Priestley's Tales

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving

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

Carmilla, J. Sheridan Le Fanu

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. Upon a paper attached to the Narrative which follows,

And They Lived Unhappily Ever After: The Anti-Fairy Tale

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

Elisheva Bennet, Sylph

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

Gerechtigkeit ist blind

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

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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