* 1977: *Supernatural Horror in Literature* (with Rosemary Jackson)
* 1980: *The Wolf's Tooth: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss in Nazi Germany*
* 1981: *The Author as Superstar: Conversations with America's Most Celebrated Writers*
* 1983: *The Dark Side of the Screen: The Art and Craft of Horror Films*
* 1985: *When Private Life Becomes a Spectacle: The Lessons of Kitty Genovese*
* 1986: *American Literary Rebels*
* 1988: *Graphic Passions: The Erotic in Contemporary American Art*
* 1989: *New Bohemia: The Counterculture as Chic*
* 1990: *The Death Row Interviews: Conversations with Twenty-Four Death Row Inmates*
* 1992: *Talons of Time: On Growing Old*
* 1993: *Beyond This Place: Death and Transcendence*
* 1994: *Literary Outcasts: Writers on the Margins*
* 1996: *The Secret Life of the Book*
* 1997: *The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 1: The Lives and Voices of Runaway Slaves*
* 1998: *The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 2: The Lives and Voices of Fugitive Slaves*
* 1999: *The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Volume 3: The Lives and Voices of Former Slaves*
* 2001: *My Aunt Agatha's Garden: A Chronicle of Nature*
* 2003: *Al Gore: A Twenty-First-Century Man for Twenty-First-Century America*
* 2004: *John McCain: A Profile of a Maverick and Patriot*
* 2005: *The New American Hero: Thomas Jefferson and the Promise of Our Future*
* 2007: *The American People: A Documentary History*
* 2008: *The Lincoln Mystique: Why Does His Legacy Continue to Haunt Us?*
* 2009: *The Ghost in the Mirror: A New Look at the Holocaust*
* 2010: *The Price of Freedom: America in Crisis*
* 2011: *The Last Interview with Robert Frost: "I Had a Lover's Quarrel with the World"*
* 2012: *The Devil's Diary: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Lucifer*
* 2013: *The Lost Genius of Thomas Wolfe*
* 2014: *The Life and Death of Vincent van Gogh: Why Did the World's Greatest Artist Choose to Die?*
* 2015: *The Collected Letters of Robert Frost*
* 2016: *The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe*
* 2017: *The Collected Stories of Franz Kafka*
* 2018: *The Collected Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson*
* 2019: *The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson*
* 2020: *The Collected Plays of William Shakespeare*
Essays and articles:
* "The Horror Movie: A Cultural Phenomenon" (1977)
* "The Death of the Supernatural" (1978)
* "The American Horror Story" (1979)
* "The Politics of Horror" (1980)
* "Censorship and Horror Films" (1981)
* "The Erotic in Contemporary American Art" (1988)
* "The Culture of Death" (1993)
* "The Secret Life of the Book" (1996)
* "The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography" (1997-1999)
* "The New American Hero: Thomas Jefferson and the Promise of Our Future" (2005)
* "The Lincoln Mystique: Why Does His Legacy Continue to Haunt Us?" (2008)
* "The Ghost in the Mirror: A New Look at the Holocaust" (2009)
* "The Price of Freedom: America in Crisis" (2010)
* "The Last Interview with Robert Frost: 'I Had a Lover's Quarrel with the World'" (2011)
* "The Devil's Diary: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Lucifer" (2012)
* "The Lost Genius of Thomas Wolfe" (2013)
* "The Life and Death of Vincent van Gogh: Why Did the World's Greatest Artist Choose to Die?" (2014)
* "The Collected Letters of Robert Frost" (2015)
* "The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe" (2016)
* "The Collected Stories of Franz Kafka" (2017)
* "The Collected Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson" (2018)
* "The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson" (2019)
* "The Collected Plays of William Shakespeare" (2020)