From The Golden Age of the Ghost Story

The Golden Age of the Ghost Story can be dated roughly from the last of the original gothic novels to the First World War. British Ghost Stories collects the eeriest tales of this period, selecting one from each of the most skilled UK writers of short supernatural fiction, men and women from England, Ireland, and Scotland.

Selected and Introduced by Stephen Carver.

‘Only their eyes, their terrible eyes, were living; and those eyes were all turned menacingly upon me!’ – Amelia B. Edwards.

‘I want to know what it is that walks about his room sometimes when he’s out and when the door’s locked on the outside.’– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

‘The madness of the living is a thing so abominable and fearful as to chill every human heart with horror; it is less than nothing in comparison with the madness of the dead!’ – Aleister Crowley.

The Golden Age of the Ghost Story can be dated roughly from the last of the original gothic novels to the First World War. It runs from J.S. Le Fanu’s early Victorian chillers, through Dickens’ Christmas stories and the rise of Spiritualism, up to Le Fanu’s natural heir, M.R. James. British Ghost Stories collects the eeriest tales of this period, selecting one from each of the most skilled UK writers of short supernatural fiction, men and women from England, Ireland, and Scotland, appending the first modern ghost story by Daniel Defoe. Each story is introduced with a brief biography of its author and its original publication details. This collection also includes the original stories from the BBC Ghost Story for Christmas series, ‘The Signal-man’, ‘A Warning to the Curious’, ‘Lot No. 249’, ‘Man-size in Marble’, and ‘The Room in the Tower’, with an Introduction exploring the history of the series, including ten tips from M.R. James on how to craft the perfect ghost story.

Contents:

The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott

An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street by J.S. Le Fanu

The Old Nurse’s Story by Elizabeth Gaskell]

The Haunted and the Haunters by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

The Phantom Coach by Amelia B. Edwards

The Signal-man by Charles Dickens

The Ghost at the Rath by Rosa Mulholland

Eveline’s Visitant by Elizabeth Braddon

Reality or Delusion? by Ellen Wood

No Living Voice by Thomas Street Millington

Miss Jéromette and the Clergyman by Wilkie Collins

Old Mrs. Jones by Charlotte Riddell

The Body-Snatcher by R. L. Stevenson

Man-size in Marble by E. Nesbit

The Phantom Rickshaw by Rudyard Kipling

The Judge’s House by Bram Stoker

The Man of Science by Jerone K. Jerome

Lot No. 249 by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost by H. G. Wells

Out of the Sea by A. C. Benson

A Strange Goldfield by Guy Boothby

Keeping His Promise by Algernon Blackwood

The Highwaymen by Lord Dunsany

Thurnley Abbey by Perceval Landon

The Whistling Room by William Hope Hodgson

The Beckoning Fair One by Oliver Onions

The Room in the Tower by E. F. Benson

The Testament of Magdalen Blair by Aleister Crowley

The Death Mask by H. D. Everett

The Nature of the Evidence by May Sinclair

A Warning to the Curious by M. R. James

Crewe by Walter de la Mare

APPENDIX A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal by Daniel Defoe

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