A hefty collection of short stories, all linked by the fact that they were inspirations for episodes of late-night horror on television programmes such as The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. And there's probably something for everyone here - the range in stories is massive, and it doesn't confine itself by genre. Some are based in science fiction, for example E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops" or (one of my favourites) "William and Mary" by Roald Dahl. Some are more fantasy focused, such as "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs, and some have no speculative element at all, such as "The Kiss of Blood" by Arthur Conan Doyle. A lot of these stories I've read before, and apart from the Dahl I retain a continued fondness for "The Doll" by Richard Matheson and the horribly creepy "Gramma" by Stephen King.

Most of the included stories are genuinely disturbing, albeit a little old-fashioned; if there's one aspect of this book that's less broad in range than it could be it's the protagonists, a large proportion of whom seem to be functionally identical Oxbridge types. But the collection's decades old at this point, and some of the entries were written over a century ago, so it's not really surprising that it's a bit dated. Still, as an anthology of classics it's genuinely entertaining.