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The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories
The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories Author:Michael Cox (Editor), R. A. Gilbert (Editor) The Victorians excelled at telling ghost stories. In an age of rapid scientific progress, the idea of a vindictive past able to reach out and violate the present held a special potential for terror. Throughout the nineteenth century, fictional ghost stories developed in parallel with the more general Victorian fascination with death and what lay... more » beyond it. Though they were as much a part of the cultural and literary fabric of the age as imperial confidence, the best of the stories still retain their original power to surprise and unsettle. In Victorian Ghost Stories, the editors map out the development of the ghost story from 1850 to the early years of the twentieth century and demonstrate the importance of this form of short fiction in Victorian popular culture. As well as reprinting stories by supernatural specialists such as J. S. Le Fanu and M. R. James, this selection emphasizes the key role played by women writers -- including Elizabeth Gaskell, Rhoda Broughton, and Charlotte Riddell -- and offers one or two genuine rarities. Other writers represented include Charles Dickens, Henry James, Wilkie Collins, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and R. L. Stevenson. There is also a fascinating Introduction and a chronological list of ghost story collections from 1850 to 1910.
The old nurse's story (1852) / Elizabeth Gaskell --
An account of some strange disturbances in Aungier Street (1853) / J.S. Le Fanu --
The miniature (1853) / J.Y. Akerman --
The last house in C%5F%5F Street (1856) / Dinah Mulock (Mrs. Craik) --
To be taken with a grain of salt (1865) / Charles Dickens --
The Botathen ghost (1867) / R.S. Hawker --
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (1868) / Rhoda Broughton --
The romance of certain old clothes (1868) Henry James --
Pichon & Sons, of the Croix Rousse (1868) / Anon. --
Reality or delusion? (1868) / Mrs. Henry Wood --
Uncle Cornelius his story (1869) / George MacDonald --
The shadow of a shade (1869) / Tom Hood --
At Chrighton Abbey (1871) / Mary Elizabeth Braddon --
No living voice (1872) / Thomas Street Millington --
Miss Jeâromette and the clergyman (1875) / Wilkie Collins --
The story of Clifford House (1878) / Anon. --
Was it an illusion? (1881) / Amelia B. Edwards --
The open door (1882) / Charlotte Riddell --
The captain of the 'Pole-star' (1883) / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle --
The body-snatcher (1884) / R.L. Stevenson --
The story of the Rippling train (1887) / Mary Louisa Molesworth --
At the end of the passage (1890) / Rudyard Kipling --
'To let' (1890) / R.M. Croker --
John Charrington's wedding (1891) / E. Nesbit --
The haunted organist of Hurly Burly (1891) / Rosa Mulholland --
The man of science (1892) / Jerome K. Jerome --
Canon Alberic's scrap-book (1895) / M.R. James --
Jerry Bundler (1897) / W.W. Jacobs --
An eddy on the floor (1899) / Bernard Capes --
The tomb of Sarah (1900) / F.G. Loring --
The case of Vincent Pyrwhit (1901) / Barry Pain --
The shadows on the wall (1902) / Mary E. Wilkins --
Father Macclesfield's tale (1907) / R.H. Benson --
Thurnley Abbey (1908) / Perceval Landon --
The kit-bag (1908) / Algernon Blackwood --
Sources --
Select chronological conspectus of ghost stories, 1840-1910« less