This collection of ghost stories is the first to present the full range of classic English ghost fiction, including some of the very best and most frightening ghost stories ever written. The important contribution of women writers to the genre is shown with stories by Amelia Edwards, Edith Wharton, and Elizabeth Bowen amongst others, alongside M. R. Jame's '"Oh Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad"', W. W. Jacobs's 'The Monkey's Paw', and H. G. Wells's 'The Red Room'. This selection of 42 stories written between 1829 and 1968 is the first to present the full range and vitality of the English tradition of literary ghost fiction by demonstrating its historical development as well as its major themes and characteristics. The fictional ghost story is demonstrated by English authors, from J. S. Le Fanu and M. R. James to Walter de la Mare and Robert Aickman, and by American authors such as Edith Wharton, writing in the English tradition. Though its heyday coincided with the golden age of Empire in the nineteenth century, the ghost story enjoyed a second flowering between the two World Wars and even now still attracts dedicated practitioners and readers.

Contents:

• The Tapestried Chamber (1826) by Sir Walter Scott
• The Phantom Coach (1864) by Amelia B. Edwards
• Squire Toby’s Will (1868) by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
• The Shadow in the Corner (1879) by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
• The Upper Berth (1886) by F. Marion Crawford
• A Wicked Voice (1890) by Vernon Lee
• The Judge’s House (1891) by Bram Stoker
• Man-Size in Marble (1893) by E. Nesbit
• The Roll-Call of the Reef (1895) by Sir Arthur T. Quiller-Couch
• The Friends of the Friends (“The Way It Came”, 1896) by Henry James
• The Red Room (1896) by H.G. Wells
• The Monkey’s Paw (1902) by W.W. Jacobs
• The Lost Ghost (1903) by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
• “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” (1904) by M.R. James
• The Empty House(1906) by Algernon Blackwood
• The Cigarette Case (1910) by Oliver Onions
• Rose Rose (1910) by Barry Pain
• The Confession of Charles Linkworth (1912) by E.F. Benson
• On the Brighton Road (1912) by Richard Middleton
• Bone to His Bone (1912) by E.G. Swain
• The True History of Anthony Ffryar (1911) by Arthur Gray, writing as "Ingulphus"
• The Taipan (1922) by W. Somerset Maugham
• The Victim (1922) by May Sinclair
• A Visitor from Down Under (1926) by L.P. Hartley
• Fullcircle (1920) by John Buchan
• The Clock (1928) by William F. Harvey
• Old Man’s Beard (1929) by H. Russell Wakefield
• Mr. Jones (1928) by Edith Wharton
• Smee (1929) by A.M. Burrage
• The Little Ghost (1922) by Hugh Walpole
• Ahoy, Sailor Boy! (1933) by A.E. Coppard
• The Hollow Man (1933) by Thomas Burke
• Et in Sempiternum Pereant (1935) by Charles Williams
• Bosworth Summit Pound (1948) by L.T.C. Rolt
• An Encounter in the Mist (1949) by A.N.L. Munby
• Hand in Glove (1952) by Elizabeth Bowen
• A Story of Don Juan (1941) by V.S. Pritchett
• Cushi (1952) by Christopher Woodforde
• Bad Company (1955) by Walter de la Mare
• The Bottle of 1912 (1961) by Simon Raven
• The Cicerones (1967) by Robert Aickman
• Soft Voices at Passenham (1981) by T.H. White