The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories »

Michael Newton is the author of Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children and the editor of the Penguin Classics edition of Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent.

A thrilling new collection of the greatest supernatural tales

This definitive and wide-ranging collection brings together some of the best ghost stories ever written. From Elizabeth Gaskell's "The Old Nurse's Story" to Edith Wharton's "Afterword," The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories features the finest writings from the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century, by masters including M. R. James, Sheridan Le Fanu, and Ambrose Bierce, among others. With stories from America, Ireland, and England, this volume includes all of the works that define the genre, from its beginning to its apex.

Weaving in details about individual authors and their most famous tales, Michael Newton's absorbing introduction explores the ghost story's history and influences, as well as its changing nature and the reasons for its ongoing popularity.

Acknowledgements ix

Chronology of the Ghost Story 1820-1914 x

Introduction xv

Further Reading xxxvi

A Note on the Texts xlii

The Old Nurse's Story Elizabeth Gaskell 3

What Was It? Fitz-James O'Brien 25

The Haunted and the Haunters: or, The House and the Brain Edward Bulwer Lytton 39

The Cold Embrace Mary Elizabeth Braddon 67

The North Mail Amelia B. Edwards 77

No. 1 Branch Line: The Signal-man Charles Dickens 91

Green Tea Sheridan Le Fanu 105

The Ghost in the Cap'n Brown House Harriet Beecher Stowe 140

Thrawn Janet Robert Louis Stevenson 151

The Open Door Margaret Oliphant 162

At the End of the Passage Rudyard Kipling 204

Nightmare-Touch Lafcadio Hearn 224

The Monkey's Paw W. W. Jacobs 231

The Wind in the Rose-Bush Mary Wilkins Freeman 243

'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad' M. R. James 261

The Moonlit Road Ambrose Bierce 281

The Jolly Corner Henry James 291

The Readjustment Mary Austin 326

Afterward Edith Wharton 333

Glossary of Scots Words 365

Biographical and Explanatory Notes 371