Glad to hear that you're moving forward. Even if I don't like the final result, I'm sure there will be a great deal of content ready to be stolen for use in my own games. In response to artwork, I'd shy away from using anything in the public domain.
Howard, Leiber, Lovecraft, Poe, Smith, and Tolkien are good choices. Though, perhaps it would do well to leave Tolkien out of the book? He's not exactly an unknown and a good number of people have been introduced to his writings. If you want to include Verne or Wells, I think you should look into Burroughs. I'd say they're on par in terms of their...adventurousness.
Perhaps you should aim for 12 pages. 1 for the introduction, 10 for 10 authors, and leave the last page for a list of authors and some book/story recommendations? You could also expand upon the book on your website, and offer it as a *.pdf only download?
And as an aside, you might want to look into some short stories written by Nathaniel Hawthorne--Rappaccini's Daughter, the Birthmark, and Young Goodman Brown. Most people are turned off by the Scarlet Letter, which is a shame, because his short stories are a good source of wonder and eerie dread.