A Century Of Ghost Stories

Anon [Dorothy M. Thomlinson?] (ed.) – A Century Of Ghost Stories (Hutchinson, 1935)

Many thanks to Richard Humphreys who kindly provided this enchanting dust-jacket scan.

J. Sheridan Le Fanu – The Familiar
J. Sheridan Le Fanu – Green Tea
Cecil Binney – The Saint And The Vicar
Sir Walter Scott – The Tapestried Chamber
Anthony Gittins – Gibbet Lane
Mrs Gaskell – The Old Nurse’s Story
M.R. James – The Residence At Whitminster
M.R. James – A Warning To The Curious
Sir Edward Bulwer- Lytton – The Haunted And The Haunters
Walter De La Mare – The Green Room
Miss Braddon – Eveline’s Visitant
Edith Wharton – Afterward
Ambrose Bierce – The Middle Toe Of The Right Foot
F. Marion Crawford – Man Overboard!
Shane Leslie – In A Glass Dimly
Shane Leslie – The Lord-In-Waiting
Bram Stoker – Dracula’s Guest
E.F. Benson – Expiation
E.F. Benson – Pirates
Algernon Blackwood – The Woman’s Ghost Story
Percival Landon – Thurnley Abbey
Oliver Onions – The Rosewood Door
Vernon Lee – The Virgin Of The Seven Daggers
Mrs Oliphant – The Library Window
Ann Bridge – The Song In The House
Violet Hunt – The Operation
Ex-Private X – The Sweeper
Ex-Private X – The Running Tide
W.L. George – Perez
——————–
R. H. Barham – The Spectre Of Tappington
Amelia B. Edwards – The Phantom Coach
Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Grey Champion
Nathaniel Hawthorne – Young Goodman Brown
Wilkie Collins – The Dream Woman
Frederick Marryat – The Werewolf
Charles Dickens – The Story Of The Bagman’s Uncle
E. Nesbit – John Charrington’s Wedding
Edgar Allan Poe – Berenice
Frederich Von Schiller – The Ghost-Seer
Alan Cunningham – The Haunted Ships
Ludwig Tieck – The Klausenburg
R. S. Hawker – The Bothanon Ghost
George Eliot – The Lifted Veil

A Century Of Ghost Stories (1936) is a much extended edition of the previous year’s Fifty Years Of Ghost Stories which includes only the stories listed above the dotted line (i.e., from Le Fanu’s The Familiar through to W. L. George’s Perez).

Detail from cover of 50 Years Of Ghost Stories provided by All Things Horror

The Hutchinson ‘Century’ Books

Hutchinson ‘Century of’ Omnibuses: 26 volumes, 1934-1938

Grateful thanks to Richard Humphreys who provided us with beautiful dust-jacket scans of the relevant entries. Mr. Humphreys’ Dennis Wheatley site was a forerunner to Bob Rothwell’s, and both can be found at Dennis Wheatley Info. It’s Richard’s listing i’ve referred to for dates and various snippets of information.

1934

• Creepy Stories
• Humour (ed. P. G. Wodehouse)
• Evening Standard Book Of Strange Stories
• Sea Stories (ed. Rafael Sabatini)

1935

• Love Stories (ed. Gilbert Frankau)
• Detective Stories (introduced by G. K. Chesterton)
• Famous Trials (ed. 1st Earl Of Birkenhead)
• 1001 Wonderful Things (ed. Walter Hutchinson)
• Book Of The King’s Jubilee (ed. Sir Philip Gibbs)
• Horror (ed. Dennis Wheatley)
• Boys Stories (ed. Francis Brett Young)
• 50 Years of Ghost Stories
• Girls Stories (ed. Ethel Boileau)
• Historical Stories (ed. Rafael Sabatini)

1936

• Western Stories (ed. George Goodchild)
• Ghost Stories [ed. Dorothy M. Thomlinson ?]
• Holiday Omnibus For All Seasons
• Holiday Omnibus For Christmas
• 2nd Century Of Humour (ed. ‘Fougasse’)
• Cavalcade Of History (ed. Claud Golding)

1937

• Evening Standard 2nd Book Of Strange Stories
• Nature Stories (ed. J. W. Robertson Scott)
• 2nd Century Of Creepy Stories (ed. Hugh Walpole)

1938

• The Fireside Omnibus
• 2nd Cavalcade Of History (ed. Claud Golding)
• More Famous Trials (ed. 1st Earl Of Birkenhead)

Even in those instances where an editor is credited, E. F. Bleiler warns against taking the attribution too seriously, so although Dennis Wheatley’s name found it’s way onto the cover of A Century Of Horror he may have had little to do with it beyond providing an introduction. From what we know of his “involvement” in the Dennis Wheatley Library Of The Occult series for Sphere forty years later, this doesn’t sound altogether unlikely. Intriguingly, Bleiler also wonders if Cynthia Asquith had some hand in compiling a few of them, in which case the prime suspect would be A Century Of Creepy Stories. Essentially, …. Creepy compiles the contents of Asquith’s The Ghost Book, When Churchyards Yawn and The Black Cap, loans Oscar Cook and ‘Flavia Richardson’ from the Not At Night series, and throws in a number of genre classics to keep everybody happy.

A Century Of Ghost Stories (1936) is a much extended edition of the previous year’s Fifty Years Of Ghost Stories. The more generous of the uncredited editors is often cited as Dorothy M. Thomlinson.

The Daily Express tried to muscle in on the Century action with two clones A Century Of Thrillers From Poe to Arlen and A Century Of Thrillers – Second Series (Odhams, 1934, 1935)

Cynthia Asquith – Shudders

Cynthia Asquith (ed.) – Shudders: A Collection Of New Nightmare Tales (Hutchinson, 1929)

L.P Hartley – The Travelling Grave
Hilda Hughes – Those Whom The Gods Love
E.F Benson – The Hanging Of Alfred Wadham
Walter de la Mare – Crewe
Arthur Machen – The Cosy Room
Huge Walpole – The Snow
Elizabeth Bowen – The Cat Jumps
M.R James – Rats
Algernon Blackwood – The Stranger
C.H.B Kitchin – Dispossession
Shame Leslie – The Lord-In-Waiting
W.B Maxwell – The Last Man In
W.Somerset Maugham – The End Of The Flight
Mrs Belloc Lowndes – Her Judgment Day
Cynthia Asquith – The Playfellow

Evening Standard Book Of Strange Stories

Anon – The Evening Standard Book Of Strange Stories (Hutchinson, n.d.)

Grateful thanks to Richard Humphreys for providing the cover scan!

W. W. Jacobs – A Tiger’s Skin
Ralph Straus – The Room On The Fourth Floor
Margaret Irwin – The Book
H. A. Manhood – Crack Of Whips
A. M. Burrage – Nobody’s House
A. M. Burrage – The Black Diamond Tree
F. Britten Austin – The Strange Case Of Mr. Todmorden
Martin Armstrong – Mary Ansell
Barnard Stacey – The Devil’s Ape
L. A. G. Strong – Chailey’s Folly
Anthony Marsden – Dusk Below Helvellyn
George R. Preedy – Crab-Apple Harvest
‘Seamark’ – Query
Louis Golding – He Fought A Ghost
Anthony Gittens – The Third Performance
Hal Pink – The Screaming Plant
Holloway Horn – The Old Man
C. Patrick Thompson – Sunset Woman
Kathleen Rivett – Portrait Of A Queen
William Gerrhardi – The Big Drum
Alfred Tressidder Sheppard – The Third Medal
H. De Vere Stackpoole – Chinese Girl
A. J. Alan – My Adventure At Chiselhurst
A. J. Alan – The Hair
Guy de Maupassant – Fear
Guy de Maupassant – The Hand
Thomas Burke – The Song Of Ho Ling
Thomas Burke – The Hollow Man
J. S. Fletcher – The Lighthouse On Shivering Sands
Francis Gribble – The Secret Of The Schwarztal
Basil Tozer – The Pioneers Of Pike’s Peak
Michael Kent – The Shade Of Peterbee
F. Marion Crawford – The Screaming Skull
T. F. Powys – The Two Horns
Jan Neruda – The Vampire
S. L. Dennis – The Second Awakening Of A Magician
Oscar Wilde – The Sphinx Without A Secret
Charles Davy – The Vanishing Trick
George Meredith – The Punishment Of Shahpesh, The Persian, On Khipil, The Builder
Basil Murray – Three Pennyworth Of Luck
L. C. S. Anson – An Experiment With Blood
Charles Dickens – No 1 Branch Line: The Signalman
Frank R. Stockton – The Lady, Or The Tiger?
Ambrose Bierce – A Horseman In The Sky
E. H. Lacon Watson – Escape
E. M. Delafield – Squirrel In A Cage
Hector Bolitho – The Albatross
Algernon Blackwood – The Land Of Green Ginger
Algernon Blackwood – Ancient Lights
Arthur Morrison – The Thing In The Upper Room
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch – A Pair Of Hands
Sir John Squire – Entirely Imaginary
Sheila Kaye-Smith – Mrs Adis
Michael Arlen – The Battle Of Berkeley Square
Stacey Aumonier – A Man Of Letters
Phyllis Bottome – Henry
Graham Greene – The End Of The Party
Ethel Mannin – Romanoff
Marthe McKenna – Glasshouses
Lesley Storm – Discipline
P. C. Wren – The Dust That Was Barren
Francis Brett Young – Balalaika
Oliver Onions – Phantas
Theophile Gautier – The Mummy’s Foot
Dorothy L. Sayers – The Unprincipled Affair Of The Practical Joker
F. A. Kummer – The De Medici Cup
Eden Phillpotts – High Tide
Lady Eleanor Smith – Mrs. Raeburn’s Waxwork
Lady Eleanor Smith – Satan’s Circus
R. H. Mottram – I Pagliacci
Alphonse Daudet – The Elixir Of The Rev. Father Gaucher
Lafcadio Hearn – The Story Of Ming-y
Selwyn Jepson – Nor The Jury
E. Nesbit – Man-Size In Marble
John Metcalfe – The Tunnel
John Metcalfe – The Bad Lands
J. D. Beresford – The Misanthrope
J. D. Beresford – Powers Of The Air
E. F. Benson – Mrs Amworth
Jerome K. Jerome – The Dancing Partner
Maurice Baring – Venus
Ernest Bramah – The Story Of Yung Chang
Geoffrey Moss – Primula
Norman Matson – The House On Big Faraway
Sir Max Pemberton – If A Man Might Tarry
Marc Connelly – Coroner’s Inquest
Hjalmar Bergman – Judith
W. Somerset Maugham – The Taipan

E. F. Bleiler gives the publication date as 1934. Haining, Aickman, Chetwynd-Hayes and Mary Danby are among those editors who’ve dipped into this one for their own collections, and if you have the Fontana Ghost/ Horror/ tales Of Terror books you’ll already have a fair number of these.

Evening Standard Second Book Of Strange Stories

Anon – The Evening Standard Second Book Of Strange Stories (Hutchinson, 1937)

Grateful thanks to Marijke Van Duyn for providing the cover scan and contents!

G. B. Stern – The Hazard Of The Spanish Horses
Ring W. Lardner – Man Not Overboard
Lloyd Hooper – All Fools’ Court
Simpson Stokes – Air Lock A.G. 75
Sheik A. Abdullah – The Shrine Of The Holy Fir
Alexandre Dumas – My Adventure At Soissons
P. C. Wren – The Statue And The Bust
Phyllis Bentley – Conversion
Richard Carol – The Magic Of Hussein
Frederic Boutet – Lenger And Keller
A. M. Pushkin – The Queen Of Spades
C. Patrick Thompson – The Shuttlecock Of Ritz-Ritz
Alfred de Sauviniere – The Raise Of Spectres
John Talland – Reincarnation
Rearden Connor – Rats
Saki – Gabriel-Ernst
Eric Ambrose – The Man Who Died
H. A. Manhood – Wish Me Luck
James Hilton – Lives Of Men
Edgar Wallace – White Stocking
Kathleen Warren – Remnant Of ’22
George R. Preedy – The Anecdote
Eric Walrond – Inciting To Riot
John Collier – The Right Side
Dorothy L. Sayers – Maher Shalal Hashbaz
R. N. Currey – The Black Dog
Sheridan Le Fanu – Wicked Captain Walshawe
Eric Ambrose – Carlton’s Father
Ivan Turganev – The Adventure Of Second Lieutenant Bubnov
Anon – A Ghost Story Of Long Ago: The Suitor Of Selkirk
D. Kosztolanyi – The Honest Finder
Agatha Christie – The Veiled Lady
Francis Stuart – Love Or Money
E. M. Forster – Coordination
T. H. White – Shining Hat At Tarring Neville
Selma Robinson – The Departure
John Brophy – Mr. Langpool’s Buffalo
D. Wilson MacArthur – The Chasm
Howard Jones – Marriott’s Monkey
M. R. James – A School Story
John Gloag – Galley Trot Blind
Michael Kent – Supper At Borgy’s
Eric Bennett – Postscript
Albert Halper – Going To Market
Erskine Caldwell – The First Autumn
Louis Bromfield – The Urn
Norman Matson – Death On The Straightaway
Ralph Straus – Horse Of Death
Gouverner Morris – Derrick’s Return
Peter Fleming – Felipe
Phyllis Bottome – Spellbound
Eric Linklater – Country Born
Helena Lefroy Caperton – Oblivion
Hugh Walpole – The Snow
Manuel Komroff – So You Won’t Talk
Jack Lindsay – Judgement In The Underworld
Peter Cheyney – Nice Work
Louis Golding – Painted Love
Michael Fessier – Over The Hill
Herman B. Deutch – Doo-Doom Got To Hang
Post Wheeler – The Diviner And The Poor Woman
Walter R. Brooks – Like A Diamond In The Sky
Manuel Komroff – Siamese Hands
Thomas Burke – The Horrible God
Michael Joseph – The Yellow Cat
G. B. Stern – Quiet Corner
Storm Jameson – Murder
Henry Peterson – Lum Lo’s Idol
Marcel Ayme – The Dwarf
T. O. Beachcroft – The Ringed Word
John Hastings Turner – The House In The Wood
Marjory Bowen – The Pleasant Husband
Thomas Burke – The Shadow And The Bone
Pansy Pakenham – The Cook’s Room
Mrs. Violet Campbell – Lady Harpton’s Garden Party
L. Biro – Doctors
Lord Dunsany – A Drink From A Running Stream
Elizabeth Irons Folsom – Towers Of Fame
Philip Curtiss – The Resurrection Of Chilton Hills
Alexandre Arnoux – The Late Bernard
Fritz Hopman – The Bearer Of The Message
Edward Acheson – Hide Your Eyes
Oliver La Farge – Haunted Ground
Dana Burnet – Beauty In His Brain

James Hale – After Midnight Ghost Book

James Hale  (ed) – The After Midnight Ghost Book (Hutchinson, 1980)

Robert Nye – Glendower
Agnes Short – Intercom
Fay Weldon – Spirit of the House
Peter Dickinson – Mink
Katherine Talbot – Amongst the British Soldiers
Peter Tinniswood – Summer, New York, 1978 – That’s All
Willis Hall – The Victorian Leather Hat-Box
Philip Evans – The Gold Medallion
Michael Levey – Unsettled, with Outbreaks of Rain
Steve Stern – Rudolph Finkl’s Apprenticeship
Celia Dale – Moon Daisy
James Aldridge – The Black Ghost of St Helen
Giles Gordon – Mask
Sarah Lawson – Springtime at Kraznau
Michael Vestey – An Apple for Miss Stevenson
Graham Lord – A Child Is Born at the Inn
Esme Dooderidge – The Villa Inglese
Janice Elliott – Reflections
Kieran Pendiville – The Spirit of the Game
H.H. Washbrook – Keep It in the Family
Michael Gilbert – Camford Cottage
Steve Wilson – O Keep the Cat Far Hence
Dominic Cooper – Will Stringer
Margaret A. Doody – The Tale of Edie’s Teeth

Thanks to Alan Frackelton for providing the contents and cover scan!

Hugh Walpole – A Second Century of Creepy Stories

Hugh Walpole (ed.) – A Second Century of Creepy Stories (Hutchinson, 1937)

Thanks to Rob Humphreys for the cover scan

Wilkie Collins – Mad Monkton
John Metcalfe – Mortmain
Anonymous – The Dead Bride
J. S. Le Fanu – Carmilla
Bartimeus – The Green Door
Hugh Walpole – Tarnhelm
Ambrose Bierce – A Watcher by the Dead
Walter De La Mare -The Trumpet
Ralph Strauss – The Most Maddening Story In The World
Arthur Machen – Change
Algernon Blackwood – Keeping His Promise
Ex-Private X – The Oak Saplings
M.R. James – Mr. Humphreys And His Inheritance
Oliver Onions – The Beckoning Fair One
Guy de Maupassant – The Horla
F. Marion Crawford – The Upper Berth
Hector Bolitho – The House In Half Moon Street
T. O. Beachcroft – The Inn In the Estuary
Marjorie Bowen – The Crown Derby Plate
Henry James – The Turn Of The Screw
Margaret Irwin – Monsieur Seeks a Wife
Ann Bridge – The Accident
Martin Armstrong – Mrs. Vaudrey’s Journey
A.M. Burrage – Browdean Farm
M. Joyce – Perchance to Dream
Shane Leslie – The Drummer of Gordonmuir
Rupert Croft-Cooke – Banquo’s Chair

Hugh Lamb, writing in Steve Jones & Kim Newman’s Horror: 100 Best Books (Xanadu, 1988), says of this one:  “Simply the best anthology ever assembled; I’ve held this view for over thirty years”.

A Century Of Creepy Stories

Anon – A Century Of Creepy Stories (Hutchinson, n.d.: 1934)

Thanks to Rob Humphreys for the cover scan

Hugh Walpole – The Snow, The Tarn, A Little Ghost, Mrs. Lunt
Arthur Machen – The Islington Mystery, The Cosy Room, Opening The Door, Munitions Of War
Flavia Richardson (Christine Campbell Thomson) – The Red Turret
Oscar Cook – When Glister Walked, Si Urag Of The Tail, The Great White Fear, Boomerang
Elizabeth Bowen – The Apple Tree, Telling, The Cat Jumps
Walter De La Mare – Crewe, A Recluse
Oliver Onions – Two Trifles, The Smile Of Karen, “John Gladwin Says ….”
E. F. Benson – The Hanging Of Alfred Wadham
Shane Leslie – As In A Glass Dimly, The Hospital Nurse, The Lord In Waiting
Barry Pain – A Considerable Murder
Lady Cynthia Asquith – The Lovely Voice, The Playfellow, “God Grante That She Lye Stille”, The Corner Shop
J. M. Barrie – Shall We Join The Ladies?
D. H. Lawrence – The Rocking-Horse Winner, The Lovely Lady
M. R. James – Rats
L. P. Hartley – The Killing Bottle, The Travelling Grave, A Visitor From Down Under, The Cotillion
W. B. Maxwell – The Prince, The Last Man In
C. H. B. Kitchen – Dispossession, Beauty And The Beast
Hilda Hughes – Those Whom The Gods Love, The Birthright
Charles Dickens – The Haunted Man And The Ghosts Bargain
May Sinclair – The Villa Desiree
Mrs. Belloc-Lowndes – The Duenna, The Unbolted Door
Daniel Defoe – The Apparition Of Mrs. Veal
Dennis Mackail – The Lost Tragedy
Clemence Dane – Spinster’s Rest
Edgar Wallace – Circumstantial Evidence
Edgar Allan Poe – A Descent Into The Maelstrom, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, The Black Cat
Charles Whibley – Twelve O’Clock
Enid Bagnold – The Amorous Ghost
Desmond MacCarthy – Pargiton And Harby
H. G. Wells – The Country Of The Blind
Washington Irving – The Spectre Bridegroom
Mary Webb – Mr. Tallent’s Ghost
Ann Bridge – The Buick Saloon
W. S. Morrison, M. P. – The Horns Of The Bull
William Gerhardi – The Man Who Came Back
Philip MacDonald – Our Feathered Friends
Ambrose Bierce – The Stranger
Michael Joseph – The Yellow Cat
A. J. Alan – My Adventure In Norfolk
Honore De Balzac – The Mysterious Mansion
Algernon Blackwood – The Stranger.

There are 1178 pages of this one. Hugh Walpole has sometimes been attributed  editorship of this epic. Be that as it may, the hard work had already been done by others: Essentially, A Century Of Creepy Stories compiles the contents of at least three Lady Cynthia Asquith collections – The Ghost Book, When Churchyards Yawn and The Black Cap – loans Oscar Cook and ‘Flavia Richardson’ from the Not At Night series, and throws in a number of genre classics to keep everybody happy.
The Asquith anthologies would go on to provide the backbone of the Aickman-edited Fontana Ghost books thirty years later.