We asked 13 authors to recommend the most frightening books they’ve ever read. Here’s what they chose.

“The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson

The scariest book I’ve ever read is “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson. I read it one night next to my sleeping wife and found myself unable to move, unable to go to bed, unable to do anything except keep reading and praying the shadows around me didn’t move.

— Carmen Maria Machado, author of “Her Body and Other Parties”

[ Read the original Times review of “The Haunting of Hill House.” ]

“The Collector” by John Fowles

I never really recovered from “The Collector,” by John Fowles, a work of shattering brilliance and unbearable suspense — as well as the clear inspiration for “The Silence of the Lambs.” “The Collector” presents the reader with a pair of unforgettable adversaries, locked in a desperate yet restrained struggle: Frederick Clegg, the introverted kidnapper, and Miranda Grey, his prisoner. Writing before the F.B.I. created its criminal profiling unit — before the term “serial killer” had even been coined — Fowles was there, methodically exploring the reasoning of humanity’s most terrifying predators.

— Joe Hill, author of “Strange Weather”

[ Read the original Times review of “The Collector.” ]

“Oliver Twist” by Charles Dickens

I remember it — 13 years old, in the suburban security of a life I took for granted. “Oliver Twist” snatched all of that away, when the boy was stripped of everything and left alone. I agonized over questions I never agonized over before. What if everyone died, leaving me alone? Adults were selfish and brutal, and in the case of Bill Sikes, evil incarnate. Sikes scared me right down to the bone and still haunts my dreams. I got goose bumps just typing this.

— Marlon James, author of “A Brief History of Seven Killings”