Ghost Stories


Book Description

Sherlock star Mark Gatiss selects and introduces chilling tales by the unsung master of the classic ghost story - E.F. Benson. There's nothing sinister about a London bus. Nothing supernatural could occur on a busy Tube platform. There's nothing terrifying about a little caterpillar. And a telephone, what could be scary about that? Don't be frightened of the dark corners of your room. Don't be alarmed by a sudden, inexplicable chill. There's no need for a ticking clock, a limping footstep, or a knock at the door to start you trembling. There's nothing to be scared of. Nothing at all.




MAPP AND LUCIA


Book Description

Make Way For Lucia, also known as Mapp and Lucia, is a collective name for a series of novels by E. F. Benson about Emmeline "Lucia" Lucas and Elizabeth Mapp. The novels feature humorous incidents in the lives of (mainly) upper-middle-class British people in the 1920s and 1930s, vying for social prestige and one-upmanship in an atmosphere of extreme cultural snobbery. Several of them are set in the small seaside town of Tilling, closely based on Rye, East Sussex, where Benson lived for a number of years and served as mayor. Contents: Queen Lucia Miss Mapp Lucia in London Mapp and Lucia Lucia's Progress or The Worshipful Lucia Trouble for Lucia The Male Impersonator Desirable Residences Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist and short story writer, known professionally as E.F. Benson. He started his novel writing career in 1893 with the fashionably controversial Dodo, which was an instant success, and followed it with a variety of satire and romantic and supernatural melodrama. He repeated the success of Dodo, with sequels to this novel, but the greatest success came relatively late in his career with The Mapp and Lucia series consisting of six novels and two short stories. Benson was also known as a writer of atmospheric, oblique, and at times humorous or satirical ghost stories.




Spook Stories


Book Description

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.




Caterpillars (Cryptofiction Classics - Weird Tales of Strange Creatures)


Book Description

This early work by E. F. Benson was originally published in 1912 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography as part of our Cryptofiction Classics series. 'Caterpillars' is a short story about a man haunted by dreams of enormous caterpillars. Edward Frederic Benson was born at Wellington College (where his father was headmaster) in Berkshire, England in 1867. Nowadays, Benson is principally known for his 'Mapp and Lucia' series about Emmeline "Lucia" Lucas and Elizabeth Mapp. The series consists of six novels and two short stories, and remains popular to this day, being serialized for Radio 4 as recently as 2008. The Cryptofiction Classics series contains a collection of wonderful stories from some of the greatest authors in the genre, including Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Jack London. From its roots in cryptozoology, this genre features bizarre, fantastical, and often terrifying tales of mythical and legendary creatures. Whether it be giant spiders, werewolves, lake monsters, or dinosaurs, the Cryptofiction Classics series offers a fantastic introduction to the world of weird creatures in fiction.




The Horror-Horn


Book Description

An extraordinary collection of 31 short stories of the supernatural and the weird from E. F. Benson, one of the greatest horror and fantasy writers.




The Room in the Tower


Book Description

The terrifying story of a young man who has recurring nightmares. A classic story of fear from the master of Edwardian Literature. This classic short story, originally published in 1912, is being republished here together with a new introductory biography of the author.




The Man Who Went Too Far


Book Description

The Man Who Went Too Far is a short story by E.F. Benson. A man dedicates himself to realizing "unity" in conjunction with nature. In time he gets it, but it is not at all what he expected.




Negotium Perambulans


Book Description

Negotium Perambulans E. F. Benson We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.




The Terror by Night


Book Description

THE TERROR BY NIGHT by E. F. Benson Although E. F. Benson's four volumes of short weird tales are acknowledged classics of their kind, original hardback editions are now difficult to obtain, and when copies are offered for sale the price is often prohibitive. Too, recent research has, to an extent, rendered them out of date, since over the past two decades nearly a score of previously uncollected stories have been unearthed, which need to be integrated within the Benson 'spook story' canon. The Ash-Tree Press 'Collected Spook S"tories', under the editorship of Jack Adrian, now brings together all of E. F. Benson's known tales of the strange and the supernatural into an extended five-volue set. The series features a radical rearranging of the stories themselves into their chronological order of publication and publication. THE TERROR BY NIGHT-the first volume in the series-covers the period between 1899 and 1911, and demonstrates Benson's early mastery of his craft, in such stories as 'Caterpillars', 'The Man Who Went Too Far', 'Gavon's Eve', and 'The Bus-Conductor', the basis for one of the stories in the classic supernatural film DEAD OF NIGHT in 1945. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.




Across the Stream


Book Description

Across the Stream By E.F. Benson There was something odd about females, and it was a mystery into which he did not at all want to enquire. They wore skirts, which perhaps concealed some abnormality, which would be fearful to contemplate...