J.P. Priestley is currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing in Wales. His main writing interests include Weird and New Weird fiction, haunting texts, and horror (especially folk horror).
News
You are visiting Priestley's Tales of the Unexpected, featuring dark and unconventional stories that twist the familiar into the uncanny... * Tales of horror, both mainstream and folk. * Visitations to the world of the weird, including New Weird. * Haunting and supernatural tales. * Speculative excursions. * A soupçon, or more, of
Short Story
Never had I so longed to possess the power of precognition. Were it the case, then I would have foreseen upon waking that by eleven o’clock, destiny had appointed this day and time to have me staring at the flaking, corporation brown gloss paint of another’s closed front
As an ardent student of Greek mythology, Jacky De’Ath had long ago concluded that the Moirai—the trinity of goddesses more commonly known as The Fates—had spun and fashioned their web of destiny so intricately and tightly that they would compel her to adopt a life of criminality.
Short Story
[Trigger warning: physical and psychological abuse. Language] Although only nine years of age and small framed, Jack was a sturdy and tough little character who appeared to possess an inexhaustible supply of energy and strength. As such, he was still of the age where this boundless get-up-and-go meant he needed
Public Domain
[The following is part of the introduction to the 1910 horror novella, The Wendigo, by the English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, Algernon Henry Blackwood. The story was first published in The Lost Valley and Other Stories (Eveleigh Nash, 1910). Members of Priestley's Tales of
Public Domain
[The following is part of the introduction to the 1850 short story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by the American author Washington Irving. He wrote it while living in Birmingham, England, and it was included in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., his collection of thirty-four essays and short
Public Domain
[The following is part of the prologue introduction to the 1872 Gothic novella, Carmilla, by the Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu. It is one of the earliest known works of vampire fiction, predating Bram Stoker's Dracula by twenty-five years. Members of Priestley's Tales of the Unexpected
Essays
Introduction In one of the most well-known high fantasy adventure novels of all time, The Lord of the Rings by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, The Lady Galadriel says about the Ring passing out of knowledge that ‘History (of it) became legend, legend became myth.’ We give legend and myth oral
Flash Fiction
Author’s Note: The following piece of flash fiction is my re-imagination of a small part of Jane Austen’s 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice (taken from Volume II, Chapter IX, pages 136-138 from the 2004 Oxford World’s Classics edition).[1] In my story, Elisheva Bennet signifies the delightfully
Flash Fiction
Gerechtigkeit ist blind (Justice is blind) Author’s Note: My inspiration for this piece came from a long-held, fond memory of an episode from The Twilight Zone, featuring the American actor Burgess Meredith, who died in 1997 aged 89—described one of the most accomplished and virtuosic actors of the