Ernest Rhys & M. Larigot – The Haunted And The Haunters

Ernest Rhys & M. Larigot (ed.) – The Haunted And The Haunters (Donald O’Connor, 1921;  Aegypan, 2007)

Reissued by Aegypan Press of North Hollywood, 2007. Prefer to read it all online? Short, Scary Ghost Stories

Cover of 2007 reissue

Ernest Rhys – Introduction

I. GHOST STORIES FROM LITERARY SOURCES

Edgar Allan Poe – The Fall Of The House Of Usher
George MacDonald – The Old Nurses Story
Thomas Hardy – The Superstitious Man’s Story
Boccaccioa – A Story Of Ravenna
Douglass Hyde [Trans] – Teig O’Kane And The Corpse
E. Bulwer Lytton – The Haunted And The Haunters
R. S. Hawker – The Bothanan Ghost
Arnold Bennett – The Ghost Of Lord Clarenceux
Arthur Machen – Dr Duthoit’s Vision
John Wilson – The Seven Lights
Anonymous – The Spectral Coach Of Blackadon
William Hunt – Drake’s Drum
William Hunt – The Spectre Bridegroom
Greville MacDonald – The Pool In The Graveyard
William Carleton – The Liahan Shee
Sir George Douglas – The Haunted Cove
Sir Walter Scott – Wandering Willie’s Tale

II. GHOST STORIES FROM LOCAL RECORDS, FOLK LORE, AND LEGEND

Anonymous – Glamis Castle
Anonymous – Powys Castle
Augustus Hare – Croglin Grange
Joseph Glanvil – The Ghost of Major Sydenham
Anonymous – Miraculous Case of Jesch Claes
Anonymous – The Radiant Boy of Corby Castle
Anonymous – Clerk Saunders
Mrs Catherine Crowe – Dorothy Durant
C. K. Sharpe – Pearlin Jean
Anonymous – The Denton Hall Ghost
Anonymous – The Goodwood Ghost Story
Dale Owen – Captain Wheatcroft
Mrs Catherine Crowe – The Iron Cage
William Hunt – The Ghost of Rosewarne
Joseph Glanvil – The Iron Chest of Durley
Anonymous – The Strange Case of M. Bezeul
Anonymous – The Marquis de Rambouillet
Anonymous – The Altheim Revenant
Anonymous – Sertorius and His Hind
E. W. Godwin – Erichto

III. OMENS AND PHANTASMS

E.H. Blakeney [Trans] – Patroklos [from The Iliad]
“Arise Evans” – Vision of Cromwell
Rev. John Mastin – Lord Stafford’s Warning
Ferrier – Kotter’s Red Circle
Anonymous – The Vision of Charles XI of Sweden
Drummond – Ben Jonson’s Prevision
Anonymous – Queen Ulrica and the Countess Steenbock
Anonymous – Denis Misanger
Anonymous – The Pied Piper
Ferrier – Jeanne D’Arc
Anonymous – Anne Walker
Henderson – The Hand of Glory
Anonymous – The Bloody Footstep
Anonymous – The Ghostly Warriors of Worms
Anonymous – The Wandering Jew in England
Edmund Jones – Bendith Eu Mammau
John F. Campbell – The Red Book of Appin
Anonymous – The Good O’Donoghue
William Hunt – Sarah Polgrain
William Godwin – Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester

The Aegypan edition drops the co-credit although it’s clear from Rhys’ introduction that this compilation of folklore, fact, ‘fact’, legend and fiction is all the mysterious M. Larigot’s work!

In this Ghost Book, M. Larigot, himself a writer of supernatural tales, has collected a remarkable batch of documents, fictive or real, describing the one human experience that is hardest to make good. Perhaps the very difficulty of it has rendered it more tempting to the writers who have dealt with the subject. His collection, notably varied and artfully chosen as it is, yet by no means exhausts the literature, which fills a place apart with its own recognised classics, magic masters, and dealers in the occult. Their testimony serves to show that the forms by which men and women are haunted are far more diverse and subtle than we knew. So much so, that one begins to wonder at last if every person is not liable to be “possessed.”

Dennis Wheatley – Satanism and Witches

Dennis Wheatley (ed.) – Satanism and Witches : Essays and Stories: [# 21] (Sphere, 1974)

Benvenuto Cellini – My Experiences In Necromancy
Sax Rohmer – The Witch Finders
William Godwin – The Lancashire Witches
Robert Anthony – The Witch-Baiter
Ronald Seth – The Chambre Ardente Affair
Margaret Murray – An Initiation To Witchcraft
P. T. Barnum – The Spell On witchcraft
Cotton Mather – The Tryals Of The New England Witches
Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Salem Mass
Aleister Crowley – The Black Lodge
Betty May – The Sacrifice
Elliott O’Donnell – Sylvan Horrors
Elliott O’Donnell – Vampires, Werewolves, Fox-Women, etc.
Robert Graves – Modern Witchcraft
Anonymous – An Indictment For Witchcraft
Anonymous – A Pact With The Devil
Anonymous – How To Raise A Spirit
Anonymous – The Black Goat Of Brandenberg
Anonymous – The Confession Of The Witches Of Elfdale
Dennis Wheatley – White And Black Magic
Dennis Wheatley – The Black Art And The Supernatural
Dennis Wheatley – The Witches’ Sabbath
Dennis Wheatley – The Black Mass
Dennis Wheatley – The Devil’s Secret Societies
Dennis Wheatley – Foretelling The Future
Anonymous – The Secret Grimoire Of Turiel

Its worth comparing Satanism & Witches with Peter Haining’s The Necromancers of which this is almost a wholesale rip-off!

Thanks to the much Bob Rothwell of Dennis Wheatly Info for providing the list of contents.

Peter Haining – The Craft Of Terror

Peter Haining  (ed.) – The Craft Of Terror (Nel, Dec. 1966, Mews, 1976)

Cover: Tony Masero

Introduction – Peter Haining

Matthew Lewis – The Monk
Horace Walpole – The Castle Of Otranto
Clara Reeve – The Old English Baron
William Beckford – Vathek
William Godwin – Caleb Williams
Charles Brockden Brown – Wieland, or The Transformation
Charles Maturin – Melmoth The Wanderer
Mary Shelley – The Last Man
Edward Bulwer Lytton – The Cult Of Zanoni
Thomas Prest – The Feast Of blood
Eugene Sue – The Mysteries Of Paris
J. S. Le Fanu – The House By The Churchyard
William Harrison Ainsworth – The Elixir Of Life
Edgar Allan Poe – Metzengerstein

Bibliography

An early stab at what would become Great British Tales Of Terror. All bar the Poe story are extracts from the novels of the same name and it makes for an entertaining read.  Watch out for Edmund, the alleged ‘hero’ of Clara Reeve’s classic, though. Every time somebody speaks to him, he falls to his knees sobbing and beseeching and/ or praising his creator. It gets on your tits after a bit. The extract from Varney The Vampyre or, The Feast Of Blood, wrongly credited to Prest, is the opening chapter yet again. The Le Fanu is usually reproduced as The Narrative Of The Ghost Of A Hand.

Nel-Four Square edition