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Great Ghost Stories
A collection of short ghost stories:
The House and the Brain by Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton
The Roll-Call of the Reef by A.T. Quiller-Couch
The Open Door by Mrs. Margaret Oliphant
The Deserted House by Ernest Theodor Amadeus Hoffman
The Mysterious Sketch by Erckmann-Chatrian
Green Branches by Fiona Macleod
The Four-Fifteen Express by Amelia B. Edwards
The Were-Wolf by H.B. Marryatt
The Withered Arm by Thomas Hardy
Clarimonde by Theophile Gautier
The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral by Montague Rhodes James
What Was It? by Fitz-James O'Brien
The House and the Brain by Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton
The Roll-Call of the Reef by A.T. Quiller-Couch
The Open Door by Mrs. Margaret Oliphant
The Deserted House by Ernest Theodor Amadeus Hoffman
The Mysterious Sketch by Erckmann-Chatrian
Green Branches by Fiona Macleod
The Four-Fifteen Express by Amelia B. Edwards
The Were-Wolf by H.B. Marryatt
The Withered Arm by Thomas Hardy
Clarimonde by Theophile Gautier
The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral by Montague Rhodes James
What Was It? by Fitz-James O'Brien
234 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1918
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
July 27, 2020
This is a fine collection of classic ghost stories. You'll fine 12 ghost stories like "The House And The Brain" (Bulwer-Lytton), "The Deserted House" (E.T.A. Hoffmann), "The Withered Arm" (Hardy), "Clarimonde" (I absolutely love this story by Gautier), "The Were-Wolf" (brilliant new twist to the old legend by H.B. Marryatt), "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral" (you'll never forget those eerie carved figures told in that M.R. James story). Highly recommended if you're looking for a cool chill down your neck!
December 28, 2021
Uneven.
The ghost stories in this book are very old. Probably one hundred fifty years or more, so they don’t have the blood infested gore that is dominant in most ghost stories of today.
But that doesn’t stop the horror. Many of the stories are definitely scary. Unfortunately, not all of them are. A few are a bit bleak and dull.
One of the stories is not about a ghost at all. It’s about a werewolf. Don’t know why it’s in this anthology.
But overall I will say that the stories here are satisfactory and so I will give this book three stars.
The ghost stories in this book are very old. Probably one hundred fifty years or more, so they don’t have the blood infested gore that is dominant in most ghost stories of today.
But that doesn’t stop the horror. Many of the stories are definitely scary. Unfortunately, not all of them are. A few are a bit bleak and dull.
One of the stories is not about a ghost at all. It’s about a werewolf. Don’t know why it’s in this anthology.
But overall I will say that the stories here are satisfactory and so I will give this book three stars.
October 25, 2018
I wasn't going to read this book until we were snug in our cabin next week (there's nothing like outdoor forest night noise to add ambiance to a collection of ghost stories) but it kept calling to me whenever I'd pass by it on the shelves so I had to.
Joseph Lewis French did not author any of the stories in this book; he was more like a collator, putting together twelve ghostly/supernatural tales in this collection which was published by Dodd Mead in 1918. I had no clue what I was getting when I bought this book, so you can imagine my delight when I looked over the table of contents for the first time (* - my first time with this story):
"The House and the Brain," by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
"The Roll-Call of the Reef," by A.T. Quiller-Couch *
"The Open Door, " by Mrs. Margaret Oliphant (one of my all-time favorite ghost stories)
"The Deserted House," by ETA Hoffman*
"The Mysterious Sketch," by Erckmann-Chatrian*
"Green Branches," by Fiona Macleod (who was really William Sharp, also author of The Sin-Eater and Other Tales which I bought after finishing this story)*
"The Four-Fifteen Express," by Amelia B. Edwards *
"The Were-Wolf," by HB Marryat, which I recently read in Valancourt's Terrifying Transformations
"The Withered Arm," by Thomas Hardy *
"Clarimonde," by Theophile Gautier
"The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral," by MR James
and last but not least,
"What Was It?" by Fitz-James O'Brien, which has one of the greatest lines ever:
"Harry .... you've been smoking too much opium."
This book is a treasure trove of supernatural tales, and I recommend it highly to people who appreciate ghostly literature of yesteryear.
ps/ to call these stories "dated" is ridiculous. They weren't "dated" at the time. Consider them a window into the past and they work very well.
Joseph Lewis French did not author any of the stories in this book; he was more like a collator, putting together twelve ghostly/supernatural tales in this collection which was published by Dodd Mead in 1918. I had no clue what I was getting when I bought this book, so you can imagine my delight when I looked over the table of contents for the first time (* - my first time with this story):
"The House and the Brain," by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
"The Roll-Call of the Reef," by A.T. Quiller-Couch *
"The Open Door, " by Mrs. Margaret Oliphant (one of my all-time favorite ghost stories)
"The Deserted House," by ETA Hoffman*
"The Mysterious Sketch," by Erckmann-Chatrian*
"Green Branches," by Fiona Macleod (who was really William Sharp, also author of The Sin-Eater and Other Tales which I bought after finishing this story)*
"The Four-Fifteen Express," by Amelia B. Edwards *
"The Were-Wolf," by HB Marryat, which I recently read in Valancourt's Terrifying Transformations
"The Withered Arm," by Thomas Hardy *
"Clarimonde," by Theophile Gautier
"The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral," by MR James
and last but not least,
"What Was It?" by Fitz-James O'Brien, which has one of the greatest lines ever:
"Harry .... you've been smoking too much opium."
This book is a treasure trove of supernatural tales, and I recommend it highly to people who appreciate ghostly literature of yesteryear.
ps/ to call these stories "dated" is ridiculous. They weren't "dated" at the time. Consider them a window into the past and they work very well.
January 16, 2016
A nice collection of classic, supernatural short stories. The title is misleading because a number of the tales have nothing to do with ghosts, such as THE WERE-WOLF by H. B. Marryatt. I found them to be entertaining, nonetheless.
I'd only read one of the stories previously, THE HOUSE AND THE BRAIN which I recalled under a different title, THE HAUNTED AND THE HUNTERS. It opens the book and is definitely a chilling tale.
Being public domain stories, they do not feature the brisk pace that may be expected by many modern readers. Several of them have a very slow build-up, such as GREEN BRANCHES and CLARIMONDE. Their purpose wasn't to launch readers into terrific frights, but to acquaint them with the characters, the settings, and some narrative backgrounds. Then the tale unfolds, providing a deeper insight into the heart of the story and making the resolutions more compelling. Don't expect graphic descriptions of spilt entrails here!
To be completely honest, some of the entries took some effort to complete on my part. I am a patient reader, yet there was the occasion that I wanted to call out, "Get on with it!" That said, I always enjoyed the chilling moments when they appeared, so even the slower tales were ultimately rewarding.
I recommend it for readers who do not need to race for the finish, and prefer their chills to be of the lingering variety.
I'd only read one of the stories previously, THE HOUSE AND THE BRAIN which I recalled under a different title, THE HAUNTED AND THE HUNTERS. It opens the book and is definitely a chilling tale.
Being public domain stories, they do not feature the brisk pace that may be expected by many modern readers. Several of them have a very slow build-up, such as GREEN BRANCHES and CLARIMONDE. Their purpose wasn't to launch readers into terrific frights, but to acquaint them with the characters, the settings, and some narrative backgrounds. Then the tale unfolds, providing a deeper insight into the heart of the story and making the resolutions more compelling. Don't expect graphic descriptions of spilt entrails here!
To be completely honest, some of the entries took some effort to complete on my part. I am a patient reader, yet there was the occasion that I wanted to call out, "Get on with it!" That said, I always enjoyed the chilling moments when they appeared, so even the slower tales were ultimately rewarding.
I recommend it for readers who do not need to race for the finish, and prefer their chills to be of the lingering variety.
April 3, 2023
4�
Foreword by James H. Hyslop ✔️
The House and the Brain by Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton 5�
The Roll-Call of the Reef by A.T. Quiller-Couch 3.5�
The Open Door by Mrs. Margaret Oliphant 3.25�
The Deserted House by Ernest Theodor Amadeus Hoffman 4�
The Mysterious Sketch by Erckmann-Chatrian 3.5�
Green Branches by Fiona Macleod 2.5�
The Four-Fifteen Express by Amelia B. Edwards 4�
The Were-Wolf by H.B. Marryatt 4.25�
The Withered Arm by Thomas Hardy 3.5�
Clarimonde by Theophile Gautier 4.5�
The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral by Montague Rhodes James 4�
What Was It? by Fitz-James O'Brien 4�
Foreword by James H. Hyslop ✔️
The House and the Brain by Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton 5�
The Roll-Call of the Reef by A.T. Quiller-Couch 3.5�
The Open Door by Mrs. Margaret Oliphant 3.25�
The Deserted House by Ernest Theodor Amadeus Hoffman 4�
The Mysterious Sketch by Erckmann-Chatrian 3.5�
Green Branches by Fiona Macleod 2.5�
The Four-Fifteen Express by Amelia B. Edwards 4�
The Were-Wolf by H.B. Marryatt 4.25�
The Withered Arm by Thomas Hardy 3.5�
Clarimonde by Theophile Gautier 4.5�
The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral by Montague Rhodes James 4�
What Was It? by Fitz-James O'Brien 4�
May 23, 2015
This 1918 collection is very much a child of its time, though it includes ancestors reaching back 100 years. It's most interesting as a study of what a "ghost" or generally supernatural story was thought to be at the tag-end of the era of spiritualism and rampant scientific optimism. As a signpost, the foreword was written by the secretary of the British Society for Psychical Research.
The stories in themselves are mostly a lot of fun to read, and you'll run across quite a few interesting authors you're unlikely to stumble over otherwise � Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Mrs. Margaret Oliphant, Fiona MacLoed � as well as a couple, such as Thomas Hardy, that you wouldn't normally identify with this kind of subject. The best piece, not surprisingly, is by E.T.A. Hoffman, "The Deserted House."
What I found most interesting, though, is the assumptions behind the roughly contemporary stories (those around the turn of the 20th century): that "ghosts" are real, but not spooky haunts. They're psychic phenomena that can be explained through careful scientific observation, though hardly by what we would classify as scientific methods today. It was a time when many of the leading minds of the day (such as William James) felt that the truths of the world were about to be unravelled, that religion would become a subset of science and that progress, especially progress of the mind, was moving along an inevitable upward curve. It's hard to conceive now what the horrors of the Great War did to dash this intellectual hope.
The stories in themselves are mostly a lot of fun to read, and you'll run across quite a few interesting authors you're unlikely to stumble over otherwise � Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Mrs. Margaret Oliphant, Fiona MacLoed � as well as a couple, such as Thomas Hardy, that you wouldn't normally identify with this kind of subject. The best piece, not surprisingly, is by E.T.A. Hoffman, "The Deserted House."
What I found most interesting, though, is the assumptions behind the roughly contemporary stories (those around the turn of the 20th century): that "ghosts" are real, but not spooky haunts. They're psychic phenomena that can be explained through careful scientific observation, though hardly by what we would classify as scientific methods today. It was a time when many of the leading minds of the day (such as William James) felt that the truths of the world were about to be unravelled, that religion would become a subset of science and that progress, especially progress of the mind, was moving along an inevitable upward curve. It's hard to conceive now what the horrors of the Great War did to dash this intellectual hope.
February 17, 2017
All these stories were written in the late eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds. Book was originally published in 1918, and can only be found in Kindle now. Recognized some of the authors, such as M. R. James,,,but most were new to me. Wasn't only ghost stories, but also, were wolfs, vampires, and such. A well rounded collection of old fashioned horror. There wasn't a bad story in the group, and I have a special appreciation for older literature.
July 3, 2013
I'm guessing these stories all date from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s. If you can place yourself in the period and its way of thinking, they're not bad at all. Some are even creepy by today's standards. I downloaded it free from Amazon.
June 6, 2021
This 1918 collection was selected by Joseph Lewis French, "the most industrious anthologist of his time," according to the New York Times. It has a foreword by James H. Hyslop, Secretary of the Society for Psychical Research. The authors that French chose to sample are generally high profile, and I found the collection sufficiently various to keep me moving.
1. The House and the Brain, by Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton. This is a first-person narrative. An amateur ghost-hunter spends the night in a London house reputed to be haunted. After a phantasmagoria of scary effects, his servant flees in terror - to Australia! - and the ghost-hunter finds his dog dead, not from fright but physically killed. Later, a secret room is found, and the solution is quasi-scientific - i.e. there are crystals and magnetism involved; but, for the supernatural aspect, the user of said tools producing the terrific effects is a man - a scoundrel - who lived in the previous century.
2. The Roll-Call of the Reef, by A.T. Quiller-Couch. Two shipwrecks happen at the same time, and the sole survivors of each, an adult trumpeter and a boy drummer, form a curious bond built on their having played for the dying men on their ships. When the boy leaves, the trumpet and drum are combination-locked together. Years later, as the trumpeter gets older and feebler, the young man returns; they free their instruments, and in a delightfully creepy and hallucinogenic sequence, rally up their troops from the grave and conduct a roll-call, during which each man announces his sins but says he died a good death. The narrator has noted that the drummer has a wound in his chest; it is still bleeding as the two lock their instruments again and depart together, leaving the trumpeter's physical body behind (just dead) and, as the narrator discovers, the drummer is dead on a battlefield far away. It's a fairly predictable story, but I thought it was told with lots of atmosphere.
3. The Open Door, by Mrs. Margaret Oliphant. I found this story, set in Scotland, to be one of the most successful in the collection, even though it is rather schematic. The narrator is an ex-military man of means who rents a property with a ruin on it, including an archway (for a now non-existent door) that stands alone. That image, in combination with the light shone around it on various night visits, is the centrepiece of the story. Our narrator visits the site 3 times, on 3 successive nights: alone, then with a man of science, then with both the man of science and a man of faith. They are investigating a spectral voice that cries every night at the useless door, "Mother let me in." Naturally, it is the man of faith, not the man of reason (a doctor) who solves the supernatural mystery, thereby also saving the life of the narrator's extra-sensitive son.
4. The Deserted House, by E.T.A. Hoffmann. This a rather horrible story about a madwoman being kept in a deserted house by a violently abusive steward. A naive young man, the narrator, becomes involved by spying on a window (using a mirror, which then produces unexpected visions of a young woman - the supernatural element in the story). The narrator then flatly refuses to look into - or at least explain - the full backstory of the madwoman, her sister, and the beautiful daughter of dubious parentage. this feels a little like an abandoned attempt at a longer work.
5. The Mysterious Sketch, by Erckmann-Chatrian. A penniless young artist in Nuremberg draws a detailed sketch from his imagination showing a murder in all its details, except for the murderer's face. The murder actually takes place, and he is arrested. While looking out from his jail, he sees the murderer, and re-creates the picture with the murderer's face. The murderer is arrested and the narrator set free. The chief improbability in this tale is not the supernatural inspiration for the sketch, but (a) the fact that the sketch is seen by an agent of criminal justice and (b) that the artist is believed when he paints/describes the real murderer. The strength of the story is a wealth of physical detail in the descriptions.
6. Green Branches, by Fiona Macleod. The appeal of this short story, written in a mythological vein, is presumably that it is set amongst Scottish islanders in remote times past. Based on the references in the first, rather incomprehensible sentences, it's part of a larger saga of the Achanna family. The best image in the story is of two clumps of greenery, each containing a concealed swimmer, meeting in the middle of a loch and engaging in a fight to the death.
7. The Four-Fifteen Express, by Amelia B Edwards. Told in the urbane tones of English respectability, the is a tale of a railway trip taken by the narrator, during which he is joined by one of the directors of the railway company, one Mr. Dwerrihouse, in his secluded first-class compartment. The narrator steps on Dwerrihouse's cigar case after the latter gets off, but is just unable to catch him to return it. He does, however, see Dwerrihouse briefly, in conversation with another man. He returns the cigar case to the railway company and discovers that no-one (including the guard who took his ticket) believes Dwerrihouse was there, as he was suspected of having absconded with a large amount of money and disappeared some time ago. Eventually it turns out that Dwerrihouse was murdered, and the narrator's encounter with him, which led directly to the exposure of the murder, could only have been an encounter with a ghost.
8. The Were-Wolf, by H.B. Marryatt. This is a sensationalistic story set in the wilds of Germany, and involving a man who has killed his wife in a jealous rage. He now lives in a hut with his three children. He goes out to kill a white wolf, and comes back with a young woman dressed in white fur - she is accompanied by her father - and, of course, falls for her charms and marries her. The wolf manages to kill and devour two of the three children (our narrator is the middle one) before the exile shoots her dead. I found parts of this story highly distasteful because the youngest child, a girl (Marcelle) was abused by every adult in the tale.
9. The Withered Arm, by Thomas Hardy. In rustic Hardy country, a woman (Rhoda) who has borne a son to a local prosperous farmer lives an isolated and difficult life with the unacknowledged child. Then the farmer (Lodge) takes a young wife (Gertrude), and in a hallucinatory or supernatural episode, Rhoda grasps Gertrude's arm. The arm starts to wither, in reality, for unknown reasons and Gertrude, looking for some relief beyond the doctors, visits Rhoda, who takes her to meet a local conjuror - but we are not told what he says to her. Some years later, her arm being in an ever worse state, and her marriage failing, Gertrude revisits the conjuror who tells her that for healing she must touch her arm to the neck of a newly hanged man! She goes to Casterbridge and makes arrangements for this apparently well-known practice, but who should be the only person executed that day that the illegitimate son of Lodge & Rhoda, both of whom are present to claim the body. Gertrude, already of frail constitution, expires shortly. Rhoda lives stolidly on, alone. This is truly Hardy in dark mode.
10. Clarimonde, by Theophile Gautier. A first-person narrative by a priest whose vocation is undermined from the very first by a glimpse of a notorious courtesan, Clarimonde. Much later, he presides over her deathbed (Gautier writes a sufficiently disturbing sequence of necrophiliac thoughts, though not actions.) It bears an interesting resemblance to the gloating of the hovering vampire in tales like Varney the Vampire. But it turns out that someone else is the vampire; meanwhile the priest, Romuald, lives a Jekyll/Hyde doubled existence, in one life as Clarimonde's lover, in the other as a priest, each of them experiencing the other's life as a nightmare. An exorcising visit to Clarimonde's grave, with Romuald's superior - who seems more demon than holy man at that moment - puts an end to Romuald's thralldom.
11. The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral, by Montague Rhodes James. Cambridge Don and antiquarian ghost story writer M.R. James borrows Trollope's Barchester Cathedral to tell the tale of an archdeacon who suffers ghostly visitations, linked somehow to three very old wooden figurines at his stall in the cathedral: a cat, the devil and death. He eventually dies a karmically appropriate death at the hands of those ghosts, because of what he did to his predecessor. I liked this one - it was filtered through the voice of an antiquarian/archival researcher, and its horrors were not over the top.
12. What Was It? by Fitz-James O'Brien. This story, set in a New York house, reputedly haunted though only 10-15 years old, was horrible not because of the supernatural creature that the two male protagonists capture, but because they apparently find it impossible to deal with their captive humanely. He dies in their custody without ever communicating with them, without eating anything they offer, and without being connected in any way to the back-story of the haunted house. This story left a bad taste for me; a pity it is the last one in the volume.
1. The House and the Brain, by Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton. This is a first-person narrative. An amateur ghost-hunter spends the night in a London house reputed to be haunted. After a phantasmagoria of scary effects, his servant flees in terror - to Australia! - and the ghost-hunter finds his dog dead, not from fright but physically killed. Later, a secret room is found, and the solution is quasi-scientific - i.e. there are crystals and magnetism involved; but, for the supernatural aspect, the user of said tools producing the terrific effects is a man - a scoundrel - who lived in the previous century.
2. The Roll-Call of the Reef, by A.T. Quiller-Couch. Two shipwrecks happen at the same time, and the sole survivors of each, an adult trumpeter and a boy drummer, form a curious bond built on their having played for the dying men on their ships. When the boy leaves, the trumpet and drum are combination-locked together. Years later, as the trumpeter gets older and feebler, the young man returns; they free their instruments, and in a delightfully creepy and hallucinogenic sequence, rally up their troops from the grave and conduct a roll-call, during which each man announces his sins but says he died a good death. The narrator has noted that the drummer has a wound in his chest; it is still bleeding as the two lock their instruments again and depart together, leaving the trumpeter's physical body behind (just dead) and, as the narrator discovers, the drummer is dead on a battlefield far away. It's a fairly predictable story, but I thought it was told with lots of atmosphere.
3. The Open Door, by Mrs. Margaret Oliphant. I found this story, set in Scotland, to be one of the most successful in the collection, even though it is rather schematic. The narrator is an ex-military man of means who rents a property with a ruin on it, including an archway (for a now non-existent door) that stands alone. That image, in combination with the light shone around it on various night visits, is the centrepiece of the story. Our narrator visits the site 3 times, on 3 successive nights: alone, then with a man of science, then with both the man of science and a man of faith. They are investigating a spectral voice that cries every night at the useless door, "Mother let me in." Naturally, it is the man of faith, not the man of reason (a doctor) who solves the supernatural mystery, thereby also saving the life of the narrator's extra-sensitive son.
4. The Deserted House, by E.T.A. Hoffmann. This a rather horrible story about a madwoman being kept in a deserted house by a violently abusive steward. A naive young man, the narrator, becomes involved by spying on a window (using a mirror, which then produces unexpected visions of a young woman - the supernatural element in the story). The narrator then flatly refuses to look into - or at least explain - the full backstory of the madwoman, her sister, and the beautiful daughter of dubious parentage. this feels a little like an abandoned attempt at a longer work.
5. The Mysterious Sketch, by Erckmann-Chatrian. A penniless young artist in Nuremberg draws a detailed sketch from his imagination showing a murder in all its details, except for the murderer's face. The murder actually takes place, and he is arrested. While looking out from his jail, he sees the murderer, and re-creates the picture with the murderer's face. The murderer is arrested and the narrator set free. The chief improbability in this tale is not the supernatural inspiration for the sketch, but (a) the fact that the sketch is seen by an agent of criminal justice and (b) that the artist is believed when he paints/describes the real murderer. The strength of the story is a wealth of physical detail in the descriptions.
6. Green Branches, by Fiona Macleod. The appeal of this short story, written in a mythological vein, is presumably that it is set amongst Scottish islanders in remote times past. Based on the references in the first, rather incomprehensible sentences, it's part of a larger saga of the Achanna family. The best image in the story is of two clumps of greenery, each containing a concealed swimmer, meeting in the middle of a loch and engaging in a fight to the death.
7. The Four-Fifteen Express, by Amelia B Edwards. Told in the urbane tones of English respectability, the is a tale of a railway trip taken by the narrator, during which he is joined by one of the directors of the railway company, one Mr. Dwerrihouse, in his secluded first-class compartment. The narrator steps on Dwerrihouse's cigar case after the latter gets off, but is just unable to catch him to return it. He does, however, see Dwerrihouse briefly, in conversation with another man. He returns the cigar case to the railway company and discovers that no-one (including the guard who took his ticket) believes Dwerrihouse was there, as he was suspected of having absconded with a large amount of money and disappeared some time ago. Eventually it turns out that Dwerrihouse was murdered, and the narrator's encounter with him, which led directly to the exposure of the murder, could only have been an encounter with a ghost.
8. The Were-Wolf, by H.B. Marryatt. This is a sensationalistic story set in the wilds of Germany, and involving a man who has killed his wife in a jealous rage. He now lives in a hut with his three children. He goes out to kill a white wolf, and comes back with a young woman dressed in white fur - she is accompanied by her father - and, of course, falls for her charms and marries her. The wolf manages to kill and devour two of the three children (our narrator is the middle one) before the exile shoots her dead. I found parts of this story highly distasteful because the youngest child, a girl (Marcelle) was abused by every adult in the tale.
9. The Withered Arm, by Thomas Hardy. In rustic Hardy country, a woman (Rhoda) who has borne a son to a local prosperous farmer lives an isolated and difficult life with the unacknowledged child. Then the farmer (Lodge) takes a young wife (Gertrude), and in a hallucinatory or supernatural episode, Rhoda grasps Gertrude's arm. The arm starts to wither, in reality, for unknown reasons and Gertrude, looking for some relief beyond the doctors, visits Rhoda, who takes her to meet a local conjuror - but we are not told what he says to her. Some years later, her arm being in an ever worse state, and her marriage failing, Gertrude revisits the conjuror who tells her that for healing she must touch her arm to the neck of a newly hanged man! She goes to Casterbridge and makes arrangements for this apparently well-known practice, but who should be the only person executed that day that the illegitimate son of Lodge & Rhoda, both of whom are present to claim the body. Gertrude, already of frail constitution, expires shortly. Rhoda lives stolidly on, alone. This is truly Hardy in dark mode.
10. Clarimonde, by Theophile Gautier. A first-person narrative by a priest whose vocation is undermined from the very first by a glimpse of a notorious courtesan, Clarimonde. Much later, he presides over her deathbed (Gautier writes a sufficiently disturbing sequence of necrophiliac thoughts, though not actions.) It bears an interesting resemblance to the gloating of the hovering vampire in tales like Varney the Vampire. But it turns out that someone else is the vampire; meanwhile the priest, Romuald, lives a Jekyll/Hyde doubled existence, in one life as Clarimonde's lover, in the other as a priest, each of them experiencing the other's life as a nightmare. An exorcising visit to Clarimonde's grave, with Romuald's superior - who seems more demon than holy man at that moment - puts an end to Romuald's thralldom.
11. The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral, by Montague Rhodes James. Cambridge Don and antiquarian ghost story writer M.R. James borrows Trollope's Barchester Cathedral to tell the tale of an archdeacon who suffers ghostly visitations, linked somehow to three very old wooden figurines at his stall in the cathedral: a cat, the devil and death. He eventually dies a karmically appropriate death at the hands of those ghosts, because of what he did to his predecessor. I liked this one - it was filtered through the voice of an antiquarian/archival researcher, and its horrors were not over the top.
12. What Was It? by Fitz-James O'Brien. This story, set in a New York house, reputedly haunted though only 10-15 years old, was horrible not because of the supernatural creature that the two male protagonists capture, but because they apparently find it impossible to deal with their captive humanely. He dies in their custody without ever communicating with them, without eating anything they offer, and without being connected in any way to the back-story of the haunted house. This story left a bad taste for me; a pity it is the last one in the volume.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 21, 2018
I know better than to read ghost stories late at night. The thing is, during the day I have enough energy and self control that I don't read ghost stories, and this means that at night, I've used up all my self-denial, so I do read the ghost stories. And then this happens.
August 11, 2022
Entertaining listening 🎶🔰
Thirteen will written British 🏰 haunting horror ghost 👻 stories by thirteen different authors each story line is stand alone with interesting characters and conclusion. I would recommend this free novel to readers of fantasy haunting horror ghost 👻 stories. Enjoy the adventure of reading 👓 or listening 🎶 to Alexa as I do because of eye damage and health issues from shingles. Stay safe 2022 👑🏰
Thirteen will written British 🏰 haunting horror ghost 👻 stories by thirteen different authors each story line is stand alone with interesting characters and conclusion. I would recommend this free novel to readers of fantasy haunting horror ghost 👻 stories. Enjoy the adventure of reading 👓 or listening 🎶 to Alexa as I do because of eye damage and health issues from shingles. Stay safe 2022 👑🏰
March 22, 2016
Great ghost/paranormal stories
All of the stories are worthwhile and different. I especially liked the last one, but that favoritism does not diminish my esteem for and enjoyment of the others. The language is antiquated but added to the charm of the narration of such absurd events.
All of the stories are worthwhile and different. I especially liked the last one, but that favoritism does not diminish my esteem for and enjoyment of the others. The language is antiquated but added to the charm of the narration of such absurd events.
March 14, 2018
Old-timey ghost stories for sure, I love the foreword by a respectable LL.D. People back then believed this stuff for realz. I wasn't scare even once. Not to say that I don't enjoy some of the style, but it was somewhat of a let down, I've read tons of ghost stories from the likes of M.R James that were much scarier. One of the highlights was ETA Hoffman, I love his manic style that paints a weird atmosphere for no real purpose other than being a big weirdo.
September 14, 2020
This book was a great read. I'm curious about the genre, the who, what, where, when and why that when structured by a writer, the classic themes of ghosts and the supernatural continuously to captivate the imagination.This book offered a wide range of stories, some if which were identified as being translated into English.
August 26, 2023
A variety of ghost stories from the 1800s. There is that archaic phrasing which occasionally makes one lose the thread of the details, but otherwise classic tales of eerie happenings. My favorite was "THE ROLL-CALL OF THE REEF" by A. T. Quiller-Couch. Perhaps it's because I've been exposed to many stories of shipwrecks as I travel around the Great Lakes, but it was my favorite.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 12, 2020
Despite the age of the stories they were remarkably fascinating. I lost myself in recollections of pie and h.p. Lovecraft. Kindle is becoming a fast friend. Excellent short read for Halloween 🌙
January 2, 2022
Good read for any time
Good read if you like ghost stories and want to keep the Victorian tradition alive during Christmas season or during Halloween.
Good read if you like ghost stories and want to keep the Victorian tradition alive during Christmas season or during Halloween.
May 24, 2022
How frightening these stories must have been 100 years ago. I enjoyed the tingle a few of them brought me.
November 28, 2024
Interesting
Well these were some pretty interesting stories. But I had a hard time keeping my attention on a few of them.
Well these were some pretty interesting stories. But I had a hard time keeping my attention on a few of them.
February 27, 2025
I Liked the book Very Much Many different Varieties of ghost stories No spoiler Alerts here
December 23, 2013
Very disorganized and random. Good kids book.
March 21, 2016
Loved it!
A very good selection of stories. I highly recommend to everyone to buy this book. You shall definitely enjoy it.
A very good selection of stories. I highly recommend to everyone to buy this book. You shall definitely enjoy it.
March 25, 2014
Not a big fan.
August 4, 2017
I think this is the right collection, with Edgar Allan Poe and Guy DE Maupassant? if it is I just finished the audiobook. No introduction, no finale....some of the stories were cool but not "ghost" stories.
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