Oldstyle Tales Press

12/04/2024

NEW POST! -- 31 of the Best Edwardian Ghost Stories. In the second of a four-part series, I recommend a sampling of the very best ghost stories I know of, from four different periods. We're starting with 31 of the very best tales of the supernatural from the Edwardian Era.

In the second part of our four-part series on the best ghost stories in Western literature, we zero in on a single, excessively prolific period of some thirteen or so years: the elegant Edwardian Era. Defining this tiny, micro-age can be challenging: the obvious range, by literal definition, directl...

10/31/2024

Happy All Hallows' Eve, my dear friends! Please be safe out there, and always keep close to the light

10/30/2024

NEW POST! -- The 31 Best Victorian Ghost Stories. In the first of a four-part series, I recommend the very best ghost stories I know of, from four different periods. We're starting with the 31 best tales of the supernatural from the Victorian Era.

Since I started Oldstyle Tales Press in 2013, we have handled a wide range of speculative fiction sub-genres from the 19th and early 20th centuries: science fiction, murder mysteries, body horror, weird tales, cosmic horror, Jamesian ghost stories, premonition narratives, psychological terror, peril...

10/25/2024

NEW POST! This one's a deep dive into the best (most beautiful, faithful, & eerie) film adaptation of my all-time favorite story, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." We're talking Rabbit Ears’ 1988 cartoon narrated by Glenn Close, with gorgeous, painstakingly researched art by Robert Van Nutt and a haunting, synth soundtrack by Tim Story. No movie has been remotely this successful at conveying Washington Irving's subtle but chilling source material, and I'd love you to check it out!

Longtime readers will know that my all-time favorite story, in any genre, is Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Not only does it rate among the stories I have annotated and illustrated, but I’ve done deep dives into its history and even written my own Sleepy Hollow-inspired, ...

10/15/2024

NEW POST! A summary and analysis of Ambrose Bierce's "The Ways of Ghosts." Although fictional, the four stories in this creepy anthology of spook tales read like the kinds of veridical, Fortean reports which may have haunted your imagination as a youngster at the library (the likes of the "Mary Celeste," Flight 19, or the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall). Each ghost appears with a definite message to share -- a message stemming from the humanity's unquenchable, frustrating thirst for justice.

https://tinyurl.com/34zk6wxx

Like his two more famous supernatural series “Some Haunted Houses” and "Soldier-Folk," “The Ways of Ghosts” is an anthology of spook stories: while the earlier collection focused on haunted buildings, this one is primarily interested in the curious means by which ghosts make an effort to com...

10/02/2024

Join in on our yearly October tradition -- the perfect start to Spooky Season for lovers of classic books, old-school horror, or Halloween: a daily advent calender of 31 classic supernatural tales to read this October, from Bram Stoker and H. G. Wells to Washington Irving and M. R. James. See which ones you've already read, and add your own recommendations in the comments!

Why should Christmas have all the fun? Oldstyle Tales proudly presents a literary advent calendar for your favorite season. Each day has a writer along with the best known work and a link to a lesser known, deeply Halloweenish story that we recommend. And hey, if you're ambitious try reading the mas...

09/13/2024

A safe Friday the 13th to you! Whether or not you number among friggatriskaidekaphobics, you may benefit from this little piece on Victorian superstitions connected to these fateful Fridays. Just to be extra sure you don't fall afoul of the sprites and spooks, consider giving it a quick glance -- and do beware out there!

One of the earliest memories I have of Hallowe’en is watching Disney’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” I was thrilled by the almost relaxing chaos of a world turned topsy-turvy by spooks and ghosts. Perhaps life was out of our hands, perhaps we had to be careful where we stepped. That was fas...

09/06/2024

NEW POST! A detailed summary and literary analysis of Algernon Blackwood's creepy, Christmas, crime-drama ghost story, "The Kit-Bag." Relieved to be done with a gruesome case, soft-spoken legal clerk borrows a duffel bag from his boss to pack for a much-needed skiing vacation, but something about the bag is off-putting, and strangely familiar -- and he quickly learns that it's original owner wants it back.

Blackwood commonly utilizes psychological vulnerability to evoke high terror – usually by putting his young, male protagonists in either morally dehumanizing urban slums or the physically punishing wastes of wilderness. But this story achieves its goal not through a kind of place, but through a ki...

07/26/2024

Recently, I've been excited to pair up with the burgeoning, atmospheric Strange Reads YouTube channel (which is also delightfully focused on classic speculative fiction). They did me the great honor of adapting one of my very, very first blog posts into a chilly video. You can find both of them here:

The Victorian Age brings with it a tremendous amount of associations, baggage, and stereotypes that make it one of the most colorful periods in British history (or at least filmable; I myself am partial to the Georgian period, the Enlightenment, and the Civil War -- but that's my cross to bear). The...

06/19/2024

I was deeply honored to have my adaptation of the creepy classic, "Tailypo - An Appalachian Legend," featured on the Freaky Folklore Podcast this week. You can give it a listen (and them a follow) here!

Tailypo - a small, eerie, and elusive creature from the hollers and mountains of Appalachia, distinguished by its long, bushy tail. Its glowing, piercing eye...

04/30/2024

A safe and joyful Walpurgis Night to you all!

It's a chilly night of bright fires, witches' Sabbaths, widely held superstitions, and roaming demon dogs. As cool winds whip mostly-bare trees back and forth, the night sky is thought to fill with cackling witches and wizards, devils and demons, ghosts and goblins, and specters and skeletons. And y...

04/03/2024

A happy Washington Irving Day! Consider celebrating by reading one of his excellent, bittersweet ghost stories.

He was the greatest American writer of his time: mentor to Poe, Dickens, and Hawthorne, his country’s first professional author, and a writer of uniqely American ghost stories about growth, change, and identity. His was the complex personality of an existentially anxious, emotionally complex man d...