The Dark Masters Of Halloween: 25 authors, 25 classic stories, to celebrate the night of the dead.

All Saints day: All Hallows Day: Halloween. Children dress up and go trick or treating but those of us who have given up on these childish things still have the urge to be frightened.

Fear comes with these tales. Some are peopled with ghouls and phantoms who rise to walk the earth – some feature men and women of wanton evil, of dark thoughts and darker deeds but some are just like you and me, whose innocence does not escape their blood curdling terror, and whose circumstance does not mitigate their horrifying fate.

From the oh so normal every day to the supernatural happenings of other times, other dimensions.

Amongst our purveyors of deceit, dread and death are Lovecraft, Poe, Stoker, M R James, Saki, Edith Nesbit, Mary Shelley, Blackwood, Dickens who use their rabid pens of painful words to wound our senses in varied, un-ending and mysterious ways.

Their stories may be plausible; a guest given shelter, a friend in need but know this - their currency is fear and their motive might be dark, grotesque and dangerous.

Their target? Well, that’s rather obvious now. Isn’t it?