The Turn of the Screw (1898). Composed by Edith Wharton's friend and mentor, Henry James, this is considered to be one of the greatest ghost stories in the English language. A young governess who takes charge of two children on a British estate begins to see, or imagines she sees, the ghosts of former employees attempting to corrupt her two young charges.

Ovid's Metamorphoses. Roman poetry written in the first century B.C., this is a relatively easy way for students to become familiar with the mythology of the Greco-Roman tradition.

Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962), by Ray Bradbury, tells how the citizens of a small Midwestern town are tempted by their hidden, basest desires when a carnival comes to town, offering the townspeople, through its deadly attractions, the fulfillment of humanity's oldest dream: "Ye shall be as gods."

"An Encounter...