The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories

With their evocative settings amid mists and shadows, in ruinous houses, on lonely roads and wild moorlands, in abandoned churches and over-grown gardens, ghost stories have long exercised a universal fascination. Responding to people’s overwhelming attraction to anything frightening, this marvelous anthology of some of the very best English ghost stories combines a serious literary purpose with the simple intention of arousing a pleasurable fear of the doings of the dead. As the first volume to present the full range and vitality of the ghost fiction tradition, this selection of forty-two stories, written between 1829 and 1968, demonstrates the tradition’s historical development, as well as its major themes and characteristics. Though the genre reached its peak in the nineteenth century, it enjoyed a second flowering between the two World Wars and even now still attracts dedicated practitioners and readers. The anthology includes stories by Walter Scott, M. R. James, Bram Stoker, Rudyard Kipling, Edith Wharton, Somerset Maugham, T. H. White, and many others. Stressing the important contribution women writers have made to the genre, the collection also offers eight stories by women, ranging from Amelia Edward’s “The Phantom Ghost” (1864) to Elizabeth Bowen’s “Hand in Glove” (1952).

The tapestried chamber / Walter Scott —
The phantom coach / Amelia B. Edwards —
Squire Toby’s will / J.S. Le Fanu —
The shadow in the corner / M.E. Braddon —
The upper berth / F. Marion Crawford —
A wicked voice / Vernon Lee —
The judge’s house / Bram Stoker —
Man-size in marble / E. Nesbit —
The roll-call of the reef / Arthur Quiller-Couch —
The friends of the friends / Henry James —
The red room / H.G. Wells —
The monkey’s paw / W.W. Jacobs —
The lost ghost / Mary E. Wilkins —
“Oh, whistle, and I’ll come to you, my lad” / M.R. James —
The empty house / Algernon Blackwood —
The cigarette case / Oliver Onions —
Rose Rose / Barry Pain —
The confession of Charles Linkworth / E.F. Benson —
On the Brighton Road / Richard Middleton —
Bone to his bone / E.G. Swain —
The true history of Anthony Ffryar / Arthur Gray —
The Taipan / W. Somerset Maugham —
The victim / May Sinclair —
A visitor from down under / L.P. Hartley —
Fullcircle / John Buchan —
The clock / W.F. Harvey —
Old man’s beard / H. Russell Wakefield —
Mr Jones / Edith Wharton —
Smee / A.M. Burrage —
The little ghost / Hugh Walpole —
Ahoy, sailor boy! / A.E. Coppard —
The hollow man / Thomas Burke —
Et in sempiternum pereant / Charles Williams —
Bosworth summit pound / L.T.C. Rolt —
An encounter in the mist / A.N.L. Munby —
Hand in glove / Elizabeth Bowen —
A story of Don Juan / V.S. Pritchett —
Cushi / Charistopher Woodforde —
Bad company / Walter de la Mare —
The bottle of 1912 / Simon Raven —
The Cicerones / Robert Aickman —
Soft voices at Passenham / T.H. White