Today’s treat is borrowed from The Food Network. (Sorry, there’s a little ten-second commercial to start.) It’s a video about how sugar skulls are made for Dia De Los Muertos. Two stories in Halloween concern the Day of the Dead and of them is about these confections. Enjoy!

On the third day of Prime Books’ 31 Days of Halloween we treat you with the introduction(s)—there is an overall introduction and then an introduction to each of three sections—to Creatures: Thirty Years of Monster Stories edited by John Langan and Paul Tremblay.

We know you will enjoy…and even learn something…from these Introductions to Creatures: Creatures: Thirty Years of Monster Stories edited by John Langan and Paul Tremblay.

Today’s treat is a FREE downloadable PDF of a classic ghost story: “Ligeia” by Edgar Allan Poe. (Mr Poe is a contributor to HALLOWEEN. His poem “Ulalume” is included.) The story involves beautiful women, forbidden knowledge, passion, death, drugs, and other scary things.

According to John Ward Ostram, (in “Poe’s Literary Labors and Rewards” from Myths and Reality: The Mysterious Mr. Poe), “Ligeia” was first published in the September 18, 1838, edition of the American Museum, a magazine edited by two of Poe’s friends, Dr. Nathan C. Brooks and Dr. Joseph E. Snodgrass. Poe was paid $10 for “Ligeia.”

The illustration to the left is by Harry Clarke and dates from 1919. You can see a larger version here.

More to come! See you tomorrow…

We are starting our fall festival of fun and fear today: thirty-one days of treats, features, surprises, facts (and maybe a trick or two) to celebrate not only our new and obviously seasonal anthology HALLOWEEN, edited by Paula Guran but the new and equally appropriate CREATURES: THIRTY YEARS OF MONSTERS, edited by John Langan & Paul Tremblay.

And, if you are already signed up for our mail list or join in the next thirty days, you will have a chance to win FREE PRIME BOOKS! No trick, all treats. We’ll randomly draw some eddresses and those lucky readers will win!

Sign up for the RSS feed and you won’t miss a single one of our 31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN.

Today’s featured “treat”?

Learn about the history of Halloween and more and read (free!) the Introduction to our anthology Halloween!

The latest edition of THE YEAR’S BEST DARK FANTASY & HORROR is now available in its e-edition…just in time for your Halloween downloading!

And don’t forget these other Prime anthologies if you are looking for October (or any time of year) e-reading (or good old-fashioned print reading):

CREATURES: THIRTY YEARS OF MONSTERS

HALLOWEEN

VAMPIRES: THE RECENT UNDEAD

BEWERE THE NIGHT

THE YEAR’S BEST DARK FANTASY & HORROR: 2010

ZOMBIES: THE RECENT DEAD

RUNNING WITH THE PACK