The Big Book of Ghost Stories
THE BIG BOOK OF GHOST STORIES is a spirited Black Lizard anthology with over a thousand pages of haunted—and haunting—tales. The ghost story is perhaps the oldest of all the supernatural literary genres and has captured the imagination of almost every writer to put pen to the page. Here, Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler has followed his keen sense of the supernatural to collect the most chilling and uncanny tales in the canon. These spectral stories span more than a hundred years, from modern-day horrors by Joyce Carol Oates, Chet Williamson and Andrew Klavan, to pulp yarns from August Derleth, Greye La Spina, and M. L. Humphreys, to the atmospheric Victorian tales of Rudyard Kipling, Edith Wharton, and H. P. Lovecraft, not to mention modern works by the likes of Donald E. Westlake and Isaac Asimov that are already classics. Some of these stories have haunted the canon for a century, while others are making their first ghoulish appearance in book form. Whether you prefer possessive poltergeists, awful apparitions, or friendly phantoms, these stories are guaranteed to thrill you, tingle the spine, or tickle the funny bone, and keep you turning the pages with fearful delight.
Including such classics as “The Monkey’s Paw” and “The Open Window” and eerie vintage illustrations, and also featuring haunted mansions, midnight frights, lovers from beyond the grave, rapping, tapping, wailing shades, and ghosts, ghouls, and specters galore! AlsoFeaturing haunted mansions, midnight frights, lovers from beyond the grave, rapping, tapping, wailing shades, and ghosts, ghouls, and specters galore!
Contents
OTTO PENZLER: Introduction
BUT I’M NOT DEAD YET
CONRAD AIKEN: Mr. Arcularis
WILLIAM FRYER HARVEY: August Heat
I’LL LOVE YOU—FOREVER (OR MAYBE NOT)
ELLEN GLASGOW: The Shadowy Third
ELLEN GLASGOW: The Past
DAVID MORRELL: But at My Back I Always Hear
O. HENRY: The Furnished Room
PAUL ERNST: Death’s Warm Fireside
ANDREW KLAVAN: The Advent Reunion
R. MURRAY GILCHRIST: The Return
RUDYARD KIPLING: The Phantom Rickshaw
AMBROSE BIERCE: The Moonlit Road
LAFCADIO HEARN: The Story of Ming-Y
LAFCADIO HEARN: Yuki-Onna
THIS OLD HOUSE
AMYAS NORTHCOTE: Brickett Bottom
E. F. BENSON: How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery
G. G. PENDARVES: Thing of Darkness
EDWARD LUCAS WHITE: The House of the Nightmare
HECTOR BOLITHO: The House in Half Moon Street
DICK DONOVAN: A Night of Horror
VINCENT O’SULLIVAN: The Burned House
KIDS WILL BE KIDS
ROSEMARY TIMPERLEY: Harry
MICHAEL REAVES: Make-Believe
A. M. BURRAGE: Playmates
RAMSEY CAMPBELL: Just Behind You
A. E. COPPARD: Adam and Eve and Pinch Me
STEVE FRIEDMAN: The Lost Boy of the Ozarks
THERE’S SOMETHING FUNNY AROUND HERE
MARK TWAIN: A Ghost’s Story
DONALD E. WESTLAKE: In at the Death
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE: The Ghost of Dr. Harris
“INGULPHUS”: The Everlasting Club
ISAAC ASIMOV AND JAMES MACCREIGH: Legal Rites
ALBERT E. COWDREY: Death Must Die
FRANK STOCKTON: The Transferred Ghost
OSCAR WILDE: The Canterville Ghost
A NEGATIVE TRAIN OF THOUGHT
AUGUST DERLETH: Pacific 421
ROBERT WEINBERG: The Midnight El
STOP—YOU’RE SCARING ME
FREDERICK COWLES: Punch and Judy
HENRY S. WHITEHEAD: The Fireplace
H. F. ARNOLD: The Night Wire
FRITZ LEIBER: Smoke Ghost
WYATT BLASSINGAME: Song of the Dead
I MUST BE DREAMING
WILKIE COLLINS: The Dream Woman
WASHINGTON IRVING: The Adventure of the German Student
A SÉANCE, YOU SAY?
JOSEPH SHEARING: They Found My Grave
EDGAR JEPSON: Mrs. Morrel’s Last Séance
JOYCE CAROL OATES: Night-Side
CLASSICS
M. R. JAMES: “Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad”
W. W. JACOBS: The Monkey’s Paw
W. W. JACOBS: The Toll-House
EDITH WHARTON: Afterward
WILLA CATHER: Consequences
CYNTHIA ASQUITH: The Follower
CYNTHIA ASQUITH: The Corner Shop
H. P. LOVECRAFT: The Terrible Old Man
ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN: The Murderer’s Violin
SAKI: The Open Window
SAKI: Laura
FITZ-JAMES O’BRIEN: What Was It?
ALEXANDER WOOLLCOTT: Full Fathom Five
H. R. WAKEFIELD: He Cometh and He Passeth By
PERCEVAL LANDON: Thurnley Abbey
THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES
ALGERNON BLACKWOOD: The Woman’s Ghost Story
VICTOR ROUSSEAU: The Angel of the Marne
OLIVIA HOWARD DUNBAR: The Shell of Sense
MARJORIE BOWEN: The Avenging of Ann Leete
BEATEN TO A PULP
GREYE LA SPINA: The Dead-Wagon
URANN THAYER: A Soul with Two Bodies
ARTHUR J. BURKS: The Ghosts of Steamboat Coulee
THORP MCCLUSKY: The Considerate Hosts
CYRIL MAND: The Fifth Candle
AUGUST DERLETH AND MARK SCHORER: The Return of Andrew Bentley
M. L. HUMPHREYS: The Floor Above
MANLY WADE WELLMAN: School for the Unspeakable
A. V. MILYER: Mordecai’s Pipe
JULIUS LONG: He Walked by Day
DALE CLARK: Behind the Screen
MODERN MASTERS
M. RICKERT: Journey into the Kingdom
H. R. F. KEATING: Mr. Saul
CHET WILLIAMSON: Coventry Carol