Click If You Dare: 100 Favorite Horror Stories

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

NPR, 101 Books

NPR's horror novel and story poll transformed 7,000 nominations from its audience into a curated list of 100 must-read horror favorites, designed to cater to a wide array of readers. This initiative, much like NPR's other reader polls, was not intended to create a ranked or exhaustive compilation but rather to highlight a diverse and evocative selection of horror literature. The final list includes a mix of deeply unsettling works, alongside titles that, while not strictly horror, brush against the genre's dark themes or offer commentary on horrific subjects. Noteworthy is the exclusion of any works by the panel of expert judges—Stephen Graham Jones, Ruthanna Emrys, Tananarive Due, and Grady Hendrix—despite nominations, to avoid conflicts of interest. Stephen King, a prolific figure in horror, received a notable mention with over a thousand nominations, leading to a decision to allow authors a spot for both a novel and a short story, if needed, to honor the genre's tradition of classic horror in short form. This list serves as a guide for those looking to explore horror's chilling depths or to find tales that linger long after the page is turned, curated with insights from both the NPR audience and respected genre experts.

This list was originally published in 2018 and was added to this site over 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
6859 A Head Full Of Ghosts Paul Tremblay 2015 American English
11606 Forget The Sleepless Shores Sonya Taaffe 2018 American English
3510 Alone With The Horrors Ramsey Campbell 1993 British English
710 At the Mountains of Madness H. P. Lovecraft 1936 American English
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
6801 Bird Box Josh Malerman 2014 American English
5990 Bloodchild Octavia E. Butler 1984 American English
1757 Books of Blood Clive Barker 1984 British English
1562 Burnt Offerings Robert Marasco 1973 American English
1768 Carmilla Sheridan Le Fanu 1872 Irish English
5758 Come Closer Sara Gran 2003 American English
7894 Communion Whitley Strieber 1987 American English
4655 Coraline Neil Gaiman 2002 British English
6810 Down A Dark Hall Lois Duncan 1974 American English
53 Dracula Bram Stoker 1897 British English
6944 Elizabeth Ken Greenhall 1976 American English
11290 Experimental Film Gemma Files 2015 Canadian English
6646 Exquisite Corpse Poppy Z. Brite 1996 American English
7582 Feed Seanan McGuire 2010 American English
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
11469 Furnace Livia Llewellyn 2016 American English
2345 Goblin Market Christina Georgina Rossetti 1862 British English
3257 Goosebumps R. L. Stine 1992 American English
3541 Her Body and Other Parties Carmen Maria Machado 2017 American English
607 House of Leaves Mark Z. Danielewski 2000 American English
777 I Am Legend Richard Matheson 1954 American English
5270 I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream Harlan Ellison 1967 American English
12016 Infidel Pornsak Pichetshote 2018 Unknown English
5234 Intensity Dean R. Koontz 1995 American English
661 Interview with the Vampire Anne Rice 1976 American English
6700 It's A Good Life Jerome Bixby 1953 American English
5811 John Dies At The End David Wong 2007 American English
513 Kindred Octavia E. Butler 1979 American English
8904 Left Foot, Right Nalo Hopkinson 1996 Canadian Unknown
5113 Let The Right One In John Ajvide Lindqvist 2004 Swedish Swedish
52 Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 British English
3886 Lunar Park Bret Easton Ellis 2005 American English
9796 Minion L. A. Banks 2003 American English
8289 Night They Missed The Horror Show Joe R. Lansdale 1988 American English
6609 Nos4 A2 Joe Hill 2013 American English
6797 Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad M. R. James 1904 British English
8457 Penpal Dathan Kahn Auerbach 2012 American English
11471 Please, Momma Chesya Burke 2015 American Unknown
59 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier 1938 British English
894 Rosemary's Baby Ira Levin 1967 American English
10963 Rotters Daniel Kraus 2011 American English
6280 Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark Alvin Schwartz 1981 American English
6230 Shadowland Peter Straub 1980 American English
11924 Spirit Hunters Ellen Oh 2017 American English
1813 Swan Song Robert R. McCammon 1987 American English
9980 The Atrocity Archives Charles Stross 2004 British English
11800 The Ballad Of Black Tom Victor LaValle 2016 American English
2103 The Bloody Chamber And Other Stories Angela Carter 1979 British English
6372 The Body Stephen King 1982 American English
10935 The Bone Key Sarah Monette 2024 American English
6000 The Cipher Kathe Koja 1991 American English
1636 The Collector John Fowles 1963 British English
11388 The Devil In America Kai Ashante Wilson 2014 American English
4199 The Elementals Michael McDowell 1981 American English
1398 The Exorcist William Peter Blatty 1971 American English
8191 The Fisherman John Langan 2016 American English
3853 The Girl Next Door Jack Ketchum 1989 American English
10080 The Girl With All The Gifts M. R. Carey 2014 British English
1712 The Great God Pan Arthur Machen 1894 British English
132 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 1985 Canadian English
215 The Haunting of Hill House Shirley Jackson 1959 American English
3439 The House Next Door Anne Rivers Siddons 1978 American English
3017 The House With A Clock In Its Walls John Bellairs 1973 American English
10968 The Hunger Alma Katsu 2018 American English
6679 The Imago Sequence And Other Stories Laird Barron 2007 American English
10293 The Jumbies Tracey Baptiste 2015 Trinidadian English
1073 The Lottery and Other Stories Shirley Jackson 1948 American English
6923 The Monkey's Paw W. W. Jacobs 1902 British English
1420 The October Country Ray Bradbury 1955 American English
1826 The Other Thomas Tryon 1971 American English
6808 The Queen Of The Damned Anne Rice 1988 American English
9244 The Red Tree Caitlín R. Kiernan 2009 American English
6928 The Repairer Of Reputations Robert W. Chambers 1895 American English
7698 The Ruins Scott Smith 2006 American English
1348 Sandman Neil Gaiman 1989 British English
7750 The Screwfly Solution Raccoona Sheldon 1977 American English
5513 The Shadow Over Innsmouth H. P. Lovecraft 1936 American English
400 The Shining Stephen King 1977 American English
6933 The Tell Tale Heart And Other Writings Edgar Allan Poe 1843 American English
4933 The Terror Dan Simmons 2007 American English
11431 The Troop Nick Cutter 2014 Canadian English
189 The Turn of the Screw Henry James 1898 American English
2985 The Vampire Lestat Anne Rice 1985 American English
11031 The Weird Ann VanderMeer 2011 American English
1148 The Werewolf Of Paris Guy Endore 1933 American English
5518 The Willows Algernon Blackwood 1907 British English
2917 The Woman In Black Susan Hill 1983 British English
6463 Things We Lost In The Fire Mariana Enríquez 2016 Argentinian Spanish
8430 Those Across The River Christopher Buehlman 2011 American English
10117 Through The Woods Emily Carroll 2014 Canadian English
6675 Uzumaki Junji Ito 1998 Japanese Japanese
6936 Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Joyce Carol Oates 1966 American English
9251 White Is For Witching Helen Oyeyemi 2009 British English
5594 World War Z Max Brooks 2006 American English
10355 Wylding Hall Elizabeth Hand 2015 American English
2533 Young Goodman Brown & Other Short Stories Nathaniel Hawthorne 1835 American English