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This question What is the earliest published horror anthology of original material? asks what was the earliest horror anthology of original stories, published for the first time in the anthology.

So what was the earliest horror anthology of reprinted stories which were first printed in some other book or magazine?

Obviously the first horror anthology of all must be at least as early as the first horror anthology of original stories, while the first horror anthology of reprinted stories might have been before or after the first horror anthology of original stories.

The earliest Horror Anthology of original stories suggested in the answers to that question (as of midnight March 2/3 2024) is August Derleth's Dark Mind, Dark Heart (1962,1966).

Which gives a latest possible date for the earliest Horror Anthology.

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  • Poe's collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque dates from 1840 and contains a number of his classic works like "The Fall of the House of Usher."
    – DavidW
    Commented Mar 3 at 5:23
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    The Ghost Book by Cynthia Asquith (1926) is a collection of original stories, so it could be an answer to your title question but not the body question which insists on reprints. I haven't seen the book, so I don't know if the contents are horror stories, but somebody at ISFDB gave it the "horror" tag.
    – user14111
    Commented Mar 3 at 5:28
  • @DavidW Poe's collection is a collection not an anthology. We should ask the OP if he makes that distinction.
    – user14111
    Commented Mar 3 at 5:29
  • Wilhelmina Harper's Ghosts and Goblins (1936) is a reprint anthology, possibly of horror.
    – user14111
    Commented Mar 3 at 5:37
  • @user14111 I am asking for an anthology not a collection. Someone might want to ask about the earliest horror collection.
    – M. A. Golding
    Commented Mar 3 at 5:48

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I did some research for the question:

What is the earliest published horror anthology of original material?

Then I noticed that the question asked about anthologies with original stories, appearing for the first time in the anthologies, and I was researching anthologies with reprinted stories which were not what was asked for. Oops!

So I decided to ask this question and give the first answer myself so my research wouldn't be wasted.

The first source I thought of to research the subject was Lin Carter's Lovecraft: A Look Behind The Cthulhu Mythos (1972) - which fortunately is one of my few books to be out on a shelf instead of being boxed and impossible to find - because I remembered a horror anthology mentioned in it.

In the chapter about Arkham House, "The House in the Pines" it is mentioned that August Derleth edited a series of Horror anthologies, beginning with Sleep No More in nineteen forty four.

A list of the Stories in Sleep No More can be found at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_No_More_(anthology)

But this was not the horror anthology I was trying to look up. I found it mentioned in the chapter "Beyond the Tomb".

The Moon Terror (October 1927), an anthology of stories from Weird Tales magazine, edited by Farnsworth Wright, the editor of Weird Tales. It contained:

"The Moon Terror" (May 1923) by A.G. Birch

"Ooze" (March 1923 1923) by Anthony M. Rud

"Penelope" (May 1923) by Vincent Starrett

"An Adventure in the Fourth Dimension" (October 1923) by Farnsworth Wright

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?44341

So the earliest horror anthology would have been published in October 1927 or earlier.

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