A masterful collection of ghost stories that have been overlooked by contemporary readers—including tales by celebrated authors such as Charles Dickens, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain, and Edith Wharton—presented with insightful annotations by acclaimed horror anthologists Leslie S. Klinger and Lisa Morton. The ghost story has long been a staple of world literature, but many of the genre's greatest tales have been forgotten, overshadowed in many cases by their authors' bestselling work in other genres. In this spine-tingling anthology, little known stories from literary titans like Charles Dickens and Edith Wharton are collected alongside overlooked works from masters of horror fiction like Edgar Allan Poe and M. R. James. Acclaimed anthologists Leslie S. Klinger (The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes) and Lisa Morton (Ghosts: A Haunted History) set these stories in historical context and trace the literary significance of ghosts in fiction over almost two hundred years—from a traditional English ballad first printed in 1724 up to the science fiction–tinged tales of the early twentieth century. In bringing these masterful tales back from the dead, Ghost Stories will enlighten and frighten both longtime fans as well as new readers of the genre. Including stories by: Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, M. R. James, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, and more.

This collection offers ghost stories that have long been considered classical: stories that have served as prototypes for other work, and stories that are in themselves uniquely great.

Seven ghost tales by famous English and American writers.

Throughout his illustrious writing career, Charles Dickens often turned his hand to fashioning short pieces of ghostly fiction. Even in his first successful work, Pickwick Papers, you will find five ghost stories, all of which are included in this collection. Dickens began the tradition of the 'ghost story at Christmas', and many of his tales in this genre are presented here including the brilliant novella, 'The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin', which deserves to be as well known as A Christmas Carol. While all his supernatural tales aim to chill the spine, they are not without the usual traits of Dickens' flamboyant style, his subtle with, biting irony, humorous incidents and moral observations. It is a mixture which makes these stories fascinating and entertaining as well as unsettling. To paraphrase the Fat Boy in Pickwick Papers: Charles Dickens 'wants to make your flesh creep.'

Eight classics by great Edwardian scholar and storyteller. "Number Thirteen," "The Mezzotint," "Canon Alberic's Scrapbook," more. Renowned for their wit, erudition and suspense, these stories are each masterfully constructed and represent a high achievement in the ghost genre.

This terrifying selection of ghost stories brings together the very best classic works from the masters of the supernatural Phantom coaches, evil familiars, shadowy houses, spectral children and mysterious doppelgangers haunt these tales. They range from the famous, such as M. R. James's tale of an ancient curse, 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come To You, My Lad' and W. W. Jacobs's story of gruesome wish-fulfilment, 'The Monkey's Paw', to lesser-known masterpieces: Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Thrawn Janet', telling of a parish priest tormented for life by his encounter with the undead; Charles Dickens's unsettling account of a railway signal-man and an ominous portent; and Edward Bulwer Lytton's 'The Haunted and the Haunters', where a cursed house harbours a diabolical secret. Michael Newton's introduction discusses why ghost stories scare us and why they flourished from the mid-nineteenth to early-twentieth century, examining their changing conventions throughout history. This edition also includes further reading, notes, a glossary and a chronology. Edited with an introduction and notes by Michael Newton

Three Ghost Stories is containing more than the following topics. The Haunted House, The Ghost In Master B.'S Room, a book from Charles Dickens, read as it starts. Under none of the accredited ghostly circumstances, and environed by none of the conventional ghostly surroundings, did I first make acquaintance with the house which is the subject of this Christmas piece. I saw it in the daylight, with the sun upon it. There was no wind, no rain, no lightning, no thunder, no awful or unwonted circumstance, of any kind, to heighten its effect

The first-ever collection of Victorian Christmas ghost stories, culled from rare 19th-century periodicals During the Victorian era, it became traditional for publishers of newspapers and magazines to print ghost stories during the Christmas season for chilling winter reading by the fireside or candlelight. Now for the first time thirteen of these tales are collected here, including a wide range of stories from a diverse group of authors, some well-known, others anonymous or forgotten. Readers whose only previous experience with Victorian Christmas ghost stories has been Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" will be surprised and delighted at the astonishing variety of ghostly tales in this volume. "In the sickly light I saw it lying on the bed, with its grim head on the pillow. A man? Or a corpse arisen from its unhallowed grave, and awaiting the demon that animated it?" - John Berwick Harwood, "Horror: A True Tale" "Suddenly I aroused with a start and as ghostly a thrill of horror as ever I remember to have felt in my life. Something--what, I knew not--seemed near, something nameless, but unutterably awful." - Ada Buisson, "The Ghost's Summons" "There was no longer any question what she was, or any thought of her being a living being. Upon a face which wore the fixed features of a corpse were imprinted the traces of the vilest and most hideous passions which had animated her while she lived." - Walter Scott, "The Tapestried Chamber"