The Wordsworth Book of Horror Stories

by Various (Editor), Mary Elizabeth Maxwell (Contributor), M.R. James (Contributor)

'...it is an universal phenomenon of our nature that the mournful, the fearful, even the horrible, allures with irresistible enchantment.'
Chaucer Burr, Memoir, 1850

The Wordsworth Book of Horror Stories is a superb collection of some of the greatest tales of the genre, many are classics while others are lesser -known gems unearthed from this vintage era of the supernatural.

From time immemorial, man the world over has drawn upon the worst fears of his conscious and subconscious mind to furnish legends of terrror. In this volume authors such as M.R.James, Le Fanu, Henry James, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Bierce, Balzac, Gaskell, and many others invite you to close the curtains, lock the doors, draw the armchair closer to the blazing fire and settle down to a spine-chilling read.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, Anthologies, True Story, Ghosts

1149 pages, Paperback

First published January 5, 1998

About the author

Various is the correct author for any book with multiple unknown authors, and is acceptable for books with multiple known authors, especially if not all are known or the list is very long (over 50).

If an editor is known, however, Various is not necessary. List the name of the editor as the primary author (with role "editor"). Contributing authors' names follow it.

Note: WorldCat is an excellent resource for finding author information and contents of anthologies.

Reviews

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is with considerable reluctance that I am deducting a star from this book. On both an objective and subjective basis, I have been very fond of it. Objectively, clocking in at a whopping 1149 pages, it contains what are truthfully some of the horror genre’s greatest gems, from (primarily) what I consider to be horror’s greatest era - namely, the nineteenth century, whichever side of the Atlantic. You’ve got most of if not all the big names making an appearance here: Poe, Bierce, Dickens, Le Fanu, Conan Doyle, M.R. James …
Then, at the same time, you will find many marvellous, memorable and more than a little unsettling stories from lesser-known writers too. Objectively, this book - despite its unfortunately poor-quality editing - could be considered something of a bible for short gothic literature. The quintessential “weird tale”.

Subjectively, I have always valued this book on a personal level for being, along with Dracula , my gateway to discovering and subsequently falling in love with classic literature. It was these two mentioned horror books that, ironically, helped me to grow out of being merely a horror reader, so that I could broaden my horizons into the many great literary works of the past. Until I grew more into non-fiction and religious books as my primary interests, and after I grew bored of only reading macabre fiction, “classics” became for several years my favourite genre.

So, I really wanted to let this keep its original four star rating. However, I’m afraid the experience of reading it front to back - admittedly, probably not the way most would recommend tackling such a book - proved just too consuming a task for me not to become fatigued well before actually reaching the end of it. It was just too much of a good thing, and by the end, I was kind of desperate to get my head out of it, and to finally start something new. If you like a good ghost story, but have also other interests, keep this book as a useful collection of some of the genre's best - to be read at your leisure. A four star - perhaps five star - acquisition.

If, however, you intend to coat yourself up, strap on your moorland boots, and take on the whole damn thing from start to finish … well, you better live and breathe this stuff, because you’re going to be drowning in it for the foreseeable future, mate.
In the past - like, way back in my very early twenties - I was like that. Now, I am not. And so I cannot bring myself to give this four stars when I was so keen to finish it, and so inwardly exultant when I finally did.

And for all that, it was far from perfect anyway. There are, granted, many of my favourites. And I do not fault the editor (or editors) for choosing to give a disproportionate amount of page-space to the three main acts: Arthur Conan Doyle, M.R. James and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu - all of whom are rightly considered masters in the annals of spooky literature. But there are some stories - some of them even by other famous and respected writers - that did absolutely nothing for me.

For starters, there are several written in that classic "fuck-the-reader" style that seeks to authentically capture regional dialects and recount the whole story in this fashion. This is a fancier way of saying writing that is incomprehensible, technically illiterate, and pretentious as fuck. Henry James’s Bullshit Corner, Stevenson’s Thrawn Jackass, and Scott’s Wandering Wanker's Tale can all kiss my ass. I put up with the first one, but the second and third time I came across that nonsense, I just wasn’t going to deal with it any longer.

There were also several that were not exactly bad, but they were no more than mediocre either. There are too many to bother listing specifically.

And, even on the subject of the three big names - Doyle, James, and Le Fanu - you can rest assured that many of their best are included. But they also do outstay their welcome. ACD and M.R. James are national treasures, and I adore a large portion of their work. But by the end of their tenure here, you still find yourself growing somewhat tired of them, becoming more aware of and less entertained by their favoured themes and tricks and motifs. For some reason, too many of their b-sides are tacked on at the end of their respective sections, and this to me seems a disservice. It’s like seeing your favourite band live: Fuck yeah, bro, the performance was amazing, the expected encore likewise! … Dude, the second encore was surprising, but like, a pleasant treat (I allowed myself another beer) … The third encore was, well, weird and … By the time they came out for the fourth one, I thought surely this was a joke, and I had to go to the bathroom and as I saw myself wavering in the mirror, I realised how dead drunk I was and I threw up and nearly collapsed and then the whole night seemed not so fun after all …

Finally, I could nitpick some more trivial things: that only two of Poe’s stories were included; that, even more egregiously, just one single (albeit decent) story represented Bierce, who I like even more than Poe. Is this some kind of anti-American snobbishness of something?

I didn’t mind so much that neither Lovecraft (another American) or Blackwood were included. I happen to hold the (to some - or I guess many) heretical opinion that they are both overrated anyway. But there were more than a few other brilliant writers of the macabre that were not, and should have been, included here.

I guess the best thing to come if this was that it inspired me to go out and collate all my favourite horror stories (short ones, of course) in order to give my dad a printed collection of what I deem the best of the genre. He was, after all, the one who got me into the genre in the first place - not through books but movies, at an age that was far too young, and resulted in my suffering acute night terrors and nyctophobia well into my teens.

Thanks Dad … I mean that both sarcastically, and with genuine, if vaguely traumatised, gratitude.

And now, since you asked, here is that list. Based, of course, only on that which I have read so far. Limited to no later than the early twentieth-century (barring one slight exception), hence the absence of many deserving modern works.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe
The Brazilian Cat by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Blue Lenses by Daphne du Maurier
Hijack by Robert L. Fish
The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs
The Spook House by Ambrose Bierce
The Drover's Wife by Henry Lawson
The Mezzotint by M.R. James
The Invisible Cat by Betty Ren Wright
Nine o'Clock by Wilkie Collins
The Figure by Edward Grendon
The Distributor by Richard Matheson
The Return of Imray by Rudyard Kipling
The Beast with Five Fingers by W.F. Harvey
Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad by M.R. James
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar by Edgar Allan Poe
Madam Crowl's Ghost by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
The Body Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Mysterious Mansion by Honore de Balzac
The Signalman by Charles Dickens
The Captain of the Polestar by Arthur Conan Doyle
A Haunted Island by Algernon Blackwood
The Man and the Snake by Ambrose Bierce
The Mark of the Beast by Rudyard Kipling
Sredni Vashtar by Saki
The Room in the Tower by E.F. Benson
The Child that Went with the Fairies by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe
The Trap by H.P. Lovecraft
The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes by Rudyard Kipling
The Fiend of the Cooperage by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Judge's House by Bram Stoker
A Vendetta by Guy de Maupassant
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Ash Tree by M.R. James
Mary Postgate by Rudyard Kipling

As I was once something of a horror connoisseur, I dare to say these suggestions should not steer any potential readers in a bad direction. They should all be public domain as well. A simple Google search, or a visit to either the Internet Archive or Project Gutenberg should easily produce them.

[Duncan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great collection of horror/ghost stories. Nothing in here more recent than the early 20th century but that means a lot of stories by M R James (best ghost stories ever) and Le Fanu amongst others. A good book for finding different authors to read in this genre.

[Tristram Shandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Neither fish nor fowl

The term “horror” can indeed be misleading, as it simply refers to a state of mind characterised by an intense feeling of fear and anxiety and leaves undefined the source that inspires us with this emotion. The cover of the book and our general use of the word “horror” as a literary genre, however, clearly imply the realm of the supernatural.

In “The Wordsworth Book of Horror Stories”, an impressive collection of more than 100 19th century stories, horror can also be the result of completely human machinations, which may poleaxe the inveterate fan of the classical ghost story from time to time. Among these latter stories, let me name “A Terribly Strange Bed” by Wilkie Collins or “The Brazilian Cat” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a tale that indeed creates immense tension without unduly incommoding creatures from beyond.

Most of the stories, however, fall into the category of genuine horror stories in that they present us with unholy apparitions, voices from the grave or undefinable evil forces. Yet they are of different quality.

The anthology contains probably the complete ghost stories by M.R. James, a writer, who is renowned for his subtlety and and finesse of imagination; we find three classic ghost stories by Dickens (“The Story of the Bagman’s Uncle”, “To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt”, and, of course, “The Signalman”), Wilde’s masterpiece “The Canterville Ghost” and Hawthorne’s obligatory “Young Goodman Brown”. There are also some bloodcurdling stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, among which “The Brown Hand” and “The Ring of Thoth” seem the most successful ones to me. Three other household name writers are Edgar Allan Poe (“The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat”) as well as Robert Louis Stevenson (“Markheim” and the Scots story “Thrawn Janet”) and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, who is represented with twelve stories, among which “Green Tea” is certainly the one best known.

On the other hand the reader will encounter less familiar ghost stories, e.g. W.H. Hodgson’s “The Gateway of the Monster”, Bierce’s “The Damned Thing” and, one of my favourites here, Lawrence’s “The Rocking-Horse Winner”. Very few of these stories were written by authors from outside Anglo-Saxon culture (Pushkin and Maupassant).

Undoubtedly the fan of horror fiction will get a lot for his money if he buys this anthology, but there are certain flaws, the first of which is the mixture of ghost and mere suspense stories under the term “horror”. Another drawback is the lack of even the slightest morsel of biographic information on the authors, who are just listed alphabetically. What I also find disappointing is that it is not always the most hair-raising stories that have been chosen for every author – this becomes especially clear with regard to Ambrose Bierce, who has really concocted more unsettling stuff.

Those whose private book collections are as yet untainted by the unearthly whisper of ghostly voices can surely profit from this collection, whereas the real fan will hardly find anything unknown here.

[Dani B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yeah going to read this one every October until finished. Just loving oldie time horror stories here as a great escape. How strange is that? A little I know. They're not really like what we know today as horror, and for that I am glad. Because this is better and piques a curiosity that is simple and deep versus the garbage in today's world. Welp, that's probably too honest but 🤷‍♀️

[Jon Carroll Thomas]

Recently, I had a little Halloween party at my house and my friends referenced Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I didn't know what they were talking about. Now I do.

[Rob Wiltsher · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best compendiums of horror and spooky tales I have ever read....

[Andra Nicoara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing collection of short horror stories, perfect to read before going to bed, haha!

[Partha Chowdhury · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic tales of supernatural, ghosts and horror. Always enjoyable.