A Century of Ghost Stories


Book Description

This book presents one hundred real-life stories from the nineteenth century press. Along with accounts of ghosts, poltergeists, and haunted houses, we meet extraordinary reports of the dying appearing hundreds or thousands of miles from the sight of their death, and living people who quite literally appear in two places at once. Analysing and interpreting these stories in the light of modern paranormal events and scientific findings, Century aims to show that ghosts and poltergeists certainly do exist. It offers a range of persuasive theories about what they really are and what they mean, and screws the microscope down on the details of ghost sightings and poltergeist incidents. Why are some ghosts grey or vague, and others able to pass as living people? Can ghosts speak? How do ghosts or poltergeists use human energy, and particularly the energy of the young or the traumatised? How do such phenomena relate to light, to electromagnetism, and even the body's circadian rhythms? This is a book about ghosts and poltergeists by someone who never expected to take them seriously. It is a book inspired by the strange experience of continually hearing such stories from people who kept them hidden until they were prompted to speak. It aims to help those who have suffered from the trauma of poltergeists, and to bring back into the open experiences which, in the developed world, have become a new kind of taboo. It is a book for anyone interested in the extraordinary effects of human emotion; the fringes of biology and physics; and the possible survival of human consciousness after death.




21st Century Ghost Stories


Book Description

This vibrant collection of award-winning supernatural stories from around the world offers something for every taste in the uncanny. Yes, there are ghosts. But you'll also find pieces involving revenants or reanimated corpses of different sorts, including-but not limited to-zombies, as well as stories that make literary use of fairies, vampires, demons, The Devil Himself, snakes (talking, and otherwise), time slips (aka unintentional time travel), mystery animals, ancient curses, contemporary curses, a plague even scarier than the coronavirus, Santería, and a number of haunted objects, including fine dinnerware, some smoky panes of old window glass, and a stuffed rabbit with a bad attitude. We've got several stories that fit the category of magic realism, a couple that are just plain hard to categorize, and one that has to do with dragons. Each of these 30 stories, in addition to providing the reader with a thrill, a chill, a laugh, or a new perspective on life and death, is also a small literary gem that you'll want to revisit again and again.




The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories


Book Description

The thrill and chill of the ghost story is displayed in all its variety and vitality through this marvellous anthology. Ranging from the early 19th century to the 1960s, the collection reveals the development of the genre, and showcases many of its greatest expositors - from Sir Walter Scott, H. G. Wells, M. R. James, T. H. White, Walter de la Mare, and Elizabeth Bowen in the UK to Edith Wharton in America. Though its heyday coincided with the golden age of Empire in the nineteenth century, the ghost story enjoyed a second flowering between the two World Wars and its popularity is as great as ever.




The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories


Book Description

Collection of thirty-five English ghost stories written during the Victorian Era.




Ghost Stories: Forgotten Classic Tales


Book Description

A masterful collection of ghost stories that have been overlooked by contemporary readers—including tales by celebrated authors such as Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain, and Edith Wharton—presented with insightful annotations by acclaimed horror anthologists Leslie S. Klinger and Lisa Morton. The ghost story has long been a staple of world literature, but many of the genre's greatest tales have been forgotten, overshadowed in many cases by their authors' bestselling work in other genres. In this spine-tingling anthology, little known stories from literary titans like Charles Dickens and Edith Wharton are collected alongside overlooked works from masters of horror fiction like Edgar Allan Poe and M. R. James. Acclaimed anthologists Leslie S. Klinger (The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes) and Lisa Morton (Ghosts: A Haunted History) set these stories in historical context and trace the literary significance of ghosts in fiction over almost two hundred years—from a traditional English ballad first printed in 1724 through the Christmas-themed ghost stories of the Victorian era and up to the science fiction–tinged tales of the early twentieth century. In bringing these masterful tales back from the dead, Ghost Stories will enlighten and frighten both longtime fans and new readers of the genre. Including stories by: Ambrose Bierce, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Olivia Howard Dunbar, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, M. R. James, Arthur Machen, Georgia Wood Pangborn, Mrs. J. H. Riddell, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Walter Scott, Frank Stockton, Mark Twain, and Edith Wharton.




Haunted San Francisco


Book Description

From North Beach to South of Market to Golden Gate Park and points in between, ghosts have made their spectral presences known.




The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton


Book Description

This haunting anthology is an enthralling collection of chilling tales infused with Edith Wharton's masterful exploration of human psychology and the hidden recesses of the human heart. As a keen observer of human nature, Wharton weaves her ghostly tales with remarkable subtlety and psychological depth. Her ghosts are not mere apparitions but poignant manifestations of guilt, regret, and unrequited desires. Through her elegant prose and sharp wit, Wharton delves into the darkest corners of the human psyche, exploring themes of forbidden passions, societal constraints, and the persistent power of the past. Each setting serves as the backdrop for chilling encounters with the spectral realm. The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton is a testament to Wharton's versatility as a writer. The first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, she imbues her tales with atmospheric tension, challenging the reader to question what lies beyond our mortal existence.




Nightshade


Book Description

Collects the ghost stories of twenty-seven authors, including Elizabeth Bowen, Jean Rhys, Joan Aiken, Rudyard Kipling, Joyce Carol Oates, and Alison Lurie







Dread and Delight


Book Description

Forty ghost stories from English-speaking countries, written in the twentieth century by such well-known authors as A.C. Benson, Eleanor Farjeon, Joan Aiken and Leon Garfield.