About the Book
Ghost stories were something at which the Victorians excelled. In an age of rapid material and scientific progress the idea of a vindictive past able to reach out and violate the present held an especial potential for terror, and throughout the 19th century fictional ghost stories developed in parallel with the more general Victorian fascination for death and what lay beyond it. In this anthology, the editors of the "Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories" map out the development of the ghost story from 1850 to the early years of the 20th century and demonstrate the importance of this form of short fiction in Victorian popular culture. As well as reprinting stories by supernatural specialists such as J.S. Le Fanu, M.R. James and Algernon Blackwood, this selection also emphasizes the key role played by woman writers - Elizabeth Gaskell, Mrs Craik, Rhoda Broughton, Mrs Henry Wood, M.E. Braddon, Amelia B. Edwards, Charlotte Riddell, B.M. Croker and E. Nesbit, among many others - and offers one or two rareties for the supernatural fiction enthusiast to savour. Other writers represented include Charles Dickens, Henry James, George MacDonald, Wilkie Collins, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, R.L.
Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Jerome K. Jerome, Bernard Capes, R.H. Benson and W.W. Jacobs. This collection is aimed at lovers of traditional ghost stories: here are 35 well-wrought tales of haunted houses, vengeful spirits, spectral warnings, invisible antagonists, and motiveless malignity from beyond the grave.
Table of Contents:
"The Old Nurse's Story" (1852), Elizabeth Gaskell; "An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street" (1853), J.S. Le Fanu; "The Miniature" (1853), J.Y. Akerman; "The Last House in C--Street" (1856), Dinah Mulock (Mrs Craik); "To be Taken with a Grain of Salt" (1865), Charles Dickens; "The Botathen Ghost" (1867), R.S. Hawker; "The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth" (1868), Rhoda Broughton; "The Romance of Certain Old Clothes" (1868), Henry James; "Pichon & Sons, of the Croix Rousse" (1868), Anon; "Reality or Delusion?" (1868), Mrs Henry Wood; "Uncle Cornelius His Story" (1869), George MacDonald; "The Shadow of a Shade" (1869), Tom Hood; "At Chrighton Abbey" (1871), Mary Elizabeth Braddon; "No Living Voice" (1872), Thomas Street Millington; "Miss Jeromette and the Clergyman" (1875), Wilkie Collins; "The Story of Clifford House" (1878), Anon; "Was it an Illusion?" (1881), Amelia B. Edwards; "The Open Door" (1882), Charlotte Riddell; "The Captain of the Pole-star"(1883), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; "The Body-Snatcher" (1884), R.L. Stevenson; "The Story of the Rippling Train" (187), Mary Louisa Molesworth; "At the End of the Passage" (1890), Rudyard Kipling; "To Let" (1890), B.M. Croker; "John Charrington's Wedding" (1891), E. Nesbit; "The Haunted Organist of Hurly Burly" (1891), Rosa Mulholland; "The Man of Science" (1892), Jerome K. Jerome; "Canon Alberic's Scrap-book" (1895), M.R. James; "Jerry Bundler" (1897), W.W. Jacobs; "An Eddy on the Floor" (1899), Bernard Capes; "The Tomb of Sarah" (1900), F.G. Loring; "The Case of Vincent Pyrwhit"(1901), Barry Pain; "The Shadows on the Wall" (1902), Mary E. Wilkins; "Father Macclesfield's Tale" (1907), R.H. Benson; :Thurnley Abbey" (1908), Perceval Landon; "The Kit-bag" (1908), Algernon Blackwood. Sources; select chronological conspectus of ghost stories, 1840-1910.
About the Author :
About the Editors:
Michael Cox and R.A. Gilbert also edited the highly successful Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories. Cox is also the author of M.R. James: An Informal Portrait and has edited two selections of M.R. James's ghost stories. Gilbert is a well-known antiquarian bookseller in London.
Review :
"Imaginative....Splendid....A sumptuous array of settings and styles."--New York Times Book Review"The stories in this superior anthology, each one satisfying on its own, represent a great variety of period styles and spectres."--Mystery and Detective Monthly"The genuine article, not an anthology that crumbles at a touch....Here is much to chill the fireside reader."--The Daily Telegraph"Cox and Gilbert's canny rummagings into the spooky annal of a century or so ago unearth some relishable lesser-known blood-curdlers....Victorian Ghost Stories contains a tremendous clutch of tales and, as the era nears its end, they tighten their gruesome grip."--Peter Kemp, The Sunday Times London)"Finely produced."--The Times Literary Supplement
