Spectral Tales: Classic Ghost Stories

by M R James (Contribution by), Edgar Allan Poe (Contribution by), Ambrose Bierce (Contribution by)

Overview

From the dawn of storytelling we have been mesmerized, entertained, and fascinated by stories of other-worldly visitations. Our earliest folklore and oral tales suggest that even before recorded time, on every continent and in every language, we created narratives to animate our fear of the unknown. The classic stories in this anthology have been selected for their literary style, psychological complexity, and enduring power to electrify both the imagination and the senses. As varied, rooted in, and intriguingly expressive of their time and place, these stories give expression to a universal hunch that we live among ghosts-whether of the past or in the form of portending presences. From Edgar Allan Poe's timeless "The Tell-Tale Heart" to M. R. James's "Count Magnus" to Algernon Blackwood's subtly unnerving "The Willows" each of these tales rise to-and in many ways define-the high water mark of the genre. Includes the full text of H. P. Lovecraft's superb essay, On the Supernatural in Poetry, an illuminating history and exploration of the art of the weird story-along with brief author biographies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781734029208
Publisher:	Warbler Classics
Publication date:	09/06/2019
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

M. R. James (1862-1936) was an English author, medievalist scholar, and educator. James redefined the ghost story for the twentieth century, shedding many formal Gothic conventions of the genre. Although the settings for his stories were contemporary, his subject and plots reflect his own preoccupation with ancient artifacts, archaeological sites, archives or historical manuscripts. He developed a distinct storytelling style in which the plot hinges on the discovery of an old book or artifact. Hence he is known as the originator of the "antiquarian ghost story." His stories are regarded as some of their kind and his are held in high regard by critics and other writers, including Ramsey Clarke and Stephen King. H. P. Lovecraft called "Count Magnus" (1904) a "veritable Golconda of suspense and suggestion."

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was one of the most influential American writers of the nineteenth century. He was a poet, a master of the macabre, a pioneer of science fiction, and the inventor of the detective story. "The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843) is a classic work of Gothic fiction and one of Poe's best-known short stories. It was republished on several occasions in his lifetime and has remained a staple of the genre for more than one hundred and fifty years. Since the silent film era, there have been more than thirty film, radio, and stage adaptations.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) was an American short story writer, journalist, and Civil War veteran. The tenth of thirteen children, he left home at the age of fifteen to become a printer's devil at a small abolitionist Ohio newspaper. At the outset of the Civil War he enlisted in the Union Army and was eventually commissioned a first lieutenant. In 1866, a military expedition took him to San Francisco where he contributed to or edited a variety of local newspapers. After a stint living and writing in England he returned to San Francisco and became a regular columnist at The San Francisco Examiner and one of the most influential journalists on the West Coast. He wrote piercingly about the ghastly things he had seen in the war and is considered a pioneer of the psychological horror story. At the age of seventy-one Bierce disappeared while accompanying Pancho Villa's army in Mexico and, in spite of an official investigation, his ultimate fate remains a mystery. For his horror writing, Washington Post critic Michael Dirda ranks Bierce alongside Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. "The Death of Halpin Frayser" (1891) is among Bierce's finest short stories.

Table of Contents

Young Goodman Brown 1

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Tell-Tale Heart 16

Edgar Allan Poe

The Phantom Coach 22

Amelia Edwards

The Signal-Man 37

Charles Dickens

The Rival Ghosts 51

Brander Matthews

The Phantom Rickshaw 70

Rudyard Kipling

The Death of Halpin Frayser 94

Ambrose Bierce

Lot No. 249 111

Arthur Conan Doyle

The Monkey’s Paw 147

W. W. Jacobs

Count Magnus 160

M. R. James

The Bus-Conductor 174

E. F. Benson

The Willows 184

Algernon Blackwood

The Eyes 237

Edith Wharton

The Open Window 258

Saki

On the Brighton Road 262

Richard Middleton

Supernatural Horror in Literature 267

By H. P. Lovecraft

Biographical Notes 346

Editorial Reviews

Fear is the most absorbing and luxurious of emotions. One forgets all else if one is afraid."
--E. F. Benson

"No one need wonder at the existence of a literature of cosmic fear. It has always existed, and always will exist; and no better evidence of its tenacious vigour can be cited than the impulse which now and then drives writers of totally opposite leanings to try their hands at it in isolated tales, as if to discharge from their minds certain phantasmal shapes which would otherwise haunt them."
--H. P. Lovecraft

From the Publisher