Reading for Halloween

Ghost stories,
A1 to C1.

Fourteen classics of the haunted and the uncanny, sorted by how hard the English is. Every one is the original text, complete and free, with no account and no simplified retelling.

Tap any word you do not know and its meaning appears. That is what makes a real ghost story readable at A2: not shorter sentences, but help with the words inside them.

A11 textA1–A23 textsA22 textsB1–B21 textB25 textsB2–C12 texts

New this month · B1 to C1

Four books added for Halloween, from the funniest ghost in English to the one nobody can agree about.

The Canterville Ghost

Wilde

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Irving

Carmilla

Fanu

The Turn of the Screw

James

The Canterville GhostOscar Wilde, 1887The funniest ghost story in English, and one of the shortest. Seven chapters, and the ghost is the one who ends up frightened.B1–B2 · 7 chapters · 41p · ~1hRead →The Legend of Sleepy HollowWashington Irving, 1820The original American ghost story. One long sitting, and the last page leaves the question open on purpose.B2 · 1 chapter · 44p · ~1hRead →CarmillaJoseph Sheridan Le Fanu, 1872The vampire novel that came twenty-six years before Dracula, and shaped it. Short chapters, and it never once explains itself.B2 · 16 chapters · 101p · ~2hRead →The Turn of the ScrewHenry James, 1898The hardest English on this shelf and the most rewarding. Long sentences, nothing stated outright, and no comfortable ending.B2–C1 · 24 chapters · 145p · ~3hRead →

Finish it tonight · A1 to A2

Start here if English is still hard work. None of these takes more than an hour, and a ghost story you put down half-read stops being frightening.

The Open WindowSakiA nervous visitor is told why the window is left open, and does not stay long enough to ask questions.A1–A2 · 1,208 words · 10 min · audio · easy versionRead →Kate CrackernutsCollected by Joseph JacobsA queen's spell turns her stepdaughter's head into a sheep's head, and it is her own daughter Kate who sets out to undo it.A1 · 1,219 words · 10 min · audioRead →The Tell-Tale HeartEdgar Allan PoeThe narrator insists he is not mad, and explains, very calmly and in order, how he watched an old man sleep for seven nights and what he did on the eighth.A1–A2 · 2,076 words · 17 minRead →The Monkey's PawW. W. JacobsA sergeant-major brings back a charm that grants three wishes to three men, and warns them to leave it alone. The family wishes for a small, sensible sum of money.A1–A2 · 2,660 words · 22 minRead →Dracula's GuestBram StokerAn English traveller leaves Munich against everybody's advice, on the one night of the year when the dead are said to walk, and takes shelter in the wrong place.A2 · 4,877 words · 41 minRead →The Signal-ManCharles DickensA man calls down from the top of a railway cutting, and the signal-man below looks the wrong way before answering. He has heard those words before, and not from a living voice.A2 · 5,084 words · 42 minRead →

The big ones · B2 to C1

Already here, as part of the twelve-book reading plan. Longer than an evening, and all four are shorter than their reputation.

The Yellow Wallpaper

Gilman

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Stevenson

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Wilde

Frankenstein

Shelley

The Yellow WallpaperCharlotte Perkins GilmanA very short, very famous story about a woman, a quiet house, and what she begins to see in the walls. Forty pages. Read in one sitting.B2 · 40p · ~1hRead →The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr HydeRobert Louis StevensonA short gothic novella that gave the language a phrase for the divided self. Pacy, tightly plotted, modern in its anxieties.B2 · 90p · ~2hRead →The Picture of Dorian GrayOscar WildeA novel about beauty, vanity, and what they cost. By the master of the perfect sentence.B2–C1 · 250p · ~5hRead →FrankensteinMary ShelleyThe original modern horror novel, written when its author was nineteen. About creation, responsibility, and what we make.B2 · 280p · ~5hRead →

Questions

Which Halloween story should I read at A1 or A2?

Start with Kate Crackernuts, a folk tale of about 1,200 words at A1. After that the short stories at A1 to A2 take fifteen to twenty minutes each: The Open Window, The Tell-Tale Heart and The Monkey’s Paw. Dracula’s Guest and The Signal-Man sit at A2 and take about forty minutes.

Are these simplified versions?

No. Every text here is the original, complete and unedited, because in horror the fear is built out of the sentences. What makes them readable at a lower level is the support around them: tap any word for its meaning, and read a chapter at a time.

What is the easiest whole book for Halloween?

The Canterville Ghost at B1 to B2, about forty pages in seven short chapters. It is a comedy rather than a horror story: the ghost tries to frighten an American family, and they offer him machine oil for his squeaking chains.

Do I need an account?

No. Every text on this page is free to read in full with no sign-up, and each one has a quiz at the end if you want to check what you understood.

Why these

Most Halloween reading written for English learners is a retelling: the plot survives, the writing does not. That is a poor trade in horror, where the fear is made of sentences. A simplified Turn of the Screw is not a shorter version of the book, it is a different book, and a much less frightening one.

So everything here is the original, and the help sits around the text instead of inside it. About 288 thousand words in all, from a folk tale you can read in ten minutes to Frankenstein.

Ghost stories,A1 to C1.