Robert Phillips – The Omnibus of 20th Century Ghost Stories

Robert Phillips (ed.) – The Omnibus of 20th Century Ghost Stories (Robinson, 1990: Carroll & Graf 1991: originally , Carroll & Graf, 1989, as Triumph of the Night)

Sir Stanley Spencer, The Resurrection, Cookham

Robert Phillips – Introduction

Elizabeth Bowen – The Demon Lover
Graham Greene – A Little Place Off the Edgware
Joyce Carol Oates – The Others
Dylan Thomas – The Followers
Charlotte Perkins Gilman – The Yellow Wallpaper
Louis Auchincloss – The Prison Window
Walter de la Mare – Seaton’s Aunt
George Mackay Brown – Andrina
Barry N. Malzberg – Away
Muriel Spark – The Portobello Road
John Updike – The Indian
Denton Welch – Full Circle
Lynne Sharon Schwartz – Sound Is Second Sight
Jean Rhys – I Used to Live Here Once
Henry James – The Jolly Corner
Elizabeth Spencer – First Dark
Peter Taylor – Missing Person
Gertrude Atherton – The Bell in the Fog
Howard Lewis Russell – The Wedding Cake Couple
Shirley Jackson – The Daemon Lover
Virginia Woolf – A Haunted House
Mavis Gallant – Up North
Tennessee Williams – The Mysteries of the Joy Rio
William Goyen – Ghost and Flesh, Water and Dirt
E. M. Forster – The Celestial Omnibus
Edith Wharton – Afterward
Truman Capote – Miriam

Notes on the Authors

Blurb:
“One of the best anthologies of the year” – The Observer

Haunted houses and demon lovers. children’s visions and anxious states ofi mind, revenge, guilt, and betrayal from beyond are the themes of the modem ghost story as brilliantly explored by some of the century’s finest writers.
These short masterpieces of the supernatural will linger in your imagination. This enthralling collecton takes the reader on a thrilling tour of the best in 20th century spectral literature.

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!

Anonymous – Tales Of Horror & Mystery

Anonymous – Tales Of Horror & Mystery (Dean, 1993)

Luis Rey

Horror Stories

Roald Dahl – The Landlady
Walter De La Mare – The Riddle
W. W. Jacobs – The Monkey’s Paw
Ruth Ainsworth – Through The Door
E. Nesbit – Man-Size In Marble
Edgar Allan Poe – The Tell-Tale Heart
Helen Cresswell – A Kind Of Swan Song
Gene Kemp – The Clock Tower Ghost
Robert Arthur – The Haunted Trailer
Ambrose Bierce – The Stranger
Walter De La Mare – Bad Company
Michael Joseph – The Yellow Cat
W. W. Jacobs – The Well
Saki – Laura
Joan Aiken – The Swan Child
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Brown Hand
H. G. Wells – The Red Room

Mystery Stories

Joan Aiken – The Blade
M. R. James – Lost Hearts
Charles Dickens – The Signalman
Oscar Wilde – The Picture Of Dorian Gray (Extract)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Silver Mirror
Bret Harte – The Stolen Cigar Case
Honore De Balzac – The Mysterious Mansion
Nicholas Fisk – Sweets From A Stranger
Roald Dahl – The Hitch-Hiker
Wilkie Collins – The Dream Woman
Edgar Allan Poe – The Masque Of The Red Death
Karen Blixen – The Sailor Boy’s Tale
Guy de Maupassant – The Horla
Theophile Gautier – The Mummy’s Foot

Blurb:
“It is very seldom that one encounters what would appear to be sheer unadulterated evil in a human face; an evil, I mean, active, deliberate, deadly, dangerous.”

This anthology contains more than thirty spine-chilling stories by contemporary and classic writers, drawing us into a world of ghosts, demons and horrific happenings.

In Walter de la Mare’s Bad Company who is the evil-looking stranger on the Underground who leads us to a frightening discovery? And in Roald Dahl’s The Landlady what sinister secret is the mysterious proprietress of the guesthouse witholding from her unsuspecting guest?

These startling and compelling stories by some of the world’s greatest writers will enthrall readers to the very last page.

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

Dorothy L Sayers – Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror: 2nd Series

Dorothy L Sayers (ed.) –  Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror: 2nd Series (Gollancz, July, 1931)

Help! Cover Wanted!

Dorothy L. Sayers – Introduction

1. Detection & Mystery (25 stories by Sayers, M. P. Shiel, H. C. Bailey, Robert Barr, Mrs. Belloc Lowdnes & Co.)

2. Mystery and Horror:

A.J. Alan – My Adventure in Norfolk
Stacy Aumonier – Miss Bracegirdle Does Her Duty
R. H. Barham – The Leech of Folkestone
Max Beerbohm – A.V. Laider
E.F. Benson – The Room in the Tower
J.D. Beresford – Cut-Throat Farm
Ambrose  Bierce – The Damned Thing
Algernon Blackwood – Secret Worship
Mrs. E. Bland  (Edith Nesbit) – No. 17
Douglas G. Browne – The Queer Door
A.M. Burrage – The Waxwork
Wilkie Collins – Mad Monkton
Alan Cunningham – The Haunted Ships
Clemence Dane – The King Waits
Walter de la Mare – The Tree
S.L. Dennis – The Second Awakening of a Magician
Charles Dickens – No.1 Branch Line: The Signalman
Ford Madox Ford – Reisenberg
Violet Hunt – The Prayer
W.F. Harvey – The Beast With Five Fingers
Holloway Horn – The Old Man
W.W. Jacobs – The Well
Edgar Jepson – The Resurgent Mysteries
J.S. Le Fanu – Mr. Justice Harbottle
E. Bulwer-Lytton – The Haunted and the Haunters
Arthur Machen – The Great Return
Frederick Marryat – The Story of the Greek Slave
John Masefield – Anty Blight
John Metcalfe – The Double Admiral
Mrs. Oliphant – The Library Window
Barry Pain – Rose,  Rose
Eden Phillpotts – The Iron Pineapple
Edgar Allan Poe – Berenice
Sir A. Quiller-Couch – The Roll-Call of the Reef
Naomi Royde-Smith – Mangaroo
Saki – Sredni Vashtar
Mary Shelley – The Mortal Immortal
M. P. Shiel – The Primate of the Rose
Henry Spicer – Called to the Rescue
Hugh Walpole – The Enemy
H. G. Wells – The Inexperienced Ghost
Edward Lucas White – Lukundoo

Dorothy L. Sayers – Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery & Horror

Dorothy L. Sayers – Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery & Horror (Gollancz, September 1928)

Margaret Oliphant – The Open Door
Charles Dickens – Story of the Bagman’s Uncle
Charles Collins & Charles Dickens- The Trial for Murder
M. R. James – Martin’s Close
Oliver Onions – Phantas
Robert Hichens – How Love Came to Professor Guildea
Saki – The Open Window
Arthur Machen – The Black Seal
Sax Rohmer – Tcheriapin
W. W. Jacobs – The Monkey’s Paw
A. J. Alan – The Hair
E. F. Benson – Mrs. Amworth
Ambrose Bierce – Moxon’s Master
Jerome J. Jerome – The Dancing Partner
Robert Louis Stevenson – Thrawn Janet
R. H. Benson – Father Meuron’s Tale
Marjorie Bowen – The Avenging of Ann Leete
J. F. Sullivan –  The Man With A Malady
William Fryer Harvey – August Heat
Morley Roberts – The Anticipator
Joseph Conrad – The Brute
May Sinclair – Where Their Fire Is Not Quenched
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu – Green Tea
J. D. Beresford – The Misanthrope
John Metcalfe – The Bad Lands
Alfred M. Burrage – Nobody’s House
Arthur Quiller-Couch – The Seventh Man
N. Royde-Smith – Proof
Walter de la Mare – Seaton’s Aunt
Michael Arlen – The Gentleman From America
R. Ellis Roberts – The Narrow Way
Traditional – Sawney Beane
Bram Stoker – The Squaw
Violet Hunt – The Corsican Sisters
Barry Pain – The End of A Show
H. G. Wells – The Cone
Ethel Colburn Mayne – The Separate Room

The first of three epic volumes in this classic series; stories listed are the Mystery & Horror content only.  Series II and III to follow ASAP

Colin De La Mare – They Walk Again

Colin De La Mare  (ed.) – They Walk Again: An Anthology Of Ghost Stories (Faber & Faber, 1931)

Help! Cover Wanted!

Walter De La Mare – Introduction

Algernon Blackwood – Keeping His Promise
Lord Dunsany – The Electric King
Richard Middleton – The Ghost Ship
Ambrose Bierce – A Tough Tussle
Edith Wharton – Afterward
J. D. Beresford – Powers Of The Air
R. H. Benson – Father Girdlestone’s Tale
Algernon Blackwood – The Wood Of The Dead
L. P. Hartley – A Visitor From Down Under
E. F. Benson – Caterpillars
William Hope Hodgson – A Voice In The Night
Oliver Onions – The Beckoning Fair One
Richard Middleton – On The Brighton Road
M. R. James – The Story Of A Disappearance And An Appearance
Walter De La Mare – All Hallows
W. W. Jacobs – The Monkey’s Paw
J. S. Le Fanu – Green Tea

C. A. Dawson Scott & Ernest Rhys – Twenty And Three Stories

C. A. Dawson Scott & Ernest Rhys (eds.) – Twenty And Three Stories: By Twenty And Three Authors (Thornton Butterworth, 1924)

 

Introduction: Ernest Rhys & C. A. Dawson Scott

Edith Wharton – Kerfol
L. de Bra – A Life – A Bowl Of Rice
W. B. Yeats – The Crucifixion Of The Outcast
The Marquess Curzon Of Kedleston – The Drums Of Kairwan
T. F. Powys – Alleluia
A. E. W. Mason – Hatteras
Elinor Mordaunt – Hodge
Thomas Burke – The Chink And The Child
Robert Hichens – The Nomad
Cutcliffe Hyne – The Ransom
Edwin Pugh – The Other Twin
Morley Roberts – Grear’s Dam
Ward Muir – The Reward Of Enterprise
H. de Vere Stackpoole -The King Of Maleka
Algernon Blackwood – Violence
A. Conan-Doyle – Captain Sharkey
Arthur Lynch – The Sentimental Mortgage
Ellis Roberts – The Narrow Way
Louis Golding – The Call Of The Hand
Walter De La Mare – The Creatures
W. Somerset Maugham – The Taipan
John Masefield – Davy Jones’ Gift
W. W. Jacobs – The Monkey’s Paw

“The New Terror is apt to be more psychical, more psychological perhaps, than the old. The method of the latter is based on EDGAR POE and the writers for Blackwoods Magazine, while the former is akin to the Russians, to SOLOGUB and TCHEKKOV.”

Strong mixed bag of Ghost stories, mysteries and thrillers – “stories of sensation” as the authors put it – with enough of a horror bent to be included here. A companion piece to their Thirty And One Stories of the previous year which is more diverse in its approach but still finds time to include genre contributions from Percival Gibbon, Violet Hunt, May Sinclair and H. G. Wells of those I recognise.

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

Robert Phillips – Omnibus of 20th Century Ghost Stories

Robert Phillips (ed.) – The Omnibus of 20th Century Ghost Stories (Robinson 1989, 1992, 1996) [US edition titled Triumph of the Night: Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, Carroll & Graf, 1989)

Help cover wanted!

Robert Phillips – Introduction

Elizabeth Bowen – The Demon Lover
Graham Greene – A Little Place Off the Edgware Road
Joyce Carol Oates – The Others
Dylan Thomas – The Followers
Charlotte Perkins Gilman – The Yellow Wallpaper
Louis Auchincloss – The Prison Window
Walter de la Mare – Seaton’s Aunt
George Mackay Brown – Andrina
Barry N. Malzberg – Away
Muriel Spark – The Portobello Road
John Updike – The Indian
Denton Welch – Full Circle
Lynne Sharon Schwartz – Sound Is Second Sight
Jean Rhys – I Used to Live Here Once
Henry James – The Jolly Corner
Elizabeth Spencer – First Dark
Peter Taylor – Missing Person
Gertrude Atherton – The Bell in the Fog
Howard Lewis Russell – The Wedding Cake Couple
Shirley Jackson – The Daemon Lover
Virginia Woolf – A Haunted House
Mavis Gallant – Up North
Tennessee Williams – The Mysteries of the Joy Rio
William Goyen – Ghost and Flesh, Water and Dirt
E. M. Forster – The Celestial Omnibus
Edith Wharton – Afterward
Truman Capote – Miriam

Notes on the Authors

Blurb from 1996 press release:

One of the classiest collections of ghost stories ever published.
Haunted houses, demon lovers, children’s visions, anxious states of mind, revenge, guilt and betrayal from beyond are the themes of the modern ghost story as brilliantly explored by some of the century’s finest writers.
This enthralling and chilling tour of the best in 20th century spectral literature features the work of Graham Greene, Dylan Thomas, Muriel Spark, Truman Capote, Shirley Jackson, Virginia Woolf, Tennessee Williams, E.M. Forster, F. John Updike who are just some of the century’s most prominent writers who have also written ghost stories.