read some Guy N Smith instead OP.
OP seems to be familiar with Poe
M. R. James