Readers Digest – Great Ghost Stories

Readers Digest – Great Ghost Stories (Readers Digest, 1997)

Robert Wheeler & Tony Stone

The Editors – Introduction

Robert Aickman – Ringing The Changes
Cynthia Asquith – The Corner Shop
A. L. Barker – The Whip Hand
Ambrose Bierce – A Tough Tussle
Algernon Blackwood – Transition
Ray Bradbury – The Crowd
Ann Bridge – The Buick Saloon
Rhoda Broughton – The Truth, The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth
A. M. Burrage – Smee
A. S. Byatt – The July Ghost
B. M. Croker – ‘To Let’
Robertson Davies – The Ghost Who Vanished By Degrees
Walter de la Mare – Seaton’s Aunt
Charles Dickens – No. 1 Branch Line: The Signalman
Lord Dunsany – August Cricket
Elizabeth Fancett – The Ghost Of Calagou
Frederick Forsyth – The Shepherd
Shamus Frazer  – Florinda
Elizabeth Gaskell – The Old Nurse’s Story
Graham Greene – A Little Place Of The Edgware Road
L. P. Hartley – Someone In The Lift
William Hope Hodgson – The Gateway Of The Monster
Thomas Hood – The Shadow Of A Shade
Holloway Horn – The Old Man
Elizabeth Jane Howard – Three Miles Up
Henry James – The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes
M. R. James – The Ash Tree
Rudyard Kipling – The Phantom Rickshaw
Marghanita Laski – The Tower
J. S. le Fanu – Shalken The Painter
Penelope Lively – Black Dog
Alison Lurie – The Highboy
W. Somerset Maugham – The Taipan
Guy de Maupassant – An Apparition
E. Nesbit – Man-size In Marble
Edgar Allan Poe – William Wilson
Alexander Pushkin – The Queen Of Spades
Jean Rhys – I Used To Live Here Once
Robert Louis Stevenson – The Body-snatcher
Bram Stoker – The Judge’s House
Elizabeth Taylor – Poor Girl
H. R. Wakefield – Blind Man’s Buff
Elizabeth Walter – Dual Control
Fay Weldon – Breakages
Oscar Wilde – The Canterville Ghost
Emile Zola – Angeline, or The Haunted House

Blurb:

If you enjoy reading about elusive spirits and uncanny happenings, bizarre hauntings and malevolent ghosts, this is the volume for you. It brings together forty-six of the very best ghost stories ever written.

There are unforgettable classics from the great masters of the ghost story such as M. R. James, Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Ambrose Bierce, Edith Nesbit and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Then there are wonderfully macabre tales from world-famous authors such as Charles Dickens, Alexander Pushkin, Guy de Maupassant and Graham Greene, as well as gems from some of today’s best writers including Ray Bradbury, A. S. Byatt, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Penelope Lively, Fay Weldon and Frederick Forsyth.

This is a collection to entertain and intrigue, to terrify and to tantalise … to chill you to the bone. You have been warned!

Richard Dalby – The Virago Book of Ghost Stories 2

Richard Dalby – The Virago Book of Ghost Stories: The Twentieth Century: Volume 2 (Virago, 1991)

Richard Dalby – Preface
Sara Maitland – Introduction

A. S. Byatt – The July Ghost
Mary Butts – With and Without Buttons
Celia Fremlin – Don’t Tell Cissie
Margaret Irwin – The Book
Rebecca West – The Grey Men
Daphne du Maurier – The Pool
Ann Bridge – The Station Road
Penelope Lively – Black Dog
E. Nesbit – No. 17
Pamela Sewell – Prelude
D. K. Broster – The Pestering
Jean Rhys – I Used to Live Here Once
Clotilde Graves – A Spirit Elopement
Eleanor Smith – Whittington’s Cat
Ruth Rendell – The Haunting of Shawley Rectory
Margery Lawrence – Mare Amore
Antonia Fraser – Who’s Been Sitting in My Car?
Elizabeth Fancett – The Ghosts of Calagou
Edith Wharton – Afterward
Mary Williams – The Thingummajig
Mary Elizabeth Counselman – The House of Shadows
Richmal Crompton – Rosalind
Dorothy K. Haynes – Redundant
A. L. Barker – The Dream of Fair Women
Rosemary Pardoe – The Chauffeur
Joan Aiken – The Traitor
Elinor Mordaunt – The Landlady

Thanks to paisleycravat of Vault for posting the contents!

Richard Dalby – Virago Book Of Ghost Stories 2006

Richard Dalby (ed.) – The Virago Book Of Ghost Stories (Virago, 2006)

Cover illustration: Tina Mansuwan at CIA

Inside cover blurb:
Bringing together vintage tales from the outstandingly successful Virago anthologies The Virago Book of Ghost Storied (Volumes I and II) and Victorian Ghost Stories, comes this chilling new omnibus.
Lost loves, past enmities and unwanted memories mingle with the inexplicable as unquiet souls return to repay kindnesses, settle scores and haunt the imagination.
Featuring some of the finest writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, these stories gather to haunt and horrify — an irresistible read for those with a taste for being spooked.

Preface – Richard Dalby

Charlotte Bronte – Napoleon And The Spectre
Elizabeth Gaskell – The Old Nurse’s Story
Amelia B. Edwards – The Story Of Salome
Mrs Henry Wood – Reality Or Delusion?
Charlotte Riddell – The Old House In Vauxhall Walk
Margaret Oliphant – The Open Door
Ella D’Arcy – The Villa Lucienne
Mary E. Wilkins (Freeman) – The Vacant Lot
E. Nesbit – The Violet Car
Edith Wharton -The Eyes
May Sinclair – The Token
Richmal Crompton – Rosalind
Margery H. Lawrence – The Haunted Saucepan
Margaret Irwin – The Book
F. M. Mayor – Miss De Mannering Of Asham
Ann Bridge – The Station Road
Stella Gibbons – Roaring Tower
Elizabeth Bowen – The Happy Autumn Fields
Rosemary Timperley – The Mistress in Black
Celia Fremlin – Don’t Tell Cissie
Antonia Fraser – Who’s Been Sitting In My Car
Ruth Rendell – The Haunting Of Shawley Rectory
A. S. Byatt – The July Ghost
A. L. Barker – The Dream Of Fair Women
Penelope Lively – Black Dog
Rosemary Pardoe – The Chauffeur
Lisa St. Aubin De Teran – Diamond Jim
Angela Carter – Ashputtle
Elizabeth Fancett – The Ghost Of Calagou
Joan Aikin – The Traitor
Dorothy K. Haynes – Redundant

Notes on the authors

Chris Morgan – Dark Fantasies

Chris Morgan (ed.) – Dark Fantasies: New Tales Of Psychological And Supernatural Terror (Legend, 1989)

Introduction: No Slime, No Chainsaws – Chris Morgan

Brian Stableford – The Will
Gary Kilworth – Usurper
Stephen Gallagher – Life Line
A. L. Barker – Charley
R. M. Lamming – Candle Lies
Ian Watson – Tales From Weston Willow
David Langford – The Facts In The Case Of Micky Valdon
Freda Warrington – Shine For Me
Christopher Evans – Lifelines
John Brunner – Dropping Ghyll
Tanith Lee – Don’t Get Lost
Nicholas Royle – Archway
Ramsey Campbell – Being An Angel
Chris Morgan – Interesting Times
Lisa Tuttle – Skin Deep
Brian Aldiss – Three Degrees Over

Chances are, if you’re anything like me, when you read the title of Morgan’s introductory essay – No Slime, No Chainsaws – you’ll react with derisive sneers of “snob horror!” Don’t be deterred by the seemingly anti-splatterpunk stance, however, as this is an excellent Brit Horror anthology and, happily, far from free of bloody mayhem.

Brian Stableford – The Will: Helen returns to the sticks for her father’s funeral to be met with the inevitable barrage of veiled threats and abuse from her loathsome family. This turns to sheer hatred when the will is read and she is left “the remainder of my estate.” Why? All is revealed in a spectacularly unpleasant ending.

Gary Kilworth – Usurper: Franz Culper is upstaged by his shadow in everything it does. It is more efficient at his job, steals his friends, makes love to his wife and locks him out of his home. Driven to desperation, Franz decides on desperate measures to finally get one up on the usurper …

Stephen Gallagher – Life Line: Ryan is convinced he’s spoken to his dead fiance, Belinda, on a mysterious chat-line. His phone bill should be astronomical, but the calls haven’t been registered. He determines to discover the whereabouts of those who run the service and, of course, Belinda, a suicide whose “badly decomposed body washed up on a beach in Holland. The effects of the long immersion had been compounded by the attentions of various kinds of marine life and at least one encounter with a boat propeller.”
Scary and brilliant, and about as funny as a tale containing the lines “I’ve learned one thing. Everything you love, you lose. Everything” can be.

David Langford – The Facts In The Case Of Micky Valdon: Avowed skeptic disproves Valdon’s degeneration into “150 pounds of plump, artificially reared maggots”, as “two professional magicians can now duplicate this trick onstage.” Amongst his far from convincing evidence, he cites a former crony of the deceased’s “great merriment at a reminiscence of Valdon once dropping a wet fish down the front of an unpopular barmaid’s dress” to prove the man was nothing but a practical joker.

Ian Watson – Tales From Weston Willow: Three short stories narrated by Mrs. Prestige in “The Wheatsheaf Inn.” The first deals with cross-country runner, Charlie Fox, who sabotages the hunt and pays a heavy price for his sins. In the second story, Paul and Ruth won’t believe the former vicarage is the centre of the universe … until they’re given appalling proof. Finally, three villagers pretend to be deaf, dumb and/ or blind as they attempt to cheat their way to victory in the County inner-village quiz.

Nicholas Royle – Archway : From the day she moves into her North London flat, Bella is haunted by the scornful laughter of an old, grey faced tramp she’s see on the street. She is unfairly dismissed from her job, encounters the red-tape horrors of the DSS and faces eviction. Finally …

Tanith Lee – Don’t Get Lost: Sally and her boyfriend find it impossible to leave a council estate as the streets keep changing. They break into a house and the boyfriend discovers three headless corpses: it’s as if a giant spider has ensnared and then eaten its prey …

Chris Morgan – Interesting Times: Keith blows £95.50 when he answers an advertisement which promises to “let excitement into your life.” shortly afterward, he receives a note acknowledging receipt of his cheque and informing him he’s just been ripped off. He loses his job, wife, home (as do so many characters in Dark Fantasies) and is mugged, hospitalized, and framed for drug possession. There’s only one way to make it stop.