Tales of Men and Ghosts collects ten short stories previously published in Scribner's Magazine and The Century during the years 1909 and 1910: "The Bolted Door," "His Father's Son," "The Daunt Diana," "The Debt," "Full Circle," "The Legend," "The Eyes," "The Blond Beast," "Afterward," and "The Letters."
The plots of the "tales of men" are slight, often turning on some ironic moral or social insight gained by the protagonist.
The "tales of ghosts" are more riveting, relying as they do on the reader's susceptibility to what Wharton called a well-written ghost story's "thermometrical quality;" that is, its ability to "[send] a cold shiver down one's spine."
