A Catalogue of Horror

A Ranker's List with Slight Modifications and Deletions

You may not agree with its rankings, but Ranker does include a lot more horror writers than any individual, even a fan of horror him- or herself, might know; you may or may not agree, too, that all of these authors really are horror writers—does having written only one or two horror stories among one's many other works classify an author as a horror writer? Anyway, here's the list, along with, in a few cases, the mention of one of the writer's better or lesser-known works:

Robert Aickman

• Aickman, Robert
• Andrews, V. C. (Flowers in the Attic)

Ian Banks

• Banks, Iain
• Barker, Clive
• Beaumont, Charles
• Bierce, Ambrose (“The Boarded Window,” “The Damned Thing”)
• Blackwood, Algernon
• Blatty, William Peter (The Exorcist)
• Bloch, Robert (Psycho)
• Bradbury, Ray (“Heavy-Set,” “The Veldt”)
• Brite, Poppy Z.

Ramsey Campbell

• Campbell, Ramsey
• Chambers, Robert W.
• Clark, Simon
• Clegg, Douglas

Walter del la Mare

• del la Mare, Walter
• Derleth, August
• Dickens, Charles (“The Signal-man”) (although Ranker fails to list him and Dickens wrote only this one ghost story—unless we count A Christmas Carol—his “Signal-man” seems, by Ranker's criteria, to qualify him)
• Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan
• du Maurier, Daphne (“The Birds”)

 Harlan Elison

• Ellison, Harlan
• Etchison, Dennis

John Farris

• Farris, John

Ray Garton

• Garton, Ray
• Gilman, Charlotte Perkins (“The Yellow Wallpaper)
• Gonzalez, J. F.
• Grant, Charles L.

Thomas Harris

• Harris, Thomas
• Haurtala, Rick
• Hawthorne, Nathaniel (although Ranker doesn't list him, I do, because, obviously, Hawthorne belongs on any list of horror writers)
• Herbert, James
• Highsmith, Patricia
• Hill, Joe
• Hodgson, William Hope
• Howard, Robert E.

Shirley Jackson

Jackson, Shirley (“One Ordinary Day with Peanuts”)

James, Henry (The Turn of the Screw and “The Jolly Corner”)

James, M. R.

Stephen King

•  King, Stephen
• Klein, T. E. D.
• Koonz, Dean

Joe R. Lansdale

• Lansdale, Joe R.
• Laymon, Richard
• Le Fanu, Sheridan
• Lebbon, Tom
• Leroux, Gaston
• Levin, Ira
• Lewis, Matthew Gregory (The Monk)
• Ligotti, Thomas
• Little, Bentley
• Long, Frank Belknap
• Lovecraft, H. P.
• Lumley, Brian

 

Jonathan Maberry

• Maberry, Jonathan
• Machen, Arthur
• Massie, Elizabeth
• Masterson, Graham
• Matheson, Richard
• McCammon, Robert R.

 Adam Nevill

• Nevill, Adam

 

 Thomas Piccirilli

•  Piccirilli, Thomas
• Poe, Edgar Allan (“Hop-Frog,” “King Pest”)
• Preston, Douglas and Lincoln Child (Relic and Still Life with Crows) (although Preston and Child don't make Ranker's list, they should, because, obviously, they belong on any list of horror writers)

Anne Rice

•  Rice, Anne

John Saul

• Saul, John
• Shelley, Mary
• Shirley, John
• Simmons, Dan (Summer of Night)
• Skipp, John and Craig Spector (The Light at the End)
• Smith, Clark Ashton
• Stevenson, Robert Louis
• Stine, R. L.
• Stoker, Bram (“Dracula's Guest”)
• Straub, Peter
• Strieber, Whitney

 Rabindranath Tagore

• Tagore, Rabindranath (“The Hungry Stones”) (although Ranker doesn't list him, I do, because, obviously, Tagore belongs on any list of horror writers)
• Tem, Melanie
• Tuttle, Lisa

 Horace Walpole

• Walpole, Horace
• Wellman, Manly Wade
• Wells, H. G. (“The Red Room,” “The Cone”)
• Wilde, Oscar (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
• Williamson, Chett
• Wilson, F. Paul
• Wyndham, John

 Chelsea Quinn

• Yarbro, Chelsea Quinn