Contents (view Concise Listing)

• ix • Preface (The Nightmare Reader) • essay by Peter Haining (variant of Editor's Preface (The Nightmare Reader))
• xiii • What Hath Light Wrought? • essay by Isaac Asimov
• 1 • The Midnight Embrace • (1796) • short story by Matthew Gregory Lewis [as by Matthew Lewis]
• 13 • The Transformation • (1830) • short story by Mary Shelley
• 33 • The Bold Dragoon • [Strange Stories by a Nervous Gentleman] • (1824) • short story by Washington Irving
• 43 • Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow • (1821) • short story by Thomas De Quincey
• 51 • The Magician • (1973) • short fiction by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (variant of The Tale of Kosem Kesamim, the Magician 1835) [as by Lord Lytton]
• 69 • Berenice • (1850) • short story by Edgar Allan Poe (variant of Berenice—A Tale 1835)
• 79 • The Drunkard's Dream • [The Purcell Papers • 3] • (1838) • short story by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
• 95 • The Man in the Reservoir • (1945) • short story by Charles Fenno Hoffman (variant of Ben Blower's Story 1842) [as by C. F. Hoffman]
• 105 • Haceldama • (1875) • essay by Lafcadio Hearn
• 119 • The Ensouled Violin • (1892) • novelette by Helena P. Blavatsky [as by Madame Blavatsky]
• 149 • Visions of the Night • (1887) • essay by Ambrose Bierce
• 157 • The Soldiers' Rest • (1914) • short story by Arthur Machen
• 163 • The Bureau d'Echange de Maux • (1915) • short story by Lord Dunsany
• 169 • The Silver Mirror • (1972) • short story by Arthur Conan Doyle [as by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]
• 181 • The Testament of Magdalen Blair • (1913) • novelette by Aleister Crowley
• 211 • A Dream of Armageddon • (1901) • novelette by H. G. Wells
• 239 • A School Story • (1911) • short story by M. R. James
• 247 • The Grimoire • (1936) • short story by Montague Summers
• 271 • The Evil Clergyman • (1939) • short story by H. P. Lovecraft
• 277 • The Slayers and the Slain • (1949) • short story by August Derleth
• 287 • The Shifting Growth • (1962) • short story by John Gawsworth and Edgar Jepson [as by John Gawsworth]
• 293 • Along Came a Spider • (1951) • essay by Algernon Blackwood
• 299 • The Head Hunter • (1950) • short story by Robert Bloch (variant of Head Man)
• 319 • The Haunting of the New • [The Irish Stories] • (1969) • short story by Ray Bradbury
• 337 • The Curse • (1946) • short story by Arthur C. Clarke