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The Power of Darkness: Tales of Terror
The figure of my wife came in... it came straight towards the bed... its wide eyes were open and looked at me with love unspeakable' Edith Nesbit, best known as the author of The Railway Children and other children's classics, was also the mistress of the ghost story and tales of terror. She was able to create genuinely chilling narratives in which the returning dead feature strongly. Sadly, these stories have been neglected for many years, but now, at last, they are back in print. In this wonderful collection of eerie, flesh-creeping yarns, we encounter love that transcends the grave, reanimated corpses, vampiric vines, vengeful ghosts and other dark delights to make you feel fearful. These vintage spooky stories, tinged with horror, are told in a bold, forthright manner that makes them seem as fresh and unsettling as today's headlines.
255 pages, Paperback
First published July 5, 2006
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About the author
E. Nesbit
1,030 books998 followers
Edith Nesbit
(married name Edith Bland; 15 August 1858 – 4 May 1924) was an English author and poet; she published her books for children under the name of E. Nesbit.
She wrote or collaborated on over 60 books of fiction for children, several of which have been adapted for film and television. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, a socialist organisation later connected to the Labour Party.
Edith Nesbit was born in Kennington, Surrey, the daughter of agricultural chemist and schoolmaster John Collis Nesbit. The death of her father when she was four and the continuing ill health of her sister meant that Nesbit had a transitory childhood, her family moving across Europe in search of healthy climates only to return to England for financial reasons. Nesbit therefore spent her childhood attaining an education from whatever sources were available—local grammars, the occasional boarding school but mainly through reading.
At 17 her family finally settled in London and aged 19, Nesbit met Hubert Bland, a political activist and writer. They became lovers and when Nesbit found she was pregnant they became engaged, marrying in April 1880. After this scandalous (for Victorian society) beginning, the marriage would be an unconventional one. Initially, the couple lived separately—Nesbit with her family and Bland with his mother and her live-in companion Maggie Doran.
Initially, Edith Nesbit books were novels meant for adults, including The Prophet's Mantle (1885) and The Marden Mystery (1896) about the early days of the socialist movement. Written under the pen name of her third child 'Fabian Bland', these books were not successful. Nesbit generated an income for the family by lecturing around the country on socialism and through her journalism (she was editor of the Fabian Society's journal, Today).
In 1899 she had published The Adventures of the Treasure Seekers to great acclaim.
She wrote or collaborated on over 60 books of fiction for children, several of which have been adapted for film and television. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, a socialist organisation later connected to the Labour Party.
Edith Nesbit was born in Kennington, Surrey, the daughter of agricultural chemist and schoolmaster John Collis Nesbit. The death of her father when she was four and the continuing ill health of her sister meant that Nesbit had a transitory childhood, her family moving across Europe in search of healthy climates only to return to England for financial reasons. Nesbit therefore spent her childhood attaining an education from whatever sources were available—local grammars, the occasional boarding school but mainly through reading.
At 17 her family finally settled in London and aged 19, Nesbit met Hubert Bland, a political activist and writer. They became lovers and when Nesbit found she was pregnant they became engaged, marrying in April 1880. After this scandalous (for Victorian society) beginning, the marriage would be an unconventional one. Initially, the couple lived separately—Nesbit with her family and Bland with his mother and her live-in companion Maggie Doran.
Initially, Edith Nesbit books were novels meant for adults, including The Prophet's Mantle (1885) and The Marden Mystery (1896) about the early days of the socialist movement. Written under the pen name of her third child 'Fabian Bland', these books were not successful. Nesbit generated an income for the family by lecturing around the country on socialism and through her journalism (she was editor of the Fabian Society's journal, Today).
In 1899 she had published The Adventures of the Treasure Seekers to great acclaim.
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May 16, 2021
The Victorian writer Edith Nesbit is a study in contrasts. Although she was an unconventional woman, a Fabian socialist and a chain-smoker in an age when "well-bred women" did not smoke, she nevertheless--according to Mrs. G.K. Chesterton--suffered from "strange reversions to ultra-respectable standards."
Although her marriage to Hubert Bland was superficially traditional, and resulted in five children, it concealed a menage-a-trois: Alice Hoat, the "housekeeper," was her husband's mistress, and two of the five children Nesbit claimed as her own were produced by Hubert and Alice. She was also--contrary to Victorian ideals if not practice--the principal breadwinner of her large family, having to compensate for her unsuccessful free-lance journalist husband Mr. Bland (who strongly opposed women's suffrage and was a big fan of corsets). Edith wrote continually, furiously, for money, producing over sixty books of fiction and poetry for children, and roughly twenty novels and books of short stories for adults. She is best known for her realistic children's novels--"The Railway Children" being the most famous example--but among those books for adults are four collections of tales of terror and horror, a score of which tales are reprinted here.
Nesbit is remarkable for the efficiency and economy of her style; her stories are never marred by the myriad garlands of adjectives that habitually obscure the narratives of Victorian magazine fiction. Although it is true that the conceptions underlying these stories are seldom original, Nesbit uses her straightforward style and her gifts for precise diction and detail in order to bring each of them to a sharp, sudden conclusion, so that what has begun in the comforts of convention ends in shock and surprise. Besides her style, another modernist feature of her stories is her narrators. Although they are not precisely unreliable, they are suspect in their assumptions or at the very least self-interested, and the reader is forced to play close attention to the manner of narration, and try to look beyond it to the truth.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of these stories, however, is their over-arching theme. Most of these encounters with terror and the supernatural are also crucial and defining moments in the encounter of two people--usually lovers or possible lovers--and the nature of these encounters leave them forever changed. The classic "Man-size in Marble" is an excellent example, but so are "From the Dead," "The Violet Car," "John Charrington's Wedding," "The Pavilion," "Hurst of Hurstcote," "The Ebony Frame," "The Shadow," "The Power of Darkness," and "The Letter in Brown Ink," each of which possesses moments of genuine terror, as well as "The Haunted Inheritance" and "The Detective," two sentimental, less terrifying examples of the theme, which are also effective in their own sweet way.
The half dozen or so stories that do not share this theme are also worth reading. All in all, this is an admirable selection.
Read
August 9, 2011I actually really enjoyed this. I thought that because there were so many stories in here, I wouldn't remember any of them - but when I looked back, I did! So they must have made an impression.
It's interesting to see that Nesbit wrote in many different genres, and it is a shame that these were previously neglected. Written in a realistic, straight-forward style, which conveys her uncoventional and independent attitude. These stories definitely seem to be ahead of their time, and less genteel, and therefore much more appealing to a modern reader. Unbecomingly (if that is a word) of a Victorian lady, she touches upon the subjects of eroticism and immorality through these characters.
My favourites would have to be The Violet Car, The Pavilion, Hurst of Hurstcote, In The Dark (they go to Bruges!), The Head, The Ebony Frame, The Shadow, The Power of Darkness and The Haunted Inheritance.
Anyway, I was really rather inspired.
It's interesting to see that Nesbit wrote in many different genres, and it is a shame that these were previously neglected. Written in a realistic, straight-forward style, which conveys her uncoventional and independent attitude. These stories definitely seem to be ahead of their time, and less genteel, and therefore much more appealing to a modern reader. Unbecomingly (if that is a word) of a Victorian lady, she touches upon the subjects of eroticism and immorality through these characters.
My favourites would have to be The Violet Car, The Pavilion, Hurst of Hurstcote, In The Dark (they go to Bruges!), The Head, The Ebony Frame, The Shadow, The Power of Darkness and The Haunted Inheritance.
Anyway, I was really rather inspired.
May 22, 2021
‘Very good story,’ he said; ‘but it’s not what I call realism. You don’t tell us half enough, sir. You don’t say when it happened or where, or the time of year, or what colour your aunt’ s second cousin’s hair was. Nor yet you don’t tell us what it was she saw, nor what the room was like where she saw it, nor why she saw it, nor what happened afterwards.’ --‘Number 17’ (1910)
In this selection of Edith Nesbit’s tales of mystery and supernatural occurrences she demonstrates exactly how verisimilitude is a crucial component in ghost stories and their ilk, precisely as the commercial traveller in her short story ‘Number 17’ outlines. But she herself is also an unreliable narrator because with macabre humour she proceeds to break all the rules she puts in the mouth of her commercial traveller: we never discover his name, or of his colleagues, or the location of the inn where the tale takes place; and though we’re given incidental details of how Room 17 is furnished — a coffin-like wardrobe, the red drapes, the framed print on the wall — we end by doubting the reliability of the traveller’s account and thus that of the author.
And here too lie further conumdrums when ghost stories are related: it’s not just the who and what, and the when and where, that go towards their effective reception by reader or listener, it’s how we experience them — the time of day or night, the place, whether orally conveyed or merely seen on the page — and why we choose this genre — our mood or inclination, our desire to be frightened witless — that decide whether such grim tales amuse or bore or chill us.
And, of course, whether the author is the mistress or not of her craft must surely be a deciding factor.
With there being a score (and one more) of ghost stories in this easily available edition it’s not desirable to discuss them all; instead I shall suggest commonalities and highlight what I think are the most and least successful of the tales.
The greater proportion of these pieces are told in the first person which, I think, adds to their effectiveness. Nesbit doesn’t always reveal the dramatis personae immediately, often throwing us into the action or the middle of a conversation, always a disconcerting but arresting way of beginning a short story. The protagonist is generally though not necessarily a male, a middle class professional or gentleman, and his belief (or lack of it) in the uncanny is declared early on, inviting us to disbelieve — if we dare — the facts as revealed in the following pages. Commonplace though such fictional devices are it does encourage the reader to go along with what unfolds next, especially when Nesbit disarms us with an opening such as this in ‘The Shadow’:
This is not an artistically rounded off ghost story, and nothing is explained in it, and there seems to be no reason why any of it should have happened. But that is no reason why it should not be told. You must have noticed that all the real ghost stories you have ever come close to, are like this in these respects — no explanation, no logical coherence. Here is the story. -- ‘The Shadow’ (1905)
Nesbit knew how important openings were to short stories and therefore runs the gamut of them, from ‘In the Dark’ (“It may have been a form of madness”) through ‘The Pavilion’ (“There was never a moment’s doubt in her own mind”) to ‘The Ebony Frame’ (“To be rich is a luxurious sensation — the more so when you have plumbed the depths of hard-up-ness as a Fleet Street hack, a picker-up of unconsidered parts, a reporter, an unappreciated journalist — all callings utterly inconsistent with one’s family feeling and one’s direct descent from the Dukes of Picardy”). I found these hooks did the job they were designed to do: to draw one in and make one an accomplice to her deception.
The earlier tales, apparently often anthologised, seem to me lesser creatures — ‘Man-size in Marble’ for example, or ‘Uncle Abraham’s Romance’ — which may have been written in conjunction with Edith’s husband Hubert Bland and others. The more she wrote, however, the more developed in terms of a distinctive literary style they became and the more absolute control they exhibited. Her range expands: we have not just works resembling Poe’s, Wilde’s, Stevenson’s or fellow Fabian Society member H G Wells’s speculative pieces (‘The Three Drugs’, ‘The Ebony Frame’, or ‘The Five Senses’) but also humorous touches amongst the horror (‘The Shadow’, say, or ‘The Haunted House’) and shifts from male towards more female perspectives (‘The Shadow’ again, ‘The Letter In Brown Ink’, ‘The Pavilion’).
Above all, many of these short stories are beautifully written — the pacing works well, the characterisations come through, a sense of place is created; compare these with some of M R James’s ghost stories which all too often seem centred on a male recluse, often a scholar, who strangely doesn’t read the warning signs till too late. As David Stuart Davies points out, many of the tales in this collection feature “the destruction of a strong loving relationship between a man and a woman”, though some also show the successful establishment of that relationship.
If the collection exhibits Nesbit’s strong fascination with the supernatural, a fascination established early on in her life (as recounted in Long Ago When I Was Young) it also underlines her ability to express herself in a way that still feels modern: despite the odd turn of phrase and the occasional unfamiliar term many of these are tales that could have been penned yesterday; though they may hark back to Victorian Gothick sensibilities (a number of mysterious or haunted houses feature) the modern world is evidently manifest, in electric lights, in railways, and in luridly coloured motorcars.
* * * * *
A word about this Wordsworth edition now. We may be very grateful to have the full text of these tales available in a cheap publication, but there will be the unfortunate though not inevitable downsides common to this publisher. First I’m pleased to say I was unaware of major typos (possibly an omitted quotation mark or missing letter), a fault shown by some of their reissued classics because of carelessly edited electronic scanning. Secondly however the contents page shows incorrect pagination entries right from the first story, mistakes later further compounded (the last story appears 20 pages later than indicated). Further confusion comes from one tale, ‘Number 17’, not even being listed in the contents. None of this seems to have been amended in a later, much more recent edition.
Thirdly, readers — not only nerdy ones — will be frustrated by the lack of bibliographic details on the publication page (other than when the edition was published); without specialist knowledge or willingness to research curious readers will have to glean what they can from the few bits of information in the introduction by David Stuart Davies. Not to provide such context is to do the author a great disservice, in my opinion.
In this selection of Edith Nesbit’s tales of mystery and supernatural occurrences she demonstrates exactly how verisimilitude is a crucial component in ghost stories and their ilk, precisely as the commercial traveller in her short story ‘Number 17’ outlines. But she herself is also an unreliable narrator because with macabre humour she proceeds to break all the rules she puts in the mouth of her commercial traveller: we never discover his name, or of his colleagues, or the location of the inn where the tale takes place; and though we’re given incidental details of how Room 17 is furnished — a coffin-like wardrobe, the red drapes, the framed print on the wall — we end by doubting the reliability of the traveller’s account and thus that of the author.
And here too lie further conumdrums when ghost stories are related: it’s not just the who and what, and the when and where, that go towards their effective reception by reader or listener, it’s how we experience them — the time of day or night, the place, whether orally conveyed or merely seen on the page — and why we choose this genre — our mood or inclination, our desire to be frightened witless — that decide whether such grim tales amuse or bore or chill us.
And, of course, whether the author is the mistress or not of her craft must surely be a deciding factor.
With there being a score (and one more) of ghost stories in this easily available edition it’s not desirable to discuss them all; instead I shall suggest commonalities and highlight what I think are the most and least successful of the tales.
The greater proportion of these pieces are told in the first person which, I think, adds to their effectiveness. Nesbit doesn’t always reveal the dramatis personae immediately, often throwing us into the action or the middle of a conversation, always a disconcerting but arresting way of beginning a short story. The protagonist is generally though not necessarily a male, a middle class professional or gentleman, and his belief (or lack of it) in the uncanny is declared early on, inviting us to disbelieve — if we dare — the facts as revealed in the following pages. Commonplace though such fictional devices are it does encourage the reader to go along with what unfolds next, especially when Nesbit disarms us with an opening such as this in ‘The Shadow’:
This is not an artistically rounded off ghost story, and nothing is explained in it, and there seems to be no reason why any of it should have happened. But that is no reason why it should not be told. You must have noticed that all the real ghost stories you have ever come close to, are like this in these respects — no explanation, no logical coherence. Here is the story. -- ‘The Shadow’ (1905)
Nesbit knew how important openings were to short stories and therefore runs the gamut of them, from ‘In the Dark’ (“It may have been a form of madness”) through ‘The Pavilion’ (“There was never a moment’s doubt in her own mind”) to ‘The Ebony Frame’ (“To be rich is a luxurious sensation — the more so when you have plumbed the depths of hard-up-ness as a Fleet Street hack, a picker-up of unconsidered parts, a reporter, an unappreciated journalist — all callings utterly inconsistent with one’s family feeling and one’s direct descent from the Dukes of Picardy”). I found these hooks did the job they were designed to do: to draw one in and make one an accomplice to her deception.
The earlier tales, apparently often anthologised, seem to me lesser creatures — ‘Man-size in Marble’ for example, or ‘Uncle Abraham’s Romance’ — which may have been written in conjunction with Edith’s husband Hubert Bland and others. The more she wrote, however, the more developed in terms of a distinctive literary style they became and the more absolute control they exhibited. Her range expands: we have not just works resembling Poe’s, Wilde’s, Stevenson’s or fellow Fabian Society member H G Wells’s speculative pieces (‘The Three Drugs’, ‘The Ebony Frame’, or ‘The Five Senses’) but also humorous touches amongst the horror (‘The Shadow’, say, or ‘The Haunted House’) and shifts from male towards more female perspectives (‘The Shadow’ again, ‘The Letter In Brown Ink’, ‘The Pavilion’).
Above all, many of these short stories are beautifully written — the pacing works well, the characterisations come through, a sense of place is created; compare these with some of M R James’s ghost stories which all too often seem centred on a male recluse, often a scholar, who strangely doesn’t read the warning signs till too late. As David Stuart Davies points out, many of the tales in this collection feature “the destruction of a strong loving relationship between a man and a woman”, though some also show the successful establishment of that relationship.
If the collection exhibits Nesbit’s strong fascination with the supernatural, a fascination established early on in her life (as recounted in Long Ago When I Was Young) it also underlines her ability to express herself in a way that still feels modern: despite the odd turn of phrase and the occasional unfamiliar term many of these are tales that could have been penned yesterday; though they may hark back to Victorian Gothick sensibilities (a number of mysterious or haunted houses feature) the modern world is evidently manifest, in electric lights, in railways, and in luridly coloured motorcars.
* * * * *
A word about this Wordsworth edition now. We may be very grateful to have the full text of these tales available in a cheap publication, but there will be the unfortunate though not inevitable downsides common to this publisher. First I’m pleased to say I was unaware of major typos (possibly an omitted quotation mark or missing letter), a fault shown by some of their reissued classics because of carelessly edited electronic scanning. Secondly however the contents page shows incorrect pagination entries right from the first story, mistakes later further compounded (the last story appears 20 pages later than indicated). Further confusion comes from one tale, ‘Number 17’, not even being listed in the contents. None of this seems to have been amended in a later, much more recent edition.
Thirdly, readers — not only nerdy ones — will be frustrated by the lack of bibliographic details on the publication page (other than when the edition was published); without specialist knowledge or willingness to research curious readers will have to glean what they can from the few bits of information in the introduction by David Stuart Davies. Not to provide such context is to do the author a great disservice, in my opinion.
September 16, 2011
A collection of 20 ghost stories by an author best known for her childrens' books. Some are scary, some are dark, some are just plain weird. Most are about men and what happens to them when they don't act according to some sort of „norm“. As we learn in the introduction Nesbit had to share her husband with another woman and even raised her child. She did so without complaining, but I believe her unhappiness comes through in her ghost stories where she punishes men whether they have done something wrong or not. Today the stories don't seem that scary anymore because similar stories have been written since then, but in her time they must have been quite unique, especially written by a women.[return]There are stories about zombies, haunted houses, ghosts and vampiric vines among many others.[return]All in all, it's a very good and interesting collection and I like the short story format. It warns you on the cover not to read them before going to bed, and some may haunt you. I read one story every day on the train and it was the perfect book for that. I'd recommend it to everyone who loves a good ghost story although it sometimes shows its age.
October 11, 2024
Cinque racconti gotici, tra ghost story, visioni paranormali, vicende inquietanti ed oscure. I miei racconti preferiti sono stati “L’ombra” (storia dal finissimo orrore psicologico, dove fantasia e realtà confluiscono in un epilogo inaspettato) e La casa infestata (il protagonista viene invitato in una casa per assistere a fenomeni paranormali, ma dovrà affrontare un pericolo diverso dalle aspettative e molto più insidioso. Mi ha ricordato molto le atmosfere inquietanti di Dracula!), ma interessanti e sorprendenti anche gli altri.
I racconti:
L’ombra: 4,5★
La casa infestata: 4,5★
Il mistero della villetta bifamiliare: 4★
La storia d’amore dello zio Abraham: 3★
Numero 17: 3,5★
I racconti:
L’ombra: 4,5★
La casa infestata: 4,5★
Il mistero della villetta bifamiliare: 4★
La storia d’amore dello zio Abraham: 3★
Numero 17: 3,5★
November 2, 2020
Lettura di Halloween 🎃 👻
Una bella raccolta di racconti inquietanti senza però essere terrorizzanti ecco perché l’ho apprezzato molto di più. Un libricino per tutti ed è stato carino leggerlo in questo periodo.
Edizione molto bella con illustrazioni spettacolari.
Una bella raccolta di racconti inquietanti senza però essere terrorizzanti ecco perché l’ho apprezzato molto di più. Un libricino per tutti ed è stato carino leggerlo in questo periodo.
Edizione molto bella con illustrazioni spettacolari.
November 26, 2018
THE POWER OF DARKNESS: TALES OF TERROR by Edith Nesbit. If there is one thing I've grown tired of it's introductions like the one in this 2006 Edith Nesbit collection where the fellow says, 'I will close with this piece of advice for novice Nesbit reader: do not attempt to sample these stories alone at night by candlelight!' I mean, come on; really? First off, who reads by candlelight? And second, we see graphic gore in movies and extreme violence on daily TV so the idea that a Victorian period ghost story is somehow supposed to frighten us is ludicrous. Heck, I face more scarier situations just driving on the freeway than anything in Nesbit's book. Stupid book intros do a definite disservice to otherwise fine collections. Which is what we have here. I'd never read Nesbit before but this is a wonderful set of tales by a wonderful writer. They are varied, covering many areas, and including some humorous entries ('Number 17'). Nesbit writes in a remarkably modern style; not at all in the Henry James school of taking ten paragraphs to say what could be done in one, but direct and to the point. She does occasionally slip into EF Benson mode where she adds more description than is necessary to the tale, but those instances are rare and they still present a good story. A lot of the stories mine what are very familiar themes nowadays and I'm sure there are many 'Twilight Zone' types who have borrowed from her works without giving due credit. All in all a highly recommended volume. I only wish those clowns who write the intros would look at the calendar and realize what century we're in so they could stop telling us how these old ghost stories are going to 'frighten' us. News flash -- they don't. Entertain, definitely; but frighten? Give us a break!
March 6, 2018
I didn’t know anything of Edith Newbit till I read this book The Power of Darkness Tales of Terror. Stellar story telling. I thought the writers of that century the ones I’ve read, Poe, Hugo, Conrad, and now Nesbit they all serve up a rich broth of flowing language but Ms. Nesbit who is especially rich in her detail and descriptive eloquence.
“There was a woman in it, of course, and money, and a friend, and regrets and embarrassments –and all of these reached out tendrils that wove and interwove till they made a puzzle-problem of which heart and brain were now weary. I t was a s though his life depended on his deciphering the straggling characters traced by some spider who, having fallen into the ink-well, had dragged clogged legs in a black zigzag across his map of the world”…
sometimes I found it a bit vague now for who remembers some of these terms from common usage a hundred and thirty years ago but not any more.
“I’ll fetch you a cordial. But I advise you to try and walk, That porte coche`re is, unfortunately not very strong.”
Still her short stories were wonderful sometimes, very modern sounding like a good script for a dark shadows or twilight zone story. Other times unique, certainly a foundation stone of good dark gothic horror going keep this one on my shelf for future reference a nice discovery to find her work it aged well and she should be more recognized for excellence of it all. Four stars.
“There was a woman in it, of course, and money, and a friend, and regrets and embarrassments –and all of these reached out tendrils that wove and interwove till they made a puzzle-problem of which heart and brain were now weary. I t was a s though his life depended on his deciphering the straggling characters traced by some spider who, having fallen into the ink-well, had dragged clogged legs in a black zigzag across his map of the world”…
sometimes I found it a bit vague now for who remembers some of these terms from common usage a hundred and thirty years ago but not any more.
“I’ll fetch you a cordial. But I advise you to try and walk, That porte coche`re is, unfortunately not very strong.”
Still her short stories were wonderful sometimes, very modern sounding like a good script for a dark shadows or twilight zone story. Other times unique, certainly a foundation stone of good dark gothic horror going keep this one on my shelf for future reference a nice discovery to find her work it aged well and she should be more recognized for excellence of it all. Four stars.
October 24, 2020
Nothing Nesbit wrote in the Gothic/weird genre was ever quite as magnificent as "Man-Sized in Marble," but there are enough engaging spine-tinglers here to make this an essential part of any horror collection. Her greatest gift was the breadth of her imagination, and ability to bring it to any setting, from salon to graveyard, and at her best she is as great a writer of tales of terror as of children's fantasy.
September 2, 2025
Just awful!
This book was a dissappointment from start to finish.
I read some of the 5 star reviews...did I read the same book?
Tales of Terror? Please...change that to Tales of Terror..ible.
Read 22/22 ghost stories
3 stories were good (...not great) but the rest are "spooky lite" blending everyday situations with supernatural menace: (lovers meeting in park or churchyard, engagements, marriage proposals, marital arguments, inheritance of a haunted house, implied "love triangle" with a shadow as symbol a of guilt. Victorian and Edwardian era tone.
The last 11 stories were...low spooky and sometimes just stupid.
To end on a high note...I did learn about "botanical horror!"
This book was a dissappointment from start to finish.
I read some of the 5 star reviews...did I read the same book?
Tales of Terror? Please...change that to Tales of Terror..ible.
Read 22/22 ghost stories
3 stories were good (...not great) but the rest are "spooky lite" blending everyday situations with supernatural menace: (lovers meeting in park or churchyard, engagements, marriage proposals, marital arguments, inheritance of a haunted house, implied "love triangle" with a shadow as symbol a of guilt. Victorian and Edwardian era tone.
The last 11 stories were...low spooky and sometimes just stupid.
To end on a high note...I did learn about "botanical horror!"
October 22, 2022
Едіт Несбіт часто памятають як авторку дитячих книг, а вона писала набагато більше і різноманітніше. Це збірка її жахливчиків, де вдосталь привидів та всіляких марень, часто досить класичних. Але в "Павільйоні" вона так тихо і ніжно проїжджає вантажівочкою по вікторіанським умовностям і чутливостям, що тільки кишки на деревах оббирай та скрушно хитай головою над загубленим життям. І The Letter in Brown Ink теж дуже цікава, щось середнє між детективною історією і навіюванням, та ще й закінчується несподівано.
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October 21, 2024The Shadow is also printed in the Big Book of the Masters of Horror
The Violet Car is also printed in the Big Book of the Masters of Horror
Uncle Abraham's Romance is also printed in the Big Book of the Masters of Horror
The Violet Car is also printed in the Big Book of the Masters of Horror
Uncle Abraham's Romance is also printed in the Big Book of the Masters of Horror
February 11, 2018
This recent collection of works by Edith Nesbit contains the following stories, in this order:
Man-Size in Marble
Uncle Abraham's Romance
From the Dead
The Three Drugs
The Violet Car
John Charrington's Wedding
The Pavilion
Hurst of Hurstcote
In the Dark
The Head
The Mystery of the Semi-detached
The Ebony Frame
The Five Senses
The Shadow
The Power of Darkness
The Haunted Inheritance
The Letter in Brown Ink
The House of Silence
The Haunted House
The Detective
But for The Detective, I was able to find them all online, as they are in the public domain and accessible from many different sources.
I came to Nesbit through an online reading group. I am very glad to have been introduced to her work in gothic fiction. Through this collection, I would say I prefer he even to Poe, in this genre.
Like most stories as old as these, there isn't necessarily a lot that is going to literally scare a contemporary reader. However, a patient reader will find Nesbit's atmospheric storytelling delightfully unsettling. Her introductions are fantastic. There wasn't one story in the collection that took me more than a single sitting, so engrossed was I in each narrative. I usually would end up reading a second or third before putting it down.
A lot of physical objects are given life or power in Nesbit's stories. In these, she reminds me most of Poe. However, in The Third Drug and The Five Senses, she has us question the nature of reality and perception. In these, she reminded me of shades of Lovecraft. It was these two, along with John Charrington's Wedding, in The Dark, The Ebony Frame, and The Power of Darkness that were my favourite. Though very short, I also really enjoyed Uncle Abraham's a Romance.
I was also reading a contemporary gothic novel, The Little Stranger, for most of the time that I read the stories in this collection. Nesbit's work really helped me appreciate Sarah Waters' recent haunted house novel, as I was reminded of the genre in its classic form, and could see how well she brought it into our century. Unfortunately, Nesbit did not fare as well in the comparison.
Unlike rare exceptions like Frankenstein, this collection does feel very much like other books of its time, one that has lost some of the immediate impact it would have held when these were first published. A thoughtful reader can tease out the feelings and implications of these stories, and they are an easy and enjoyable read. However, they do wear the patina of their age that puts them one step removed from and contemporary reader. Like a beautiful old object behind glass, they absolutely can, and should, be enjoyed. But they are unlikely to move a reader as powerfully as works of similar quality published today.
Recommended to readers of gothic fiction, especially Poe and M.R. James.
☠
Ebook
(Public domain short stories gathered from various online sources, and read in the order as published in)
The Power of Darkness: Tales of Terror
Wordsworth Editions, 2006
Three Stars
January 30-February 10, 2018
☠
Man-Size in Marble
Uncle Abraham's Romance
From the Dead
The Three Drugs
The Violet Car
John Charrington's Wedding
The Pavilion
Hurst of Hurstcote
In the Dark
The Head
The Mystery of the Semi-detached
The Ebony Frame
The Five Senses
The Shadow
The Power of Darkness
The Haunted Inheritance
The Letter in Brown Ink
The House of Silence
The Haunted House
The Detective
But for The Detective, I was able to find them all online, as they are in the public domain and accessible from many different sources.
I came to Nesbit through an online reading group. I am very glad to have been introduced to her work in gothic fiction. Through this collection, I would say I prefer he even to Poe, in this genre.
Like most stories as old as these, there isn't necessarily a lot that is going to literally scare a contemporary reader. However, a patient reader will find Nesbit's atmospheric storytelling delightfully unsettling. Her introductions are fantastic. There wasn't one story in the collection that took me more than a single sitting, so engrossed was I in each narrative. I usually would end up reading a second or third before putting it down.
A lot of physical objects are given life or power in Nesbit's stories. In these, she reminds me most of Poe. However, in The Third Drug and The Five Senses, she has us question the nature of reality and perception. In these, she reminded me of shades of Lovecraft. It was these two, along with John Charrington's Wedding, in The Dark, The Ebony Frame, and The Power of Darkness that were my favourite. Though very short, I also really enjoyed Uncle Abraham's a Romance.
I was also reading a contemporary gothic novel, The Little Stranger, for most of the time that I read the stories in this collection. Nesbit's work really helped me appreciate Sarah Waters' recent haunted house novel, as I was reminded of the genre in its classic form, and could see how well she brought it into our century. Unfortunately, Nesbit did not fare as well in the comparison.
Unlike rare exceptions like Frankenstein, this collection does feel very much like other books of its time, one that has lost some of the immediate impact it would have held when these were first published. A thoughtful reader can tease out the feelings and implications of these stories, and they are an easy and enjoyable read. However, they do wear the patina of their age that puts them one step removed from and contemporary reader. Like a beautiful old object behind glass, they absolutely can, and should, be enjoyed. But they are unlikely to move a reader as powerfully as works of similar quality published today.
Recommended to readers of gothic fiction, especially Poe and M.R. James.
☠
Ebook
(Public domain short stories gathered from various online sources, and read in the order as published in)
The Power of Darkness: Tales of Terror
Wordsworth Editions, 2006
Three Stars
January 30-February 10, 2018
☠
November 19, 2012
One of the least engaging collections of supernatural tales I've read so far. The stories fail to both chill and avoid the clichés of the genre. Despite the character's backgrounds and settings of the stories being quite diverse, the overall plots are quite common, which would be quite all right if the prose conveyed any kind of suspense or dread. Instead, we have somewhat fleshed-out characters brought to life by a prose which seems more preoccupied with being whimsy and witty than horrific or suspenseful. The author's attempts at science-fiction oriented horror (á la Jekyll and Hyde) are particularly bad and silly.
However the stories are not awful, it's just that most of them are tremendously mediocre. They are quite readable but ultimately forgettable, with a few notable exceptions ("Man-Size in Marble", "The Head", "The Pavilion", "The Ebony Frame", "The Shadow" and the Bierce-late-like "The Power Of Darkness) .
I usually read only one book at a time. Well, I was so disenchanted with this collection that I interrupted it's reading, picking it up in between two novels (Maupassant "Bel-Ami" and Golding's "the Spire"), both of which I finished before "Tales Of Darkness".
However, considering how cheap the collection is I do not consider it a bad investment. It is well worth the three pounds it costs, since there are quite a few gems in it and there are only a couple of stories that are downright awful (The Five Senses" and "The Haunted House" - which is silly beyond description).
However the stories are not awful, it's just that most of them are tremendously mediocre. They are quite readable but ultimately forgettable, with a few notable exceptions ("Man-Size in Marble", "The Head", "The Pavilion", "The Ebony Frame", "The Shadow" and the Bierce-late-like "The Power Of Darkness) .
I usually read only one book at a time. Well, I was so disenchanted with this collection that I interrupted it's reading, picking it up in between two novels (Maupassant "Bel-Ami" and Golding's "the Spire"), both of which I finished before "Tales Of Darkness".
However, considering how cheap the collection is I do not consider it a bad investment. It is well worth the three pounds it costs, since there are quite a few gems in it and there are only a couple of stories that are downright awful (The Five Senses" and "The Haunted House" - which is silly beyond description).
November 6, 2020
Edith Nesbit – poetessa, attivista politica e nota scrittrice inglese della seconda metà dell’ottocento – è solitamente conosciuta grazie ai suoi romanzi per ragazzi. Personalmente, ad avvicinarmi a questa autrice sono stati, invece, i suoi racconti del terrore.
In “L’ ombra e altri oscuri racconti” sono racchiuse, infatti, cinque brevi storie intrise di suspense che, a leggerle, fanno venire davvero la pelle d’oca.
“Nessuna di noi credeva nei fantasmi, ma il mio cuore, come minimo, sembrò balzarmi in gola e soffocarmi, quando ci fu un bussare alla nostra porta – un bussare lieve, inconfondibile.”
In questo piccolo volume troviamo i seguenti racconti:
L’ ombra
La casa infestata
Il mistero della villetta bifamiliare
La storia d’amore dello zio Abraham
Numero 17
Indubbiamente, siamo di fronte a delle vere e proprie ghost stories legate al paranormale; al loro interno ritroviamo – oltre agli elementi classici della narrativa gotica – presenze sinistre, case infestate, strani accadimenti e ombre spaventose che appaiono in posti e momenti più impensabili.
Queste cinque piccole storie si lasciano divorare facilmente grazie alle atmosfere cupe che si respirano durante tutta la narrazione. Inoltre, lasciano a noi libera scelta se credere o meno alle esperienze narrate.
Da questa lettura non aspettatevi salti sulla sedia o incubi di notte: in questi racconti, infatti, ciò che tiene incollati alle pagine è la costante apprensione e la voglia di sapere.
Insomma, brividi leggeri vi terranno senz’altro compagnia per tutto il tempo!
In “L’ ombra e altri oscuri racconti” sono racchiuse, infatti, cinque brevi storie intrise di suspense che, a leggerle, fanno venire davvero la pelle d’oca.
“Nessuna di noi credeva nei fantasmi, ma il mio cuore, come minimo, sembrò balzarmi in gola e soffocarmi, quando ci fu un bussare alla nostra porta – un bussare lieve, inconfondibile.”
In questo piccolo volume troviamo i seguenti racconti:
L’ ombra
La casa infestata
Il mistero della villetta bifamiliare
La storia d’amore dello zio Abraham
Numero 17
Indubbiamente, siamo di fronte a delle vere e proprie ghost stories legate al paranormale; al loro interno ritroviamo – oltre agli elementi classici della narrativa gotica – presenze sinistre, case infestate, strani accadimenti e ombre spaventose che appaiono in posti e momenti più impensabili.
Queste cinque piccole storie si lasciano divorare facilmente grazie alle atmosfere cupe che si respirano durante tutta la narrazione. Inoltre, lasciano a noi libera scelta se credere o meno alle esperienze narrate.
Da questa lettura non aspettatevi salti sulla sedia o incubi di notte: in questi racconti, infatti, ciò che tiene incollati alle pagine è la costante apprensione e la voglia di sapere.
Insomma, brividi leggeri vi terranno senz’altro compagnia per tutto il tempo!
March 18, 2018
Perhaps best know for her Boxcar Children series, E. Nesbit also wrote many entertaining ghost stories. The stories are fairly lightweight, similar to what one would expect from an episode of The Twilight Zone.
My thanks to the good folks at The Literary Darkness reading group for introducing me to this and many other examples of literary dark fiction. There is no other group at Goodreads as capable of picking apart a book and helping readers glean from it all they can.
My thanks to the good folks at The Literary Darkness reading group for introducing me to this and many other examples of literary dark fiction. There is no other group at Goodreads as capable of picking apart a book and helping readers glean from it all they can.
August 25, 2022
E. Nesbit, who is best remembered as a children's author, wrote many stories of mystery and the supernatural and this collection probably represents her best. This collection is worth reading for fans of Victorian/early 20th century stories of this genre. There's nothing particularly scary or chilling in this collection, and many of the stories are not supernatural at all. Often the central theme is unrequited or otherwise unsuccessful love or romance.
October 13, 2018
Another fantastic collection of late Victorian supernatural fiction. I would rank Edith Nesbit higher than average when it comes to the genre. Her prose is sharp, modern(ist), and can be witty as well as dark. “Man-Size in Marble” and “John Charrington’s Wedding” have been frequently anthologized and rightfully so for they are indisputable classics. But several stories in this collection are just as good or arguably better than those. “The Ebony Frame,” “From the Dead,” “The Shadow,” and “The Pavilion” are excellent variations on familiar gothic tropes and themes while “Hurst of Hurstcote” may stand as my favorite story of the entire collection.
Other memorable tales such as “Uncle Abraham’s Romance” and “The Haunted Inheritance” have an enjoyable romantic quality. “The Three Drugs” and “The Five Senses” could be classed as early science fiction tales in the vein of “Frankenstein” and “...Jekyll and Hyde.” I was surprised by “The Head” and “The Power of Darkness,” which revolve around the uncanny effects of art and waxwork sculptures. Certain aspects of these two stories somewhat anticipate the weird surrealist style of Thomas Ligotti and feel very ahead of their time.
Edith Nesbit is one of the best ghost story writers from this period. If you like this era of supernatural fiction, this collection is essential.
Other memorable tales such as “Uncle Abraham’s Romance” and “The Haunted Inheritance” have an enjoyable romantic quality. “The Three Drugs” and “The Five Senses” could be classed as early science fiction tales in the vein of “Frankenstein” and “...Jekyll and Hyde.” I was surprised by “The Head” and “The Power of Darkness,” which revolve around the uncanny effects of art and waxwork sculptures. Certain aspects of these two stories somewhat anticipate the weird surrealist style of Thomas Ligotti and feel very ahead of their time.
Edith Nesbit is one of the best ghost story writers from this period. If you like this era of supernatural fiction, this collection is essential.
December 21, 2025
Good helping of gothic horror shorts; plenty of ghosts and haunted houses, people refusing to stay dead, dry romance, and few on the more weird side such as The Pavilion and The Three Drugs. Loses a bit of steam towards the end of the collection.
Man-Size In Marble - 4
Uncle Abraham's Romance - 2
From The Dead - 3
The Three Drugs - 4
The Violet Car - 5
John Charrington's Wedding - 4
The Pavilion - 4
Hurst Of Hurstcote - 3
In The Dark - 4
The Head - 4
The Mystery Of The Semi-Detached - 2
The Ebony Frame - 3
The Five Senses - 3
The Shadow - 4
The Power Of Darkness - 3
The Haunted Inheritance - 3
Number 17 - 3
The Letter In Brown Ink -3
The House Of Silence - 4
The Haunted House - 3
The Detective - 2
Man-Size In Marble - 4
Uncle Abraham's Romance - 2
From The Dead - 3
The Three Drugs - 4
The Violet Car - 5
John Charrington's Wedding - 4
The Pavilion - 4
Hurst Of Hurstcote - 3
In The Dark - 4
The Head - 4
The Mystery Of The Semi-Detached - 2
The Ebony Frame - 3
The Five Senses - 3
The Shadow - 4
The Power Of Darkness - 3
The Haunted Inheritance - 3
Number 17 - 3
The Letter In Brown Ink -3
The House Of Silence - 4
The Haunted House - 3
The Detective - 2
August 28, 2017
my main takeaway from this is that people went mad reaaaally easily back in victorian times. one little corpse, or one little ghost, and folks were left drooling, gibbering, and ready for the asylum. otherwise, these stories were pretty good. some spooky, some funny. i think the real horror of them has been diluted because a lot of these scenarios have become cliches, but at the time they were written they must have sent more than a few people to the madhouse. this book is also notable to me personally as the first book i began and finished in the time since my son was born. sure, it took me two weeks instead of two days, but hey! it's a start.
November 17, 2019
Edith Nesbit do tej pory kojarzyła mi się tylko z książką Pięcioro dzieci i "coś", więc raczej nie z literaturą grozy (chociaż może niekoniecznie, czytanie Alicji w Krainie Czarów straszy mnie po dziś dzień), ale już pierwsze opowiadanie przekonało mnie, że to będzie bardzo przyjemnie spędzony czas. "Opowieści upiorne" to trzynaście historii, a każda z nich będzie próbowała napędzić Wam trochę strachu. Wszystkie łączy uroczy, starociowy klimat, a także talent autorki do jego tworzenia. Jestem pod wrażeniem pomysłów Edith Nesbit, a także sposobu, w jaki potrafiła przedstawić swoje mroczne wizje.
8/10
8/10
August 19, 2020
Published in 2006, 'The Power of Darkness: Tales of Terror' is a collection of supernatural tales by an author more commonly known as the author of several children's books. The stories are well written and suspenseful, despite a tendency to be predictable. In this edition, the stories listed on the contents page not only have page numbers that do not match the stories inside, but omit a story altogether. This may be deliberate, as the story 'Number 17', omitted from the contents page, is the 17th story of the 21 stories included. And it is a good one! Very enjoyable, I have only come across 3 of these in other anthologies.
November 2, 2020
Edith Nesbit was a prolific late Victorian and Edwardian author, today best known for her children's books featuring the Bastable family and the enduring Classic The Railway Children. She also wrote many short stories, which often featured ghostly or other unworldly themes. Two of those, Man Size in Marble and John Charrington's Wedding, are much-anthologised, and are certainly the best stories in this collection. Most of the others are fairly typical shockers of the period, best read, I suspect, every now and then rather than one after the other in a volume like this where they start to feel somewhat lacking in distinctiveness after a while.
February 26, 2025
Most of these stories are great. Only a couple are just average (I’d count among those the jokey “Number 17” not listed among the contents, strangely.) The very brief introduction to the author informs a lot of the subject matter, star crossed or “it’s complicated” love stories. There are two tales involving wax museums (“The Head” and “The Power Of Darkness” both remarkable) and Edith seems to look down on stucco. The characters are varied, the settings are too (everything in England but the atmospheres always something new.) For my top three I’d choose “The Third Drug”, “The Violet Car” and “The Shadow”. Very romantic, sometimes frightening, always intriguing.
January 22, 2018
This was O.K...not outstanding but a fair collection of macabre tales and hit and miss quota wise..well significantly more hits than misses.
In honesty the less supernatural tales are the more fun as there's a cheeky deceit in the way of a couple of tales which I admired for their cleverness..much more so than the run of the mill departed lover returning tale or ghostly prescience ones.
Not bad at all the tales recall Roald Dahls adult tales more than say Lovecraft or Poe but I found this book worthwhile all told.
In honesty the less supernatural tales are the more fun as there's a cheeky deceit in the way of a couple of tales which I admired for their cleverness..much more so than the run of the mill departed lover returning tale or ghostly prescience ones.
Not bad at all the tales recall Roald Dahls adult tales more than say Lovecraft or Poe but I found this book worthwhile all told.
Read
January 27, 2021Strangely enough, I guess, I read these stories without having ever read any of Nesbit's fantasy works. This is actually the first of her writing I've read which, I gather, isn't common. Anyway, I enjoyed these stories very much. All of them are incredibly unsettling in different ways, all the more so for the wry tone Nesbit takes. A lot of the horror I've been reading lately is the sort of post-Lovecraft cosmic horror so it's good to go back and read the pre-Lovecraft, ghost-based horror that informed so much of the Victorian/Edwardian eras.
Very enjoyable collection
Very enjoyable collection
November 1, 2018
I did try to include where the original printing of the story was and year as reference for others.
Man-Size in Marble (December 1887- Home Chimes Magazine/ "Grim Tales" 1893)
Uncle Abraham's Romance ("Grim Tales" 1893)
From the Dead ("Grim Tales" 1893)
The Three Drugs (February 1908 Strand Magazine)
The Violet Car ("Fear" 1910)
John Charrington's Wedding ("Grim Tales" 1893)
The Pavilion
Hurst of Hurstcote (1893)
In the Dark ("Fear" 1910)
The Head
The Mystery of the Semi-detached ("Grim Tales" 1893)
The Ebony Frame ("Grim Tales" 1893)
The Five Senses ("Fear" 1910)
The Shadow
The Power of Darkness ("Man and Maid" 1906)
The Haunted Inheritance ("Man and Maid" 1906)
The Letter in Brown Ink
The House of Silence ("Man and Maid" 1906)
The Haunted House
The Detective
Man-Size in Marble (December 1887- Home Chimes Magazine/ "Grim Tales" 1893)
Uncle Abraham's Romance ("Grim Tales" 1893)
From the Dead ("Grim Tales" 1893)
The Three Drugs (February 1908 Strand Magazine)
The Violet Car ("Fear" 1910)
John Charrington's Wedding ("Grim Tales" 1893)
The Pavilion
Hurst of Hurstcote (1893)
In the Dark ("Fear" 1910)
The Head
The Mystery of the Semi-detached ("Grim Tales" 1893)
The Ebony Frame ("Grim Tales" 1893)
The Five Senses ("Fear" 1910)
The Shadow
The Power of Darkness ("Man and Maid" 1906)
The Haunted Inheritance ("Man and Maid" 1906)
The Letter in Brown Ink
The House of Silence ("Man and Maid" 1906)
The Haunted House
The Detective
October 3, 2024
Lettura di Halloween per il gruppo di lettura "Classici Ritrovati". Questa raccolta è adatta a tutti, i racconti sono inquietanti ma non terrorizzano. Sono un buon mix tra ansia, eventi e situazioni disturbanti e curiosità. Amo il genere e questo libro l'ho letto in due serate, è scorrevole e leggero.
October 24, 2018
I hadn't read ghost stories for a while and I made no mistake when I chose this collection of tales by Edith Nesbit in preparation for Hallow'een. They're quite scary, albeit they lack the graphic violence typical of modern horror. So you won't find gore, but you'll find ghosts galore!
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