Evening of 31 October, immediately preceding the Christian feast of All Hallows or All Saints' Day. Customs associated with Halloween in the USA and the UK include children wearing masks or costumes, and ‘trick or treating’ – going from house to house collecting sweets, fruit, or money.
Halloween is associated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which marked the end of the year and the beginning of winter. It was believed that on the evening of Samhain supernatural creatures were abroad and the souls of the dead were allowed to revisit their former homes.
Halloween. (2018). In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide. Helicon. https://search.credoreference.com/articles/Qm9va0FydGljbGU6NDg3NTI4?aid=107032
America's Favorite Holidays
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America's Favorite Holidays explores how five of America's culturally important holidays--Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, and Thanksgiving--came to be what they are today, seasonal and religious celebrations heavily influenced by modern popular culture. Deftly distilling information from a wide range of sources, Bruce David Forbes reveals often-surprising answers to questions about each holiday's traditions. Was Christmas always as commercialized as it is today? Is Thanksgiving a religious or secular holiday? When did we begin trick-or-treating on Halloween? Appealing and insightful, America's Favorite Holidays satisfies our curiosity about the origins of our holidays and the fascinating ways in which religion and culture mix.
Halloween
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Boasting a rich, complex history rooted in Celtic and Christian ritual, Halloween has evolved from ethnic celebration to a blend of street festival, fright night, and vast commercial enterprise. In this colorful history, Nicholas Rogers takes a lively, entertaining look at the cultural origins and development of one of the most popular holidays of the year. Drawing on a fascinating array of sources, from classical history to Hollywood films, Rogers traces Halloween as it emerged from the Celtic festival of Samhain (summer's end), picked up elements of the Christian Hallowtide (All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day), arrived in North America as an Irish and Scottish festival, and evolved into an unofficial but large-scale holiday by the early 20th century. He examines the 1970s and '80s phenomena of Halloween sadism (razor blades in apples) and inner-city violence (arson in Detroit), as well as the immense influence of the horror film genre on the reinvention of Halloween as a terror-fest. Throughout his vivid account, Rogers shows how Halloween remains, at its core, a night of inversion, when social norms are turned upside down, and a temporary freedom of expression reigns supreme. He examines how this very license has prompted censure by the religious Right, occasional outrage from law enforcement officials, and appropriation by Left-leaning political groups. Engagingly written and based on extensive research, Halloween is the definitive history of the most bewitching day of the year, illuminating the intricate history and shifting cultural forces behind this enduring trick-or-treat holiday.
We Are What We Celebrate
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No detailed description available for "We Are What We Celebrate".
Frankenstein
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The premier monster story of English literature--a tale of science pursued to horrifying extremes An origin story nearly as famous as the book itself: One dreary summer on the shores of Lake Geneva, amid discussions of galvanism and the occult and fireside readings from a collection of German ghost stories, Lord Byron proposed a game. Each of his guests--eighteen-year-old Mary Godwin and her future husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, among them--would try their hand at writing a tale of the supernatural. Unable at first to think of a plot, Mary was visited one sleepless night by the terrible vision of a corpse, a "hideous phantasm of a man," lurching to life with the application of some unknown, powerful force. The man responsible, a "pale student of unhallowed arts," fled in horror from his creation, leaving it to return to the dead matter from which it had been born. But the monster did not die. It followed the man to his bedside, where it stood watching him with "yellow, watery, but speculative eyes"--eyes of one who thought, and felt. The novel that Mary Shelley would go on to publish, the legend of Victor Frankenstein and his unholy creation, and their obsessive, murderous pursuit of each other from Switzerland to the North Pole, has been the stuff of nightmares for nearly two centuries. A masterpiece of Romantic literature, it is also one of the most enduring horror stories ever written. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Dracula
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The vampire novel that defined a genre by tapping into our deepest fears and darkest fantasies A junior solicitor travels to Transylvania to meet with an important client, the mysterious Count Dracula. Ignoring the dire warnings of local townsfolk, he allows himself to be seduced by the count's courtly manners and erudite charm. Too late, the solicitor realizes that he is a prisoner of Castle Dracula, his guards a trio of voluptuous young women with sharp white teeth and a taste for blood. Soon thereafter, the solicitor's fiancée, Mina, visits a friend on the English coast. The town is full of speculation over a Russian ship run aground nearby, its crew missing, the dead body of its captain, crucifix in hand, lashed to the wheel. A giant dog was seen leaping from the deck before disappearing into the countryside. The ship's cargo: fifty boxes of Transylvanian dirt. As the beautiful Mina will soon learn, Count Dracula has arrived. At once a Gothic reflection of the Victorian era and a timeless tale of sinister lust, Bram Stoker's Dracula has inspired countless adaptations--none with the same power to quicken the pulse as the original. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
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The most infamous of horror stories--a disturbing examination of man's capacity for evil One pitch-black London morning, a ghoulish little man tramples a young girl and continues heedlessly on his way. Caught by a passerby and returned to the scene of the crime, the man is forced to pay £100 in restitution. He produces ten pounds in gold and a check for the remainder. Curiously, the check bears the signature of the well-regarded Dr. Henry Jekyll. Even stranger, Dr. Jekyll's will names this same awful and mysterious little man, Mr. Hyde, as the sole beneficiary. Troubled by the coincidence, Dr. Jekyll's attorney visits his client. What he uncovers is a tale so strange and terrifying it has seeped into the very fabric of our consciousness. An immediate success upon its publication in 1886 and a cultural touchstone to this day,nbsp;The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hydenbsp;is one of the most disturbing stories ever told. nbsp; This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories
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This collection of sixteen short stories includes some of Edgar Allan Poe's most boundary-pushing and blood-chilling work. Selections range from "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," which launched the detective mystery genre, to "The Tell-Tale Heart," a Gothic classic about a murderer's overwhelming guilt. Discover tales of creatures that return from the dead, ghastly diseases that claim their victims within half an hour, and secret messages that lead to buried treasure. This curated compilation contains unabridged versions of the American author's finest tales; the short stories were originally published between 1832 and 1849.
Carmilla
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First serialized in the journal "The Dark Blue" and published shortly thereafter in the short story collection In a Glass Darkly, Le Fanu's 1872 vampire tale is in many ways the overlooked older sister of Bram Stoker's more acclaimed Dracula. A thrilling gothic tale, Carmilla tells the story of a young woman lured by the charms of a female vampire. This edition includes a student-oriented introduction, tracing the major critical responses to Carmilla, and four interdisciplinary essays by leading scholars who analyze the story from a variety of theoretical perspectives. Ranging from politics to gender, Gothicism to feminism, and nineteenth-century aestheticism to contemporary film studies, these critical yet accessible articles model the diverse ways that scholars can approach a single text. With a glossary, biography, bibliography, and explanatory notes on the text, this edition is ideal for students of Irish and British nineteenth-century literature.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
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Legend has it that the town of Sleepy Hollow is haunted by the ghost of the terrifying Headless Horseman. Ichabod Crane, the town's superstitious new school teacher, is about to find out if the legend is true. Ichabod has his heart set on marrying the beautiful heiress Katrina Van Tassel and acquiring her father's extravagant wealth. But local boy Brom Bones is also competing for her hand in marriage. He is willing to do just about anything to win her, including prey on Crane's overactive imagination. This is an unabridged version of one of American writer Washington Irving's most famous short stories, which gave rise to the American Gothic genre of writing. It was first published in 1820.
Turn of the Screw
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Set in 1840, a young governess agrees to look after two orphans, a boy and a girl, in Bly, a seemingly idyllic country house. But, shortly after her arrival, she realises that they are not alone. There are others - the ghosts of Bly's troubled past. The Governess will risk everything to keep the children safe, even if it means giving herself up to The Others. Years later, confronted by the past she is compelled to account for what actually happened to her and those under her protection. This fresh, thrilling adaptation of Henry James' much-loved and genre defining classic ghost story Turn of the Screw lets you draw your own conclusions about the events at Bly and where guilt resides.
At the Mountains of Madness
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This classic mind-shattering tale, which "ranks high among the horror stories of the English language," plunges into the darkness of the Cthulhu mythos ( Time). In the uncharted wastes of Antarctica, an exploration party from Miskatonic University encounters a gory sight when they discover their advance team's camp has been destroyed and its members slaughtered. There is no evidence of what happened except a series of burial mounds, six of which contain dead specimens of unknown species. Eight similar tombs are empty, but they haven't been broken into--they've been broken out of. What began as a search for knowledge soon becomes a terrifying confrontation with the true nature of the world and the universe in all its stark blackness and unyielding oblivion. For mankind is not--and never has been--the bright light of creation. It's all a mistake, an insignificant stain of existence, forgotten by an unwitting and indifferent creator . . . until now. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
'Salem's Lot
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Ben Mears has returned to Jerusalem’s Lot in hopes that exploring the history of the Marsten House, an old mansion long the subject of rumor and speculation, will help him cast out his personal devils and provide inspiration for his new book. "A master storyteller." —The Los Angeles TimesWhen two young boys venture into the woods, and only one returns alive, Mears begins to realize that something sinister is at work. In fact, his hometown is under siege from forces of darkness far beyond his imagination. And only he, with a small group of allies, can hope to contain the evil that is growing within the borders of this small New England town.With this, his second novel, Stephen King established himself as an indisputable master of American horror, able to transform the old conceits of the genre into something fresh and all the more frightening for taking place in a familiar, idyllic locale.
Interview with the Vampire
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Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly erotic, this is a novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force–a story of danger and flight, of love and loss, of suspense and resolution, and of the extraordinary power of the senses. It is a novel only Anne Rice could write.
The Mist
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#1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King's terrifying novella about a town engulfed in a dense, mysterious mist as humanity makes its last stand against unholy destruction--originally published in the acclaimed short story collection Skeleton Crew and made into a TV series, as well as a feature film starring Thomas Jane and Marcia Gay Harden. In the wake of a summer storm, terror descends...David Drayton, his son Billy, and their neighbor Brent Norton join dozens of others and head to the local grocery store to replenish supplies following a freak storm. Once there, they become trapped by a strange mist that has enveloped the town. As the confinement takes its toll on their nerves, a religious zealot, Mrs. Carmody, begins to play on their fears to convince them that this is God's vengeance for their sins. She insists a sacrifice must be made and two groups--those for and those against--are aligned. Clearly, staying in the store may prove fatal, and the Draytons, along with store employee Ollie Weeks, Amanda Dumfries, Irene Reppler, and Dan Miller, attempt to make their escape. But what's out there may be worse than what they left behind. This exhilarating novella explores the horror in both the enemy you know--and the one you can only imagine.ng with store employee Ollie Weeks, Amanda Dumfries, Irene Reppler, and Dan Miller, attempt to make their escape. But what's out there may be worse than what they left behind. This exhilarating novella explores the horror in both the enemy you know--and the one you can only imagine.ng with store employee Ollie Weeks, Amanda Dumfries, Irene Reppler, and Dan Miller, attempt to make their escape. But what's out there may be worse than what they left behind. This exhilarating novella explores the horror in both the enemy you know--and the one you can only imagine.ng with store employee Ollie Weeks, Amanda Dumfries, Irene Reppler, and Dan Miller, attempt to make their escape. But what's out there may be worse than what they left behind. This exhilarating novella explores the horror in both the enemy you know--and the one you can only imagine.
Tender Is the Flesh
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INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans--though no one calls them that anymore. His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the "Transition." Now, eating human meat--"special meat"--is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing. Then one day he's given a gift: a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he's aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost--and what might still be saved.
The Terror
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The "masterfully chilling" novel that inspired the hit AMC series (Entertainment Weekly). The men on board the HMS Terror -- part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage -- are entering a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, they struggle to survive with poisonous rations, a dwindling coal supply, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is even more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror clawing to get in. "The best and most unusual historical novel I have read in years." --Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe
You Like It Darker
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Includes a bonus story, "The Music Room" NAMED A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW TOP 10 HORROR BOOK OF 2024 WINNER OF THE GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD FOR HORROR FINALIST FOR THE 2025 LOCUS AWARDS "Stephen King knows You Like It Darker and obliges with sensational new tales" (USA TODAY): From legendary storyteller and master of short fiction Stephen King, an extraordinary collection of stories that are "a master class in tension and full of King''s dark humor" (The New York Times Book Review). "You like it darker? Fine, so do I," writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life--both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel "the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind," and in You Like It Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again. "Two Talented Bastids" explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In "Danny Coughlin''s Bad Dream," a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny''s most catastrophically. In "Rattlesnakes," a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance--with major strings attached. In "The Dreamers," a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. "The Answer Man" asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful. "King''s skills as a storyteller remain undimmed" (The Minnesota Star Tribune) and his ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace is unsurpassed. "The titular darkness promised is as riveting and all-consuming as ever" (New York magazine). You like it darker? You got it.re as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel "the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind," and in You Like It Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again. "Two Talented Bastids" explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In "Danny Coughlin''s Bad Dream," a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny''s most catastrophically. In "Rattlesnakes," a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance--with major strings attached. In "The Dreamers," a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. "The Answer Man" asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful. "King''s skills as a storyteller remain undimmed" (The Minnesota Star Tribune) and his ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace is unsurpassed. "The titular darkness promised is as riveting and all-consuming as ever" (New York magazine). You like it darker? You got it.Star Tribune) and his ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace is unsurpassed. "The titular darkness promised is as riveting and all-consuming as ever" (New York magazine). You like it darker? You got it.re as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel "the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind," and in You Like It Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again. "Two Talented Bastids" explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In "Danny Coughlin''s Bad Dream," a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny''s most catastrophically. In "Rattlesnakes," a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance--with major strings attached. In "The Dreamers," a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. "The Answer Man" asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful. "King''s skills as a storyteller remain undimmed" (The Minnesota Star Tribune) and his ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace is unsurpassed. "The titular darkness promised is as riveting and all-consuming as ever" (New York magazine). You like it darker? You got it.re as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel "the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind," and in You Like It Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again. "Two Talented Bastids" explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In "Danny Coughlin''s Bad Dream," a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny''s most catastrophically. In "Rattlesnakes," a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance--with major strings attached. In "The Dreamers," a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. "The Answer Man" asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful. "King''s skills as a storyteller remain undimmed" (The Minnesota Star Tribune) and his ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace is unsurpassed. "The titular darkness promised is as riveting and all-consuming as ever" (New York magazine). You like it darker? You got it.Star Tribune) and his ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace is unsurpassed. "The titular darkness promised is as riveting and all-consuming as ever" (New York magazine). You like it darker? You got it.Star Tribune) and his ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace is unsurpassed. "The titular darkness promised is as riveting and all-consuming as ever" (New York magazine). You like it darker? You got it.re as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel "the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind," and in You Like It Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again. "Two Talented Bastids" explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In "Danny Coughlin''s Bad Dream," a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny''s most catastrophically. In "Rattlesnakes," a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance--with major strings attached. In "The Dreamers," a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. "The Answer Man" asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful. "King''s skills as a storyteller remain undimmed" (The Minnesota Star Tribune) and his ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace is unsurpassed. "The titular darkness promised is as riveting and all-consuming as ever" (New York magazine). You like it darker? You got it.Star Tribune) and his ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace is unsurpassed. "The titular darkness promised is as riveting and all-consuming as ever" (New York magazine). You like it darker? You got it.e universe best left unexplored. "The Answer Man" asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful. "King''s skills as a storyteller remain undimmed" (The Minnesota Star Tribune) and his ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace is unsurpassed. "The titular darkness promised is as riveting and all-consuming as ever" (New York magazine). You like it darker? You got it.Star Tribune) and his ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace is unsurpassed. "The titular darkness promised is as riveting and all-consuming as ever" (New York magazine). You like it darker? You got it.
