Legends abound on Mount Misery, perhaps none so popular as those of the asylums which supposedly stood there in the past. Take a look at the facts and decide for yourself, the truth behind one of Long Island’s most famous urban legends, from the Gothic Curiosity Cabinet.
True Confessions: In which the author relates his own encounters in the land of Sleepy Hollow
Above: The shot I was taking in Washington Irving’s Sunnyside when the lady laughed. People are always asking me if I believe these stories, they say “Todd” … That’s neither here nor there. But I will offer up a couple of experiences I’ve had, both coming from the Sleepy Hollow area of New York.
Glassic Gothic Ghost Stories: Beyond the Wall of Sleep by H.P. Lovecraft
Building 93, KIng’s Park Psychiatric Hospital, Long Island, New York Growing up in the seventies, we were more likely to equate the title of this short story to Black Sabbath than to H.P. Lovecraft. A song by that same title appeared on their debut album, Black Sabbath in 1970. Much has been written about a […]
Gothic Horror Stories: The Empty House by Algernon Blackwood
Algernon Blackwood was one of the most prolific writers of gothic horror stories, particularly ghost stories, including both novels and short stories. No less a personage than H.P. Lovecraft named Blackwood as one of his inspirations. As a young man he moved from his native England to the United States, working in a variety of […]
Is it really the House of the Seven Gables? Perhaps, perhaps not. Either way the Turner-Ingersoll mansion in Salem breathes New England history
“Halfway down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. The street is Pyncheon Street; the house is the old Pyncheon House; and an elm-tree, of wide circumference, rooted […]
A historic home in Salem finds its way into Lovecraft’s fiction
“I lied when I said she had gone away. I killed her. I had to. It was sudden, but we were alone and I was in my right body. I saw a candlestick and smashed her head in. She would have got me for good at Hallowmass. I buried her in the farther cellar storeroom under […]