50 Fun Facts About Horror Books

Which volcano's eruption caused the dismal 1816 summer when Frankenstein began as a ghost-story contest?

Mount Tambora erupted in Indonesia in 1815 and cooled the whole planet the following year. Kept indoors by the endless rain near Geneva, Lord Byron and his guests passed the time inventing scary tales.

Which Stephen King debut novel did his wife, Tabitha, rescue from the trash after he gave up?

Carrie survived because Tabitha King fished its first three pages out of the bin and talked him into finishing. The couple were living in a trailer in Maine with two children at the time.

In which city was Dracula author Bram Stoker born and later educated at Trinity College?

Dublin kept him busy long before the Count did: Stoker spent ten years as a civil servant there while reviewing plays for an evening newspaper on the side.

In which Thomas Harris novel did the cannibal psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter make his first appearance?

Red Dragon gave him only a small role in 1981, advising an FBI profiler from his cell. Its first film version, Manhunter, cast Brian Cox and spelled the name Lecktor.

Which Stephen King novel about a doctor's family in rural Maine has the author said scared him the most?

Pet Sematary grew out of a real loss: a truck killed his daughter's cat on the busy road beside their rented Maine house. Days after burying it, King wondered what would happen if it came back.

Which Scottish author said the plot of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde came to him in a dream?

Robert Louis Stevenson was woken mid-nightmare by his wife and complained that she had interrupted a fine bogey tale. He is said to have burned the first draft and started again.

Which lanky schoolmaster is chased by the Headless Horseman in Washington Irving's tale of Sleepy Hollow?

Ichabod Crane vanishes after the chase, leaving behind only his hat and a smashed pumpkin. The pumpkin hints that the ghostly rider was a rival for his sweetheart playing a trick.

Which Shakespeare play supplied the title of Ray Bradbury's carnival novel Something Wicked This Way Comes?

Macbeth supplied it: the phrase is spoken by one of the witches as the murderous king draws near. Bradbury's story brings a sinister travelling show to a small Illinois town in October.

Which Robert Bloch novel about a motel keeper and his domineering mother became an Alfred Hitchcock film?

Psycho was almost finished when killer Ed Gein was arrested just 35 miles from Bloch's home, so Bloch slipped in a line alluding to him. The film followed the book within a year.

Which author, married to a Romantic poet, first published Frankenstein anonymously with a preface he had written?

Mary Shelley began the story at 18 and was only 20 when it reached the shops. Her own name did not appear on the book until later editions.

Which fictional Colorado hotel does Jack Torrance look after for the winter in Stephen King's The Shining?

The Overlook was born when King and his wife checked into the real Stanley Hotel in Estes Park in October 1974. On film, its exterior was a lodge on Oregon's Mount Hood.

Which name does the shape-shifting monster use when appearing as a clown in Stephen King's novel It?

Pennywise the Dancing Clown is only a lure for children. The creature wakes roughly every 27 years to feed on the town of Derry, and its final form is closer to a giant spider.

Which former nurse holds injured novelist Paul Sheldon captive in her farmhouse in Stephen King's Misery?

Annie Wilkes came to King in a dream during a flight across the Atlantic. He planned to release the book under a pen name, but his secret identity was exposed before it came out.

Which William Peter Blatty novel about an actress's daughter in Georgetown was inspired by a real 1949 case?

The Exorcist grew from a case Blatty heard about while he was a student at Georgetown University. He went on to write the film's screenplay himself and won an Oscar for it.

Which New Orleans-born author introduced the vampire Lestat in the 1976 novel Interview with the Vampire?

Anne Rice wrote it soon after her young daughter Michele died of leukaemia. The child vampire Claudia, forever trapped at the age of a little girl, was inspired by her.

Which Oscar Wilde character stays young and handsome while his hidden portrait ages and records his sins?

Dorian Gray is the hero of the only novel Wilde ever wrote. He rashly begs for the painting to grow old in his place, and gets exactly what he asked for.

Which Goosebumps author has been called the Stephen King of children's literature?

R. L. Stine started out in comedy, writing joke books for children under the name Jovial Bob. His scary series went on to sell more than 400 million copies around the world.

Which 15th-century Wallachian prince is often named as a model for Bram Stoker's Count Dracula?

Vlad the Impaler may have lent the Count little more than a name. The idea that the two are one and the same was put forward only decades after the novel came out.

Which Max Brooks novel tells the story of a global zombie outbreak through interviews with survivors?

World War Z borrowed its format from Studs Terkel's oral history of the Second World War. Its author is the son of comedy director Mel Brooks and actress Anne Bancroft.

Which Jay Anson bestseller tells of the Lutz family fleeing a Long Island home after 28 days?

The Amityville Horror was sold as a true story, but its claims have led to controversy and lawsuits. About a year before the Lutzes arrived, Ronald DeFeo Jr. had shot six of his family there.

Which fictional book of forbidden lore did H. P. Lovecraft credit to the so-called Mad Arab, Abdul Alhazred?

Necronomicon sounded so convincing that Lovecraft had to state plainly that he had invented both the book and its author. The supposed writer's name is not even grammatical Arabic.

Which American author wrote The Haunting of Hill House, a finalist for the National Book Award?

Shirley Jackson got the idea from reading about 19th-century psychic researchers who studied a home they thought was full of spirits. She said that she believed in ghosts herself.

Which Richard Matheson novel about a lone survivor of a vampire pandemic was filmed as The Omega Man?

I Am Legend also reached cinemas as The Last Man on Earth and, in 2007, under its own title. Its plague-born undead helped to shape the modern zombie story.

Which Henry James novella follows a governess who believes ghosts haunt two children at a country house, Bly?

The Turn of the Screw was written to order as a twelve-part ghost story for an illustrated magazine. Later critics argued that the spirits exist only in the governess's mind.

At which English seaside town does Count Dracula's ship run aground in Bram Stoker's novel?

Whitby got the part because Stoker holidayed there in 1890 and did research in its library. In the book a large dog leaps ashore from the wreck, whose dead captain is tied to the helm.

Under which pen name did Stephen King publish Thinner before a bookstore clerk exposed the secret?

Richard Bachman existed because publishers thought readers would accept only one book a year from an author. Thinner sold ten times as many copies once the truth was out.

Which Neil Gaiman novella features an Other Mother who wants to sew buttons over a girl's eyes?

Coraline won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novella. Its villain, also known as the Beldam, has already lured three earlier children into her copy of the real world.

Which cursed object kills whoever views it within a week in Koji Suzuki's Japanese novel Ring?

A videotape of strange, dreamlike scenes ends with a warning that the viewer has one week to live. A journalist finds it at a resort where a group of dead teenagers had stayed.

What must survivors wear outdoors to stay alive in Josh Malerman's debut novel Bird Box?

Blindfolds are the only defence against creatures that drive anyone who sees them to violent madness. The heroine even takes two children down a river without looking.

Which breed of dog is the rabid title animal of Stephen King's novel Cujo?

A Saint Bernard, Cujo catches rabies when a bat bites him on the nose. King has said he barely remembers writing the book, which dates from his heaviest drinking years.

Which author of Rosemary's Baby also wrote The Stepford Wives and The Boys from Brazil?

Ira Levin later said he felt guilty that his tale of Manhattan Satanists had opened the door to a flood of devil stories. He also wrote Deathtrap, a record-breaking Broadway comedy thriller.

Which Charlotte Perkins Gilman story of a woman's breakdown drew on the rest cure she was prescribed herself?

The Yellow Wallpaper was aimed squarely at the famous doctor who had ordered her to stay in bed and give up work. Gilman posted him a copy of the story but never received a reply.

Which Ghost Story novelist co-wrote The Talisman and its sequel Black House with Stephen King?

Peter Straub and King were long-time friends who wrote the two books 17 years apart. King later said that the pair had plans for a third volume.

Which bestselling author created Odd Thomas, a short-order cook who can see the spirits of the dead?

Dean Koontz once published up to eight books a year under a string of pen names. He even credited books to Trixie, his golden retriever.

Which author of Rebecca wrote the short story behind Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds?

Daphne du Maurier set her version in her home county of Cornwall, just after the Second World War. Its hero is a farmhand who spots tens of thousands of gulls waiting on the waves.

What does the cursed talisman grant its owner in W. W. Jacobs's short story The Monkey's Paw?

Three wishes come at a terrible price. The first, a casual request for £200, is followed a day later by news that the family's grown son has been killed in an accident at work.

Which French journalist wrote the novel The Phantom of the Opera, set in the Palais Garnier in Paris?

Gaston Leroux built the plot on real rumours about the building. Even the underground lake is genuine: it is a huge water tank beneath the opera house where firefighters train to swim in the dark.

Which Edgar Allan Poe tale traps its narrator in a dungeon of the Spanish Inquisition in Toledo?

The Pit and the Pendulum ends with a last-second rescue by the French army. Before that, the prisoner dodges the blade by smearing his straps with meat so that rats gnaw through them.

Which Greek Titan is named in the subtitle of the 1818 novel Frankenstein?

Prometheus, in some versions of the myth, created humans himself, a neat match for a scientist who builds a living man. The phrase echoes Kant's nickname for Benjamin Franklin, earned by his electrical experiments.

Which V. C. Andrews novel follows the four Dollanganger children hidden away by their mother and grandmother?

Flowers in the Attic sold more than 4.5 million copies even though it has been banned many times for its forbidden romance. It was the first in a series about the same family.

Which Sheridan Le Fanu novella about a female vampire in Styria appeared 25 years before Dracula?

Carmilla is narrated by Laura, a young woman in a secluded Austrian home whose charming guest turns out to be the predator. It first ran as a magazine serial.

Which Horace Walpole tale, first passed off as an old Italian manuscript, is regarded as the first Gothic novel?

The Castle of Otranto first claimed to be a translation of a book printed in Naples in 1529. Walpole had invented the Italian author and hid behind a made-up translator's name.

Which young physician to Lord Byron wrote The Vampyre, the tale that introduced the suave Lord Ruthven?

John Polidori built it on a story Byron told during the same lakeside contest that produced Frankenstein. Who wrote it stayed muddled for years, despite repeated denials from both men.

Which Clive Barker novella introduced the Cenobites, demons summoned by solving a mystical puzzle box?

The Hellbound Heart became the film Hellraiser a year later, with Barker himself writing and directing. Its lead demon has no name in the book: the film crew nicknamed him Pinhead.

Which Jane Austen novel pokes fun at Gothic chillers such as Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho?

Northanger Abbey was sold to a London bookseller for £10 in 1803 but sat unpublished. Austen's brother bought it back for the same sum, and it reached readers only after her death.

Which Mark Z. Danielewski debut novel is known for nested footnotes and pages holding only a few words?

House of Leaves took ten years to write, while its author paid the bills as a tutor, barista and plumber. Its story concerns a family home that measures bigger inside than outside.

Which pulp magazine first printed H. P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu and most Conan the Barbarian stories?

Weird Tales hit money trouble within a year of starting, and its publisher asked Lovecraft himself to take over as editor. He weighed the offer for months, and nothing came of it.

What shape is the trophy given to winners of the Horror Writers Association's Bram Stoker Awards?

A haunted house eight inches tall goes to each winner. Its front door swings open to reveal a brass plaque engraved with the name of the winning work and its author.

Which Susan Hill ghost story sends solicitor Arthur Kipps to the remote Eel Marsh House?

The Woman in Black became a stage play that ran for 13,232 performances in London. The house in the book sits on a tidal island, reached by a path called Nine Lives Causeway.

Which nickname was given to cheap Victorian serials such as Varney the Vampire and The String of Pearls?

Penny dreadfuls were sold in weekly parts at a penny each. One of them introduced the murderous barber Sweeney Todd, and Varney was the first vampire tale to mention sharpened teeth.