Spooky Books for a Horrifying Halloween!

Happy Halloween to all you ghosts and ghouls out there! In honor of this fantastic holiday, Cosimo would like to present our authors who are experts on all things unknown, creepy, and unnatural. 

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

Ichabod Crane, a schoolteacher, came to Tarry Town in the glen of Sleepy Hollow to ply his trade in educating young minds. He was a gullible and excitable fellow, often so terrified by locals' stories of ghosts that he would hurry through the woods on his way home, singing to keep from hysterics. Among these stories was the legend of the Galloping Hessian, the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow. Readers of all ages will enjoy this classic American short story about courtship, rivalry, and ghosts. 

Mythical Monsters by Charles Gould

A geological surveyor by trade, English author Charles Gould was rather more interested in the strange ornithological specimens he collected on his journeys around the world. Mythical Monsters, the result of this deep and abiding fascination, is one of the classics of the field of cryptozoology, or the study of unknown or hidden creatures.  Monsters also features an essential section on the mysterious beasts of the ocean depths. Cosimo's edition is a replica of the original 1886 first edition complete with the original illustrations.



The Man Who Knew Too Much by G. K. Chesterton

This 1922 collection of eight short mysteries includes all the stories starring the unlikely detective Horne Fisher, a man cut from the upper crust of Britain whose in-depth knowledge of the nation's powermongers often curtails his investigations into corruption at the highest levels of government. In this volume readers can find the short stories titles: "The Face in the Target," "The Vanishing Prince," "The Soul of the Schoolboy," "The Bottomless Well," "The Fad of the Fisherman," "The Hole in the Wall," "The Temple of Silence," and "The Vengeance of the Statue."

Mothman and Other Curious Encounters by Loren Coleman 

A Hollywood blockbuster, an amazing documentary, and thousands of web pages in its honor. What's the fuss? In a word -- Mothman! A famous investigator examines the reports of this huge, red-eyed creature with wings seen over Point Pleasant, West Virginia on November 15, 1966 and the spawn of what would become known as Mothman seen before and after the famous sighting.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

It is perhaps one of the best known and most influential novels in all of literature: Dracula didn't merely inspire countless adaptations for stage and film, it invented an entire genre of horror -- the vampire story, which continues to evolve today into wildly varied directions. Anyone who wants to know where it all began must read this 1897 work, still startling and still terrifying even today. The story of English solicitor Jonathan Harker and his strange new client, Transylvanian aristocrat Count Dracula, this is the classic work of Victorian gothic horror, the continuing eerie wellspring of many of our cultural fantasies and nightmares. 

Whether you decide on aliens, monsters, or headless horsemen, we wish you all a safe and happy All Hallows Eve from everyone at Cosimo!

For a complete list of all things eerie and chilling, visit our cryptozoology, mystery, mythology & folklore, and UFO pages on our website.