Books like 'Descent into Hell'
Readers who enjoyed Descent into Hell by Charles Williams also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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Boy's Life by Robert McCammon
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsAn Alabama boy’s innocence is shaken by murder and madness in the 1960s South in this novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of Swan Song. It’s 1964 in idyllic Zephyr, Alabama. People either work for the paper mill up the Tecumseh River, or for the local dairy. It’s a simple life, but it stirs the impressionable imagination of twelve-year-old aspiring writer Cory Mackenson...Categorized as:
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The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 73 ratingsMoscow, 1929: a city that has lost its way amid corruption and fear, inhabited by people who have abandoned their morals and forsaken spirituality. But when a mysterious stranger arrives in town with a bizarre entourage that includes a giant talking cat and a fanged assassin, all hell breaks loose...Categorized as:
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H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Collection with Accompanying Facts by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsH. P. Lovecraft: The Complete Collection. Classed as one of the greatest American horror fiction writers of our time, you can now have H.P Lovecraft's work all in one kindle download (with easy navigation). Over 2,000 kindle pages long! (2,195) 62 Short Stories and 5 Novellas. This collection is unabridged, and appears as he first intended it. (And how the editors at the time first published it)...Categorized as:
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The Complete Fiction by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe Nameless CityThe FestivalThe Colour Out of SpaceThe Call of CthulhuThe Dunwich HorrorThe Whisperer in DarknessThe Dreams in the Witch HouseThe Haunter of the DarkThe Shadow Over InnsmouthDiscarded Draft of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"The Shadow Out of TimeAt the Mountains of MadnessThe Case of Charles Dexter WardAzathothBeyond the Wall of SleepCelephaïsCool AirDagonEx OblivioneFacts...Categorized as:
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The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 38 ratings“H.P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the twentieth century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale.”—Stephen King“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”—H.P. LovecraftThis is the collection that true fans of horror fiction must have: sixteen of H.P... -
At the Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Terror by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsA complete short novel, AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS is a tale of terror unilke any other. The Barren, windswept interior of the Antarctic plateau was lifeless--or so the expedition from Miskatonic University thought. Then they found the strange fossils of unheard-of creatures...and the carved stones tens of millions of years old...and, finally, the mind-blasting terror of the City of the Old Ones...Categorized as:
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Tales by H.P. Lovecraft, Peter Straub
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsA twentieth-century successor to Edgar Allan Poe as the master of “weird fiction,” Howard Philips Lovecraft once wrote, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown...Categorized as:
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Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsOriginally written for the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s, H. P. Lovecraft's astonishing tales blend elements of horror, science fiction, and cosmology that are as powerful today as they were when first published. This tome presents original versions of many of his most harrowing stories, including the complete Cthulhu Mythos cycle, in order of publication... -
The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsA definitive edition of stories by the master of supernatural fictionHoward Phillips Lovecraft's unique contribution to American literature was a melding of traditional supernaturalism (derived chiefly from Edgar Allan Poe) with the genre of science fiction that emerged in the early 1920s...Categorized as:
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The Portable Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe essential collection of the American literary master of terror, death, murder, fantasy, and revengeThe first new edition of this landmark anthology since 1945, The Portable Edgar Allan Poe presents a more complicated, perverse, and culturally engaged Poe...Categorized as:
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The Dreams in the Witch House & Other Weird Stories by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOne of the masters of 'weird fiction', H. P. Lovecraft expanded the vast boundaries of the horror genre with his vividly imagined stories of exotic and fantastical otherworlds, nightmarish dreamscapes or the supernatural terrors lurking beneath the surface of small-town America...Categorized as:
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The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft: Dreams of Terror and Death by H.P. Lovecraft, E. Hoffmann Price
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThis volume collects, for the first time, the entire Dream Cycle created by H. P. Lovecraft, the master of twentieth-century horror, including some of his most fantastic tales:THE DOOM THAT CAME TO SARNATH--Hate, genocide, and a deadly curse.THE NAMELESS CITY--Death lies beneath the shifting sands, in a story linking the Dream Cycle with the legendary Cthulhu Mythos... -
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIncantations of black magic unearthed unspeakable horrors in Providence, Rhode Island... -
Complete Ghost Stories by M.R. James
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsM. R. James wrote his ghost stories to entertain friends on Christmas Eve, and they went on to both transform and modernize a genre. James harnesses the power of suggestion to move from a recognizable world to one that is indefinably strange, and then unforgettably terrifying... -
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Novels & Stories: The Lottery / The Haunting of Hill House / We Have Always Lived in the Castle / Other Stories and Sketches by Shirley Jackson
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratings“The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable,” writes A. M. Homes. “It is a place where things are not what they seem; even on a morning that is sunny and clear there is always the threat of darkness looming, of things taking a turn for the worse...Categorized as:
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Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories by M.R. James
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe only annotated edition of M. R. James's writings currently available, Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories contains the entire first two volumes of James's ghost stories, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary and More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary...Categorized as:
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The Best Ghost Stories Of Algernon Blackwood by Algernon Blackwood
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSelected from the entire body of Algernon Blackwood’s work, this collection contains some of his finest writing. Blackwood’s ability to create and sustain an atmosphere of unrelieved horror is witnessed in ‘The Willows’, a starkly terrifying tale of another dimension impinging on our own. In contrast, ‘The Other Wing’, is a chilling but delicate evocation of the mysteries of childhood... -
The Shadow over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe Shadow over Innsmouth is a horror novella by H. P. Lovecraft. It forms part of the Cthulhu Mythos, using its motif of a malign undersea civilization. It references several shared elements of the Mythos, including place-names, mythical creatures and invocations...Categorized as:
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The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies by Clark Ashton Smith
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA much-awaited collection of prose and poetry from one of the great cosmic masters of the supernatural Not just any fantasy, horror, and science fiction author could impress H. P. Lovecraft into calling him "perhaps unexcelled by any other writer, dead or living” or compel Fritz Lieber to employ the worthy term sui generis... -
Great Tales of Horror by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsH.P Lovecraft: Great Tales of Horror features twenty of horror master H.P... -
Collected Ghost Stories by M.R. James
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsM. R. James is widely regarded as the father of the modern ghost story, and his tales have influenced horror writers from H. P. Lovecraft to Stephen King. First published in the early 1900s, they have never been out of print, and are recognized as classics of the genre...Categorized as:
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Miss Christina: An Erotic Vampire Novella by Mircea Eliade
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMiss Christina stood there, very close to him, with her breasts uncovered, her hair loose, waiting. “Egor, you’re humiliating me!” he could hear her thoughts. “Turn off the lamp, come closer!” Egor tried in vain to resist. He could feel Miss Christina’s command in his brain, he could feel her poisonous calling in his blood. “If she kisses me I’m lost,” he thought... -
Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 54 ratingsFifteen-year-old Oscar Drai meets the strange Marina while he's exploring an old quarter of Barcelona. She leads Oscar to a cemetery, where they watch a macabre ritual that occurs on the last Sunday of each month. At exactly ten o'clock in the morning, a woman shrouded in a black velvet cloak descends from her carriage to place a single rose on an unmarked grave...Categorized as:
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The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsrelates the adventures of Satan, the sinless nephew of the biblical Satan, in Eseldorf, an Austrian village in the year 1702. Twain wrote this version between November 1897 and September 1900. "Eseldorf" is German for "Assville" or "Donkeytown"...Categorized as:
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The Willows by Algernon Blackwood
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsTwo friends are midway on a canoe trip down the Danube River. Throughout the story Blackwood personifies the surrounding environment—river, sun, wind—and imbues them with a powerful and ultimately threatening character...Categorized as:
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Darkness on his Bones by Barbara Hambly
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSimon. Something frightful has happened to Jamie. Please come...When James Asher is found unconscious in the cemetery of the Church of St. Clare Pieds-Nus with multiple puncture-wounds in his throat and arms, his wife, Lydia, knows of only one person to call: the vampire Don Simon Ysidro... -
The Kindred of Darkness by Barbara Hambly
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWhen James Asher and his wife Lydia's baby daughter Miranda is kidnapped by the Master Vampire of London, the stakes are high: blindly follow the Master Vampire's instructions, keep out of the way of the human networks that serves the vampires, destroy the interloper who seeks to seize control of the London Nest, and find the key to the Nest's tortuous inner workings: The Book of the Kindred of... -
Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier, Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsJohn Collier's edgy, sardonic tales are works of rare wit, curious insight, and scary implication. They stand out as one of the pinnacles in the critically neglected but perennially popular tradition of weird writing that includes E.T.A. Hoffmann and Charles Dickens as well as more recent masters like Jorge Luis Borges and Roald Dahl...Categorized as:
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The Haunted Looking Glass by Edward Gorey
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe Haunted Looking Glass is the late Edward Gorey's selection of his favorite tales of ghosts, ghouls, and grisly goings-on. It includes stories by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, M. R. James, W. W. Jacobs, and L. P. Hartley, among other masters of the fine art of making the flesh creep, all accompanied by Gorey's inimitable illustrations.ALGERNON BLACKWOOD, "The Empty House"W.F... -
The Between by Tananarive Due
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWhen Hilton was just a boy, his aged grandmother saved him from drowning by pulling him out of a treacherous ocean current, sacrificing her life for his. Now, thirty years later, Hilton begins to think his borrowed time is running out...Categorized as:
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The Complete Cthulhu Mythos Tales by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Cthulhu Mythos was H. P. Lovecraft's greatest contribution to supernatural literature: a series of stories that evoked cosmic awe and terror through their accounts of incomprehensibly alien monsters and their horrifying incursions into our world... -
The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsOne of the feature stories of the Cthulhu Mythos, H.P. Lovecraft's 'the Call of Cthulhu' is a harrowing tale of the weakness of the human mind when confronted by powers and intelligences from beyond our world...Categorized as:
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The Wine-Dark Sea by Robert Aickman
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsPeter Straub called Robert Aickman 'this century's most profound writer of what we call horror stories'. Aickman's 'strange stories' (his preferred term for them) are a subtle exploration of psychological displacement and paranoia. His characters are ordinary people that are gradually drawn into the darker recesses of their own minds...Categorized as:
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Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsAfter Charlotte's first night at boarding school, the view from the window has changed and the girl in the next bed is not the girl who was there last night. She is a stranger who calls Charlotte "Clare" and says she's her sister..Categorized as:
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The Rats in the Walls by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratings"The Rats in the Walls" is a short story by H.P. Lovecraft. Written in August–September 1923, it was first published in Weird Tales, March 1924.The story is narrated by the scion of the Delapore family, who has moved from Massachusetts to his ancestral estate in England, known as Exham Priory. On several occasions, the protagonist and his cats hear the sounds of rats scurrying behind the walls... -
The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsL. M. Boston's thrilling and chilling tales of Green Knowe, a haunted manor deep in an overgrown garden in the English countryside, have been entertaining readers for half a century.There are three children: Toby, who rides the majestic horse Feste; his mischievous little sister, Linnet; and their brother, Alexander, who plays the flute. The children warmly welcome Tolly to Green Knowe..Categorized as:
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The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsThe Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is a novella by H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) published by Arkham House posthumously in 1943 in the collection Beyond the Wall of Sleep. Begun probably in the autumn of 1926, it was completed on January 22, 1927 and was unpublished in his lifetime...Categorized as:
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Declare by Tim Powers
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAs a young double agent infiltrating the Soviet spy network in Nazi-occupied Paris, Andrew Hale finds himself caught up in a secret, even more ruthless war. Two decades later, in 1963, he will be forced to confront again the nightmare that has haunted his adult life: a lethal unfinished operation code-named Declare... -
The Thing on the Doorstep by H.P. Lovecraft
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 27 ratings"The Thing on the Doorstep" is a short story written by H. P. Lovecraft, part of the Cthulhu Mythos universe of horror fiction. It was written in August 1933, and first published in the January 1937 issue of Weird Tales... -
A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsThis classic tale from the author of The Last Unicorn is a journey between the realms of the living and the dead, and a testament to the eternal power of love.Michael Morgan was not ready to die, but his funeral was carried out just the same. Trapped in the dark limbo between life and death as a ghost, he searches for an escape. Instead, he discovers the beautiful Laura..Categorized as:
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The Witch’s Lens by Luanne G. Smith
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsAs World War I rages, there are evils—both living and dead—that only a witch can see in a spellbinding novel by the Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestselling author of The Raven Spell.With her husband off fighting at World War I’s eastern front, Petra Kurková embraces her fleeting freedom, roaming the city at night with her camera...Categorized as:
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The Tombs of Anak by Frank E. Peretti
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhen Jay and Lila Cooper enter the cave-tombs of Anak with their archaeologist father, they hope to find a co-worker who has unaccountably disappeared. Instead, they stumble onto a frightening religion and new mysteries that soon put them all in incredible danger. The third book of the Cooper Kids Adventures...Categorized as:
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Cold Hand in Mine by Robert Aickman, Reece Shearsmith
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsCold Hand in Mine stands as one of Aickman's best collections and contains eight stories that show off his powers as a 'strange story' writer to the full. The listener is introduced to a variety of characters, from a man who spends the night in a Hospice to a German aristocrat and a woman who sees an image of her own soul... -
The Pendragon Legend by Antal Szerb
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAt an end-of-London-season soiree, the young Hungarian scholar-dilettante Janos Batky is introduced to the Earl of Gwynedd, a reclusive eccentric who is the subject of strange rumors...Categorized as:
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Ghost on Black Mountain by Ann Hite
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsONCE A PERSON LEAVES THE MOUNTAIN, THEY NEVER COME BACK, NOT REALLY. THEY’RE LOST FOREVER. Nellie Clay married Hobbs Pritchard without even noticing he was a spell conjured into a man, a walking, talking ghost story. But her mama knew. She saw it in her tea leaves: death. Folks told Nellie to get off the mountain while she could, to go back home before it was too late... -
Agnes Cecilia by Maria Gripe
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsAfter experiencing several inexplicable incidents, lonely Nora receives a strangely lifelike doll, which leads her to discover long-hidden secrets about her family...Categorized as:
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The Warrior's Princess by Barbara Erskine
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsHer fateful life would echo through time.When Jess is attacked by someone she once trusted, she flees to her sister's house in the Welsh borders to recuperate. But she is disturbed by the cries of a mysterious child.Two thousand years before, the same valley is the site of a great battle between Caratacus, king of the British tribes, and the invanding Romans...Categorized as:
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American Supernatural Tales by S.T. Joshi, Thomas Ligotti
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAs Stephen King will attest , the popularity of the occult in American literature has only grown since the days of Edgar Allan Poe. American Supernatural Tales celebrates the richness of this tradition with chilling contributions from some of the nation’s brightest literary lights, including Poe himself, H. P...Categorized as:
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The Uninvited by Dorothy Macardle
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsBrother and sister Roderick and Pamela Fitzgerald flee their busy London lives for the beautiful but stormy Devon coastline. They are drawn to the suspiciously inexpensive Cliff End, feared amongst locals as a place of disturbance and ill omen. Gradually, the Fitzgeralds learn of the mysterious deaths of Mary Meredith and another strange young woman... -
A Witch in Time by Constance Sayers
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsA young woman in Belle Epoque France is cursed to relive a doomed love affair through many lifetimes, as both troubled muse and frustrated artist.In 1895, sixteen-year-old Juliet LaCompte has a passionate, doomed romance with the married Parisian painter Auguste Marchant...
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