Every nation has its own way of expressing awe and fear of death and the unknown.
The stories in this book vividly capture this fear and awe, taking us from the slums of Mexico to the Slavic villages of the 18th century, from the Great Plains of North America to the markets of Africa, from the damp castles of England to the dry deserts of Arabia and the steppes of China. Written by the most famous authors or by anonymous folk creators, they all have in common the supernatural terror hidden behind their diverse masks.

The stories included are:
- "Adinodoros and the Ghost," Pliny the Younger (Ancient Rome)
- "The Market of the Dead," folk narrative (Sub-Saharan Africa, Dahomey)
- "The Man Who Brought Back His Wife from the Land of Spirits," narrative of the Winnebago tribe (North America, Nebraska)
- "The Painted Skin," Pu Songling (China)
- "The Story of the Second Beggar-King," story from One Thousand and One Nights (Arabia)
- "The Curse of Fire and Shadows," William Butler Yeats (Ireland)
- "The Widower and His Wife," folk narrative (Mexico)
- "The Vampire," Aristotelis Valaoritis (Greece)
- "The Family of the Vampire," Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy (Eastern Europe)
- "The Canterville Ghost," Oscar Wilde (England)