MY TOP FIVE GHOST STORIES BY ADAM NEVILL

This list was almost impossible to define, a top 20 would have been hard enough, but I’ll choose those stories that really made me want to write horror and also influenced me imaginatively, and stylistically.

THE BECKONING FAIR ONE by Oliver Onions
Physical, mental, emotional and psychic collapses are subjects I am very interested in bringing to characters in my horror, and this story features the one that inspired me the most for a long time.Apartment 16 is also influenced by this great and ahead-of-its-time story.

WAILING WELL by M R James
I think that each time I write a scene featuring the supernatural, M R James is probably sub-consciously looking over my shoulder. From childhood, this writer has had the biggest influence on me – he built the first wheel on my wagon. The ghosts in this story really got to me, and stayed with me. If nothing else, I’d like to think M R James may have had, at least, a grudging respect for my own meddling with ghosts.

INTO THE WOOD by Robert Aickman
There are few of this writer’s stories that I don’t love, but this is my current favourite.

SEATON’S AUNT by Walter de la Mare
Conjuring the sense of pervasive evil and strangeness in this story, within an old house, is something I constantly endeavour to do.

THE WILLOWS by Algernon Blackwood
Incredible elemental, wilderness story that I quoted at the beginning of The Ritual as homage to one of my favourite writers. He turned the torch on for me and created a desire to write about the supernatural outdoors.

LAST DAYS, Adam’s new novel, is out now

Read Adam’s list of his top five horror movies

We have the playlist that inspired the writing of LAST DAYS still to come this month!