The Haunted Library : Tales of Cursed Books and Forbidden Shelves

by Kirk, Tanya | Classic horror & ghost stories
Published 13/11/2025 by British Library Publishing in the United Kingdom as part of the British Library Tales of the Weird series
Paperback | 256 pages, Illustrations
189 x 131 x 21mm | 222g

As he turned over its stiff and yellow pages, he noticed with pleasure the smell of corruption that had first repelled him in these decaying volumes, a smell, he now thought, of ancient and secret knowledge... Researchers prying into an obscure manuscript come face to face with its ghoulish guardian. A bookseller digging through an attic disturbs something far more dangerous than dust. An uncanny tome tempts its reader onto a path of untold evil. Welcome to The Haunted Library, a collection of fourteen tales steeped in the dark psychic traces found in the stacks and shelves of libraries, bookshops, and other troves of hidden knowledge. Including stories from rare pulp magazines, classics from the minds of M. R. James, L. P. Hartley and Margaret Irwin, and modern chillers from Penelope Lively and C. J. Faraday, this volume invites you into a hushed realm of cursed authors, ghostly bibliophiles, and readers haunted by the weird powers of the written word.