Louise Welsh – Ghost: 100 Stories To Read With The Lights On

Louise Welsh [ed.] – Ghost: 100 Stories To Read With The Lights On (Head of Zeus, 2015)

Introduction
Pliny the Younger – The Haunted House
Anon – Daniel Crowley And The Ghosts
Robert Burns – Tam O’Shanter
Brothers Grimm – The Singing Bone
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley – Captain Walton’s Final Letter
Sir Walter Scott – Wandering Willie’s Tale
James Hogg – The Mysterious Bride
Charlotte Bronté – Napoleon And The Spectre
Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Minister’s Black Veil
Edgar Allan Poe – The Tell-Tale Heart
Charles Dickens – Christmas Ghosts
Wilkie Collins – A Terribly Strange Bed
Elizabeth Gaskell – The Old Nurses Story
Mark Twain – Cannibalism In The Cars
Sheridan le Fanu – Madam Crowl’s Ghost
Fyodor Dostoyevsky – Bobok: From Somebody’s Diary
Auguste Villiers de L.’lsle-Adam – The Very Image
Bram Stoker – Dracula’s Guest
Henry James – The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes
Anton Chekhov – A Bad Business
Oscar Wilde – The Canterville Ghost
Thomas Hardy – The Withered Arm
Rudyard Kipling – My Own True Ghost Story
E. Nesbit – John Charrington’s Wedding
Robert Louis Stevenson – Thrawn Janet
Charlotte Perkins Gilman – The Yellow Wall-Paper
Jerome K. Jerome – The Dancing Partner
Robert W. Chambers – The Yellow Sign
W. W. Jacobs – The Monkey’s Paw
Jonas Lie – Elias And The Draug
Emile Zola – Angeline, Or The Haunted House
H. G. Wells – The Inexperienced Ghost
Mary Wilkins Freeman – The Wind In The Rose-Bush
Guy de Maupassant – A Tress Of Hair
M. R. James – ‘Oh Whistle And I’ll Come To You, My Lad’
Mary Austin – The Readjustment
Ambrose Bierce – The Stranger
Oliver Onions – The Rocker
F. Marion Crawford – The Doll’s Ghost
E. F. Benson – The Room In The Tower
Richard Middleton – On The Brighton Road
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – How It Happened
Arthur Machen – The Bowmen
Saki – The Open Window
Edith Wharton – The Lady’s Maid’s Bell
H. P. Lovecraft – The Terrible Old Man
Richard Crompton – The Ghost
May Sinclair – The Nature Of The Evidence
D. H. Lawrence – The Rocking-Horse Winner
Virginia Woolf – A Haunted House
P. G. Wodehouse – Honeysuckle Cottage
Graham Greene – The Second Death
William Faulkner – A Rose For Emily
Franz Kafka – The Hunter Graccus
Zora Neale Hurston – High Walker And Bloody Bones
Dylan Thomas – The Vest
W. Somerset Maugham – A Man From Glasgow
Elizabeth Bowen – The Demon Lover
Sir Alex Guinness – Money For Jam
Stevie Smith – Is There Life Beyond The Gravy?
Ray Bradbury – Mars Is Heaven!
Shirley Jackson – The Tooth
Flann O’Brien – Two In One
Yukio Mishima – Swaddling Clothes
Rosemary Timperley – Harry
Muriel Spark – The Girl I Left Behind
Elizabeth Taylor – Poor Girl
Richard Brautigan – Memory Of A Girl
Tove Jansson – Black-White
Stephen King – The Mangler
J. G. Ballard – The Dead Astronaut
Robert Nye – Randal
Ruth Rendell – The Vinegar Mother
Jean Rhys – I Used To Live Here Once
William Trevor – The Death Of Peggy Meehan
Truman Capote – A Beautiful Child
Louise Erdrich – Fleur
Tim O’Brien – The Lives Of The Dead
Jewelle Gomez – Off-Broadway: 1971
Margaret Atwood – Death By Landscape
Angela Carter – Ashputtle Or The Mother’s Ghost
Kazuo Ishiguro – The Gourmet
Tananarive Due – Prologue, 1963
Joyce Carol Oates – Nobody Knows My Name
Hilary Mantel – Terminus
Kelly Link – The Specialist’s Hat
Phyllis Alesia Perry – Stigmata
Ali Smith – The Hanging Girl
Kate Atkinson – Temporal Anomaly
Haruki Murakami – The Mirror
Lydia Davis – The Strangers
Annie Proulx – The Sagebrush Kid
Jackie Kay – The White Cot
Ben Okri – Belonging
Adam Marek – Dinner Of The Dead Alumni
Michael Marshall Smith – Sad, Dark Thing
Joanne Rush – Guests
Helen Simpson – The Festival Of The Immortals
Fay Weldon – Grandpa’s Ghost
James Robertson – Ghost

Extended Copyright

Blurb:
Haunted houses, mysterious Counts, weeping widows and restless souls, here is the definitive anthology of all that goes bump in the night. Hand-picked by award-winning author Louise Welsh, this beautitul collection of 1OO ghost stories will delight, unnerve, and entertain any fiction lover brave enough…
Here are gothic classics, modern masters, Booker Prize—winners, ancient folk tales and stylish noirs, proving that every writer has a skeleton or two in their closet.

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

Richard Dalby – Virago Book of Ghost Stories

Richard Dalby (ed.) – The Virago Book of Ghost Stories (Virago, 1987)

Richard Dalby – Preface
Jennifer Uglow – Introduction

Edith Wharton -The Eyes
E. Nesbit – The Violet Car
Henrietta D. Everett – The Crimson Blind
May Sinclair – The Token
Ellen Glasgow – The Shadowy Third
Marjory E. Lambe – The Return
Margery H. Lawrence – The Haunted Saucepan
Mary Webb – Mr. Tallent’s Ghost
Enid Bagnold – The Amorous Ghost
Marjorie Bowen – The Accident
Marjorie Bowen – A Persistent Woman
Phyllis Bottome – The Waiting-Room
Catherine Wells – The Ghost
Eleanor Scott – ‘Will Ye No’ Come Back Again?’
E. M. Delafield – Sophy Mason Comes Back
Hester Gorst – The Doll’s House
Edith Olivier – The Night Nurse’s Story
Winifred Holtby – The Voice of God
Cynthia Asquith – The Follower
F. M. Mayor – Miss De Mannering Of Asham
Stella Gibbons – Roaring Tower
D. K. Broster – Juggernaut
Elizabeth Bowen – The Happy Autumn Fields
Pamela Hansford Johnson – The Empty Schoolroom
Elizabeth Jane Howard – Three Miles Up
Rose Macaulay – Whitewash
Elizabeth Taylor – Poor Girl
Elizabeth Jenkins – On No Account, My Love
Rosemary Timperley – The Mistress in Black
Norah Lofts – A Curious Experience
Fay Weldon – Breakages
Elizabeth Walter – Dual Control
Sara Maitland – Lady With Unicorn
Lisa St. Aubin De Teran – Diamond Jim
Angela Carter – Ashputtle

Notes on the Authors

A real change of pace – I’ve been on a diet of Not At Night‘s and Charles Birkin for a fortnight – but this is a truly special collection. No surprise to see Lady Cynthia Asquith’s groundbreaking Ghost Book‘s so well represented, but I certainly wasn’t expecting three (admittedly, non-sadistic: Asquith’s own The Follower would have suited the series admirably) from Birkin’s Creeps to make the cut. I was a little disappointed to see that Marjory Bowen was represented by two 150 word vignettes … until I read them: The Accident, in particular, is terrific, an E.C. strip in microcosm.
It’s very difficult to pick a ‘best’ from such a strong, varied selection, but if pushed, I’d probably opt for Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Three Miles Up which has one of the most jaw-dropping finales in this -or any other – form of literature.
Mind you, I could’ve done without Whitewash and A Curious Experience, and I’m still trying to figure out how Lady With Unicorn sneaked in …

Some tasters/ spoilers:

Cynthia Asquith – The Follower:Mrs. Meade is plagued by a Hyde-like figure who she first encounters leering and gesticulating at her outside Baker Street Station. Soon he has taken to following her, and with each meeting her terror mounts. He is seen gloating over the body of a little girl who’s been run down, then, as a taxi-driver, he nearly brings about the death of his passenger – Mrs. Meade – by driving the cab into railings. She recovers, but is sent to a nursing home to recover. She’s not the only patient …

Hester Gorst – The Dolls House: The narrator buys a Georgian Dolls house at an auction immediatly and begins to suffer from nightmares in which he becomes “A rake … coming home very late and very drunk”, ascending the staircase of the original for his recent purchase. It becomes apparent that his dream-self is one some terrible errand, and he convinces himself that this is the murder of a woman. Best friend Jack offers to spend the night with him to see what he gets up to when he’s asleep …

Elizabeth Walter – Dual Control: Told entirely in dialiogue – and a very hostile exchange it is too – between Eric, a ruthless businessman on the make, and his alcoholic wife, Freda, as they drive to and from the Bradey’s party, having knocked down a girl on the way. The girl, Giselle, arrived at the same party, seemingly none the worse for wear, but as they drive home they encounter her again at the scene of the accident, blood pouring from a terrible wound ….

Edith Bagnold – The Amorous Ghost: While his wife is away, two of the maids hand in their notice after discovering a woman’s underclothes in the master’s room. That night, he watches transfixed as a figure half-materialises in a chair with her back to him, slowly slipping out of her clothes. It’s with great relief he hears his wife return, undress and slip into bed beside him. It must be freezing outside because she’s cold enough to chill the entire room ….

Stella Gibbons – Roaring Tower: Clara’s parents disapprove of her lover, and pack her off to Aunt Julia in Cornwall to recuperate. Clara is instrumental in releasing the trapped spirit of a ghostly bear, imprisoned in a pit at the base of the roaring tower, so named after the tormented creature’s bellows for assistance.

Marjory E. Lambe – The Return: A murderer returns to the house of his victim, an old miser who once employed him and who he surprised while he was counting his treasure. The skinflint’s spectre (or his guilty conscience) provide his undoing. When he is recognised in The White Horse and Bessie the barmaid raises the alarm, the old boy’s son decides to look over the house. The burglar, when faced with the unexpected visitor, sees “the white hair … streaked with blood, the skin yellow across the skeleton face … the bloodless lips … drawn back into a grin of pure triumph.”

Marjorie Bowen – The Accident: Murchinson and Bargrave are involved in a car smash. When Murchinson sees the ‘grey whisp’ that is his enemy emerging from the wreckage, he gloats: “So you were killed, you silly fool!”

Pamela Hansford Johnson – The Empty Schoolroom: Maud remains behind with M. Fournier and Marie during the school holidays and encounters the sobbing ghost of an ugly girl in a dunces cap. She had been mistreated and humiliated by the embittered headmistress and now it is time to exact revenge …

Marjorie Bowen – A Persistent Woman:After yet another blazing row, Temple decides to leave his wife, Sarah. She clings to him with a greater tennacity than either would have thought her capable.

Margery H. Lawrence – The Haunted Saucepan: London, around St. James’ Palace. Anybody who eats anything prepared in the saucepan suffers the most horrible pains consistent with the pangs suffered by those poisoned with arsenic. Connor,Trevanion and a borrowed dog conceal themselves in the kitchen overnight to catch who or what has been setting it on the boil. The denouement is predictable, but the story has some wonderfully atmospheric touches and Strutt, the butler, is a trip.

Fay Weldon – Breakages: Poltergeist activity in the unhappy household of the vicar and his “barren” wife. David’s prize possessions are forever being broken and mended by Dierdre, who prays that he won’t notice the cracks. When he does, the ensuing flare-up is enough to decide her to pluck up the courage and leave, especially as it is now known that his impotence has been responsible for their childlessness. When she goes, her room destroys itself. David remarries. The second time is as joyless as the first.