A lovesick count and the ghost of his brutalized servant ... a serial killer who defies death ... a house with a violent mind of its own and another that holds within its peeling walls a grotesque secret. Here are witches who feast on faces, changeling rites of passage, a venerable vampire contemplating his end, and a fanged brat who drains the patience of a bumbling teenage boy. Here too are a flamboyant young novelist in search of a subject more compelling than his own eerie existence, and the daughter of a sorcerer fighting to free her lover -- and her will -- from sinister bonds. Enter the world of Gothic!, a celebration of the literary form made famous by such writers as Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe.

Contents:

• Lungewater by Joan Aiken
• Morgan Roehmar's Boys by Vivian Vande Velde
• Watch and Wake by M.T. Anderson
• Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House of the Night of Dread Desire by Neil Gaiman
• The Dead and the Moonstruck by Caitlin R. Kiernan
• Have No Fear, Crumpot Is Here! by Barry Yourgrau
• Stone Tower by Janni Lee Simner
• The Prank by Gregory Maguire
• Writing on the Wall by Celia Rees
• Endings by Garth Nix