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The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century Ghost Stories
"The ghosts of fiction were not killed off by the advent of the electric light, the invention of the telephone, the coming of the motor car, or even by the once unthinkable horrors of technological warfare. Instead they took over the trappings, landscapes, and cultural assumptions of the
twentieth century for their ancient purposes." Thus Michael Cox introduces The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century Ghost Stories , a unique collection of 33 of the best and most chilling ghost stories of our era.
The first anthology to trace the evolution of the ghost story over the last one hundred years, this book demonstrates the variety and versatility of the genre and the different ways in which stories of the supernatural have adapted to twentieth-century venues and concerns. In these tales we
encounter not only the returning dead, but also distinctly modern a haunted typewriter, a ghost that travels by train, and an urban specter made of smoke and soot. There are child ghosts and haunted houses, playful spooks and deadly apparitions. The authors of these uncanny tales are as
diverse as the kinds of stories they tell; there are ghost stories by such specialists as M.R. James and Algernon Blackwood and many by authors not commonly associated with the F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton, Graham Greene, A.S. Byatt, and Angela Carter are only a few of the literary
celebrities included in this collection. At a time when our era seems to grow increasingly rational and predictable, The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century Ghost Stories reminds us of the joys of uncertainty and wonder. Distinctive and gripping, these stories will linger long
in the memory.
twentieth century for their ancient purposes." Thus Michael Cox introduces The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century Ghost Stories , a unique collection of 33 of the best and most chilling ghost stories of our era.
The first anthology to trace the evolution of the ghost story over the last one hundred years, this book demonstrates the variety and versatility of the genre and the different ways in which stories of the supernatural have adapted to twentieth-century venues and concerns. In these tales we
encounter not only the returning dead, but also distinctly modern a haunted typewriter, a ghost that travels by train, and an urban specter made of smoke and soot. There are child ghosts and haunted houses, playful spooks and deadly apparitions. The authors of these uncanny tales are as
diverse as the kinds of stories they tell; there are ghost stories by such specialists as M.R. James and Algernon Blackwood and many by authors not commonly associated with the F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton, Graham Greene, A.S. Byatt, and Angela Carter are only a few of the literary
celebrities included in this collection. At a time when our era seems to grow increasingly rational and predictable, The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century Ghost Stories reminds us of the joys of uncertainty and wonder. Distinctive and gripping, these stories will linger long
in the memory.
425 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1996
11 people are currently reading
262 people want to read
About the author
Michael Cox
216 books230 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
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About the Author:
Michael Andrew Cox was an English biographer, novelist and musician.
He also held the position of Senior Commissioning Editor of reference books for Oxford University Press.
This is Michael^Cox, where ^=space. (default profile)
About the Author:
Michael Andrew Cox was an English biographer, novelist and musician.
He also held the position of Senior Commissioning Editor of reference books for Oxford University Press.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
May 8, 2020
Note, May 7, 2020: When I read short story collections intermittently over a long period of time, my reactions are similarly written piecemeal, while they're fresh in my mind. That gives the reviews a choppy, and often repetitive, quality. Recently, I had to condense and rearrange one of these into a unified whole because of Goodreads' length limit; and I was so pleased with the result that I decided to give every one of these a similar edit! Accordingly, I've now edited this one.
Coming from the same publisher (with a justified world-class reputation for quality) as The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories, this collection of 33 stories by as many writers is edited by one of the co-editors of the latter work. Not surprisingly, these volumes display a similar philosophy, and high standard, of selection, and a certain overlap of literary territory; no less than 13 of the included contributors here are represented in the earlier book --though always by different stories. Again, there is a historical-critical introduction to the sub-genre (the one here is longer and even more instructive), the stories are arranged chronologically, and they are followed by a section of short but helpful bio-critical notes on the contributors. (I learned various facts there that I didn't previously know; for instance, that the young Fritz Leiber was an Episcopal seminary student.)
The two anthologies, of course, differ somewhat in their range, the one being geographically based and the other chronologically based. However, the great majority of the authors here are still British, and the seven Americans are the only other nationality included. There are more recent stories here than in the preceding collection, though; none there were actually written after 1968, but eight of the selections here were. Only one of the stories, Aickman's excellent "Ringing the Changes," proved to be one that I'd already read. The selections run the gamut from dark tales of lethal hauntings to bittersweet tales of love or friendship surviving beyond the grave.
Only three of the stories were disappointing --and given that the editor deliberately included a number of stories written by authors not usually associated with this genre, and in several cases critically-approved authors at that, it was inevitable that some stories would be of this type. Two of the aforementioned three stories derive from the modern literary-establishment, "artsy" camp. Christine Brooke-Rose is described as primarily an "experimental" writer; in "On Terms," she experiments with not bothering with punctuation. Punctuation was developed for a purpose, and the effect of abandoning it is deliberate loss of clarity in communication; so I'm not able to regard this as a constructive experiment. Since, as a writer, she couldn't be bothered to use techniques kids learn in grade school, I as a reader couldn't be bothered to do more than skim what she wrote. A. S. Byatt in "The July Ghost" adopts a more conventional style, but burnishes her "respectable" bona fides by eschewing a resolution of her plot. As I've indicated elsewhere, I don't care for that technique and don't consider it legitimate authorial practice towards the reader (with rare exceptions). IMO, the time I spent on that story was wasted. Angela Carter's "The Loves of Lady Purple" also was one that I didn't much care for; I thought it had serious credibility problems even in terms of its own internal logic, and while the author's purpose was obviously the evocation of ultimate evil and depravity, it seemed to me to lack any point or literary purpose outside of itself. (As Thomas Hardy famously said, to tell a story, it first has to be worth telling.) It has to be said also that Thomas Burke's "Yesterday Street" is marred by the casual use, in passing, of the n-word as a slurring term for blacks at one point --and I've previously written about his use of racially insensitive language in "The Hollow Man." (Yes, this reflects the speech patterns of many people in the 1930s; but it's seemingly so habitual with Burke, and dragged in so glaringly here, that it raises a question about his own racial attitudes.)
However, in the main, this anthology was a gathering of excellence. Jane Gardam's "The Meeting House" was one of the best selections, IMO. Besides Gardam's, some of my other favorites include M. R. James' "The Diary of Mr. Poynter," an excellent example of what editor Cox calls the "antiquarian" type (which I really like!) of ghost story, H. Russell Wakefield's masterful treatment of the haunted house theme in "Blind Man's Buff," F. Scott Fitzgerald's “A Short Trip Home,” Walter de la Mare's "The Quincunx" (not because it sent me to the dictionary to learn a new word, though it did); and Joanna Russ' "The Little Dirty Girl." (Though, for readers more interested in strictly horrific ghost stories that deliver a concerted scare, I would recommend John Wyndham's "Close Behind Him" and "The Tower" by Marghanita Laski more highly.
It can be said that several stories, while clearly dealing with something preternatural, are not ghost stories as such --that is, there's no clear indication that the eerie entities the protagonists confront are the spirits of deceased humans. Carter's story could be said to deal with a formerly human revenant, but she was arguably not "dead" in the normal sense to start with. Other stories I would put in this category include Leiber's "The Smoke Ghost" (its title notwithstanding); Oliver Onions' "Rooum," which has a bit of a science fiction bent, William Sansom's "A Woman Seldom Found," and L. P. Hartley's "Night-Fears." All of these are effective stories, though, as is Edith Wharton's "Bewitched," where there is some deliberate ambiguity about the identity of the farmer's visitant (that story makes very good use of the cold winter setting in a backward, superstitious, isolated New England community). In Alison Lurie's "The Highboy," the supernatural menace derives from the titular antique piece of furniture (which happens to have been made in Salem, Massachusetts....). What we're dealing with in Elizabeth Taylor's "Poor Girl," IMO, is something more like a temporal slip/temporal fluidity, as sometimes occurs in Russell Kirk's stories. And the events of Elizabeth Jane Howard's "Three Miles Up" are not explicable as simple ghostly phenomena --indeed, they're not explicable, period, which gives them an all the more powerfully eerie and unsettling effect. (One could argue that this story doesn't have a resolution, either; but unlike the Byatt selection, it's one of the rare exceptions where there's a defensible reason for it. As with Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, it leaves you confronting the unknown and unknowable, and it works in the same way that Poe's tale does.)
All of the selections I haven't named yet are good stories, as well. Those that are true ghost stories exhibit a great range of approaches to the form: in Muriel Sparks' "Portobello Road" (my first introduction to her work!), for instance, we have the ghost as narrator; and in Fay Weldon's "Watching Me, Watching You," the ghost is simply an interested observer of the living, a literary device to allow us unfettered access to their private lives. Many of these stories are serious, pointed observations of the human condition, which even provoke real thought and psychological/spiritual insights (not all of them necessarily intended by the authors, but evoked as a genuine reader response to the stories, nonetheless!). All in all, this anthology amply illustrates the comment I've often made at the library when I'm selecting titles for purchase, "Oxford Univ. Press doesn't publish any shoddy books!"
Coming from the same publisher (with a justified world-class reputation for quality) as The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories, this collection of 33 stories by as many writers is edited by one of the co-editors of the latter work. Not surprisingly, these volumes display a similar philosophy, and high standard, of selection, and a certain overlap of literary territory; no less than 13 of the included contributors here are represented in the earlier book --though always by different stories. Again, there is a historical-critical introduction to the sub-genre (the one here is longer and even more instructive), the stories are arranged chronologically, and they are followed by a section of short but helpful bio-critical notes on the contributors. (I learned various facts there that I didn't previously know; for instance, that the young Fritz Leiber was an Episcopal seminary student.)
The two anthologies, of course, differ somewhat in their range, the one being geographically based and the other chronologically based. However, the great majority of the authors here are still British, and the seven Americans are the only other nationality included. There are more recent stories here than in the preceding collection, though; none there were actually written after 1968, but eight of the selections here were. Only one of the stories, Aickman's excellent "Ringing the Changes," proved to be one that I'd already read. The selections run the gamut from dark tales of lethal hauntings to bittersweet tales of love or friendship surviving beyond the grave.
Only three of the stories were disappointing --and given that the editor deliberately included a number of stories written by authors not usually associated with this genre, and in several cases critically-approved authors at that, it was inevitable that some stories would be of this type. Two of the aforementioned three stories derive from the modern literary-establishment, "artsy" camp. Christine Brooke-Rose is described as primarily an "experimental" writer; in "On Terms," she experiments with not bothering with punctuation. Punctuation was developed for a purpose, and the effect of abandoning it is deliberate loss of clarity in communication; so I'm not able to regard this as a constructive experiment. Since, as a writer, she couldn't be bothered to use techniques kids learn in grade school, I as a reader couldn't be bothered to do more than skim what she wrote. A. S. Byatt in "The July Ghost" adopts a more conventional style, but burnishes her "respectable" bona fides by eschewing a resolution of her plot. As I've indicated elsewhere, I don't care for that technique and don't consider it legitimate authorial practice towards the reader (with rare exceptions). IMO, the time I spent on that story was wasted. Angela Carter's "The Loves of Lady Purple" also was one that I didn't much care for; I thought it had serious credibility problems even in terms of its own internal logic, and while the author's purpose was obviously the evocation of ultimate evil and depravity, it seemed to me to lack any point or literary purpose outside of itself. (As Thomas Hardy famously said, to tell a story, it first has to be worth telling.) It has to be said also that Thomas Burke's "Yesterday Street" is marred by the casual use, in passing, of the n-word as a slurring term for blacks at one point --and I've previously written about his use of racially insensitive language in "The Hollow Man." (Yes, this reflects the speech patterns of many people in the 1930s; but it's seemingly so habitual with Burke, and dragged in so glaringly here, that it raises a question about his own racial attitudes.)
However, in the main, this anthology was a gathering of excellence. Jane Gardam's "The Meeting House" was one of the best selections, IMO. Besides Gardam's, some of my other favorites include M. R. James' "The Diary of Mr. Poynter," an excellent example of what editor Cox calls the "antiquarian" type (which I really like!) of ghost story, H. Russell Wakefield's masterful treatment of the haunted house theme in "Blind Man's Buff," F. Scott Fitzgerald's “A Short Trip Home,” Walter de la Mare's "The Quincunx" (not because it sent me to the dictionary to learn a new word, though it did); and Joanna Russ' "The Little Dirty Girl." (Though, for readers more interested in strictly horrific ghost stories that deliver a concerted scare, I would recommend John Wyndham's "Close Behind Him" and "The Tower" by Marghanita Laski more highly.
It can be said that several stories, while clearly dealing with something preternatural, are not ghost stories as such --that is, there's no clear indication that the eerie entities the protagonists confront are the spirits of deceased humans. Carter's story could be said to deal with a formerly human revenant, but she was arguably not "dead" in the normal sense to start with. Other stories I would put in this category include Leiber's "The Smoke Ghost" (its title notwithstanding); Oliver Onions' "Rooum," which has a bit of a science fiction bent, William Sansom's "A Woman Seldom Found," and L. P. Hartley's "Night-Fears." All of these are effective stories, though, as is Edith Wharton's "Bewitched," where there is some deliberate ambiguity about the identity of the farmer's visitant (that story makes very good use of the cold winter setting in a backward, superstitious, isolated New England community). In Alison Lurie's "The Highboy," the supernatural menace derives from the titular antique piece of furniture (which happens to have been made in Salem, Massachusetts....). What we're dealing with in Elizabeth Taylor's "Poor Girl," IMO, is something more like a temporal slip/temporal fluidity, as sometimes occurs in Russell Kirk's stories. And the events of Elizabeth Jane Howard's "Three Miles Up" are not explicable as simple ghostly phenomena --indeed, they're not explicable, period, which gives them an all the more powerfully eerie and unsettling effect. (One could argue that this story doesn't have a resolution, either; but unlike the Byatt selection, it's one of the rare exceptions where there's a defensible reason for it. As with Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, it leaves you confronting the unknown and unknowable, and it works in the same way that Poe's tale does.)
All of the selections I haven't named yet are good stories, as well. Those that are true ghost stories exhibit a great range of approaches to the form: in Muriel Sparks' "Portobello Road" (my first introduction to her work!), for instance, we have the ghost as narrator; and in Fay Weldon's "Watching Me, Watching You," the ghost is simply an interested observer of the living, a literary device to allow us unfettered access to their private lives. Many of these stories are serious, pointed observations of the human condition, which even provoke real thought and psychological/spiritual insights (not all of them necessarily intended by the authors, but evoked as a genuine reader response to the stories, nonetheless!). All in all, this anthology amply illustrates the comment I've often made at the library when I'm selecting titles for purchase, "Oxford Univ. Press doesn't publish any shoddy books!"
May 7, 2017
There are a whopping thirty-three stories to be found in this anthology, ordered chronologically from 1910 to 1994. Two fine tales bookend the entire collection -- E. Nesbit's "In the Dark" is the opener, while the grand finale is Jane Gardam's hackle-raising "The Meeting House," completing an entire book of short but memorable tales. Like most anthologies, there will be something for everyone here, and also like most anthologies, it's a mixed bag of good, great, excellent, and oh my god yes. And while for me there really is nothing better than the old classic ghost stories, some of these modern ones should be taken just as seriously.
I was quite delighted to discover some of my favorite writers on display here, for example Angela Carter, May Sinclair, Elizabeth Jane Howard, and Robert Aickman, along with other writers whose names are legend in the realm of ghost-story writing and some whose appearance is a nice surprise.
I am also delighted to see so many women writers represented in this collection, and it's definitely a book serious readers of ghostly tales should include in their home libraries. It's certainly one I'd recommend.
much more here.
I was quite delighted to discover some of my favorite writers on display here, for example Angela Carter, May Sinclair, Elizabeth Jane Howard, and Robert Aickman, along with other writers whose names are legend in the realm of ghost-story writing and some whose appearance is a nice surprise.
I am also delighted to see so many women writers represented in this collection, and it's definitely a book serious readers of ghostly tales should include in their home libraries. It's certainly one I'd recommend.
much more here.
January 28, 2015
I think I can confidently say that this is the best collection of horror stories I've ever read. There were a few weak stories in the bunch, but the good ones more than made up for it. Not all of them were frightening. Some were humorous, others heart-warming. The mix of stories was a pleasant surprise. Standouts included:
"In the Dark" by E. Nesbit
"The Blackmailers" By Algernon Blackwood
"Yesterday Street" by Thomas Burke
"Smoke Ghost" By Fritz Leiber Jr.
"Three Miles Up" By Elizabeth Jane Howard
"Close Behind Him" By John Wyndham
"The Tower" By Marghanita Laski
"I Kiss Your Shadow--" By Robert Bloch
"A Woman Seldom Found" By William Sansom
"The Loves of Lady Purple" By Angela Carter
Highly recommended.
"In the Dark" by E. Nesbit
"The Blackmailers" By Algernon Blackwood
"Yesterday Street" by Thomas Burke
"Smoke Ghost" By Fritz Leiber Jr.
"Three Miles Up" By Elizabeth Jane Howard
"Close Behind Him" By John Wyndham
"The Tower" By Marghanita Laski
"I Kiss Your Shadow--" By Robert Bloch
"A Woman Seldom Found" By William Sansom
"The Loves of Lady Purple" By Angela Carter
Highly recommended.
August 28, 2015
3.5 stars
The introduction, were I to give it a rating, would be 5 stars. I especially enjoyed the bit detailing the connection between ghost stories and social issues.
Favorites (and my recommendations for those who dislike reading anthologies straight through):
• "Night-Fears" by L. P. Hartley
• "A Short Trip Home" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• "Yesterday Street" by Thomas Burke
• "Smoke Ghost" by Fritz Leiber
• "The Tower" by Marghanita Laski
• "Poor Girl" by Elizabeth Taylor
• "A Woman Seldom Found" by William Sansom
• "Portobello Road" by Muriel Spark
• "Watching Me, Watching You" by Fay Weldon
The introduction, were I to give it a rating, would be 5 stars. I especially enjoyed the bit detailing the connection between ghost stories and social issues.
Favorites (and my recommendations for those who dislike reading anthologies straight through):
• "Night-Fears" by L. P. Hartley
• "A Short Trip Home" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• "Yesterday Street" by Thomas Burke
• "Smoke Ghost" by Fritz Leiber
• "The Tower" by Marghanita Laski
• "Poor Girl" by Elizabeth Taylor
• "A Woman Seldom Found" by William Sansom
• "Portobello Road" by Muriel Spark
• "Watching Me, Watching You" by Fay Weldon
August 21, 2015
I picked this collection up purely for the Robert Aickman story, since his books are almost nowhere to be found in the States. I then went back and started reading from the beginning. Am enjoying the various ghost stories from writers like Graham Greene, Edith Wharton and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
July 23, 2013
A great mix of short stories, from your scary stories to the more unconventional so didn't seem like your stereotypical ghost story book, still not to be read before bed though!
October 23, 2012
I was pretty iffy about this book. I haven't had the best track record with ghost stories. But this one was really good. I couldn't believe it. I highly recommend this book to anyone whose into ghost/horror stories.
September 2, 2013
Its a mixed bag, like anything like this will be, but some brilliant stories in this book:
William Trevor - The Only Story
Fritz Leiber - The Smoke Ghost
F Scott Fitzgerald - The Short Trip Home
Any of the above would be worth the price of the whole book really.
William Trevor - The Only Story
Fritz Leiber - The Smoke Ghost
F Scott Fitzgerald - The Short Trip Home
Any of the above would be worth the price of the whole book really.
June 4, 2016
Great read! This book was a culmination of many interesting ghost stories wrong throughout the twentieth century, including one by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I thoroughly enjoyed reading each story and seeing how the style of writing changed over the course of the century.
October 8, 2019
E. Nesbit - In the Dark - A murderer finds the body of his victim keeps reappearing.
Oliver Onions - Rooum - A man is tortured as another entity, "The Runner", follows him and passes through his body.
Ellen Glasgow - The Shadowy Third - A nurse's tale: a ghostly child, a double murder, and revenge.
M. R. James - The Diary of Mr. Poynter -Recreating a curtain pattern from a swath found in an 18th century diary creates a hairy situation.
Hugh Walpole - Mrs Porter and Miss Allen - A dead husband returns for his less-than-beloved wife.
May Sinclair - The Nature of the Evidence - A second marriage cannot be consummated due to the first wife's ghost.
L. P. Hartley - Night-Fears -A night watchman is talked into suicide by a stranger whose face he never sees.
Edith Wharton - Bewitched - A tale of vampirism in rural New England.
F. Scott Fitzgerald - A Short Trip Home - An 18 year old girl home in St. Paul for Christmas vacation from school in the east becomes involved with a low-life she met on the train. He proves to be the revenant one expects from the nature of this collection, but the revelation seems highly improbable within the world of Fitzgerald's bright young things.
H. Russell Wakefield - Blind Man's Buff - A potential buyer enters a house at dusk and within a few steps finds himself lost in the dark. Terror with minimal effects.
Algernon Blackwood - The Blackmailers - A man buys back a series of compromising letters a few pounds at a time from a shabby blackmailer who's seen better days. The title's plural is puzzling: perhaps indicating the two characters are driving each other to suicide.
Thomas Burke - Yesterday Street - A middle aged man revisist his childhood neighborhood to find his three companions still children who play with him. Tht evening he reads their three separate obituaries.
Fritz Leiber - Smoke Ghost - In an urban setting, a man who was touted as a clairvoyant in his childhood perceives himself as being pursued by a sooty gray-black figure. He causes it to disappear, he feels temporarily, by promising fealty to it.
Elizabeth Bowen - The Cheery Soul - In wartime Britain a young woman factory worker is invited to spend Christmas with a locally prominent family who, at the end, are revealed to have been spies. The other guest in the house is an aunt of the family, who had been living in Italy - I found it not entirely clear whether the only ghost in the story is the family cook, who has been dead for a year but still leaves mischievous notes in the house, or the aunt is also a ghost, as she seems unconcerned about the lack of meals in the house and is seen only by the narrator. reminiscent of "My Kinsman, Major Molineux".
Graham Greene - All But Empty - A murder victim sits next to the narrator in an empty cinema. Also in Strange Tales from the Strand Magazine.
Elizabeth jane Howard - Three Miles Up -Two men on a canal boating holiday pick up an unknown woman, then motor into an uncharted and abandoned branch of the waterway.
John Wyndham - Close Behind Him - After committing murder while robbing a collector of occult paraphernalia, two burglars are pursued by phantom footprints. Vampirism suggested.
Walter de la Mare - The Quincunx -An unwanted heir is possessed at night by his unwilling benefactor until the secret of her buried wealth is beyond his recovery.
Marghanita Laski - The Tower - A woman climbs a Renaissance tower near Florence where she experiences but resists a suicidal impulse. In descending she encounters more steps than in her ascent. Madness? Damnation?
Elizabeth Taylor - Poor Girl - An assignation between a mousy governess and her charge's father is in the nature of a possession by a previous governess who appears at the end as a ghostly "flapper" of the 20s. The time setting of the action is so ambiguous, that this figure may equally well be from the future as the past.
Robert Bloch - I Kiss Your Shadow- - A man's dead fiancee returns as a succubus; he confides in her brother who persuades him to see a psychiatrist. Twisty, but after turning the supernatural into a crime tale, it unconvincingly reverts to the fantastic at the end.
William Sansom - A Woman Seldom Found - A lonely man is picked up by an attractive, apparently wealthy woman in Rome. Improbable, then bad.
Muriel Spark - The Portobello Road - The story of four friends from the 30s through 50s, told by the ghost of one of the friends, murdered by another.
Robert Aickman - Ringing the Changes - An almost-newlywed couple, he 25 years older than she, spend an October honeymoon night in a small coastal village on the night where bells are rung, incessantly and maddeningly, to wake the dead.
Christine Brooke-Rose - On Terms - The language repeats, stutters into incoherency, fades out: the ghost tells the tale, one of unhappy, one-sided love for a married man. Form matches subject, metafictional hints.
William Trevor - The Only Story - An advertising man experiences spiritual death, then loses job, family, and physical life.
Angela Carter - The Loves of Lady Purple - A life-size marionette, used in a pornographic carnival show, takes on life at the expense of her puppeteer's.
Penelope Lively - Revenant as Typewriter - A senior lecturer in English becomes possessed by the vulgar spirit of the dead woman whose house she has bought and renovated.
Joanna Russ - The Little Dirty Girl - A nameless little girl attaches herself to the narrator, a college writing teacher, who realizes, halfway through the story, that the child is a ghost. The story ends with the narrator's reconciliation with her mother and the revelation that apparently she herself is the little girl.
Fay Weldon - Watching Me, Watching You - The story of the divorce, remarriage, and divorce of a male writer who sells out to Hollywood, and the women hew takes up with and abandons, told from the POV of a not-very-active ghost.
A. S. Byatt - The July Ghost - A man's live-in girlfriend leaves him and he moves to some attic rooms in a private home. In the garden he sees a child who is evidently his landlady's dead son. He wants to move after an unsuccessful attempt, which he feels is the ghost's wish, to impregnate the landlady. In the framing story, he is telling this to an American woman in a situation very much like that in which he claims to have me his landlady.
Alison Lurie - The Highboy - The titular furnishing, inherited by an in-law of the narrator, has a way of looking out for its own interests. More humor than other selections.
Jane Gardam - The Meeting House - A squatter in an abandoned farmhouse seeks to disrupt the silence of the weekly Quaker meetings in an adjoining building.
Oliver Onions - Rooum - A man is tortured as another entity, "The Runner", follows him and passes through his body.
Ellen Glasgow - The Shadowy Third - A nurse's tale: a ghostly child, a double murder, and revenge.
M. R. James - The Diary of Mr. Poynter -Recreating a curtain pattern from a swath found in an 18th century diary creates a hairy situation.
Hugh Walpole - Mrs Porter and Miss Allen - A dead husband returns for his less-than-beloved wife.
May Sinclair - The Nature of the Evidence - A second marriage cannot be consummated due to the first wife's ghost.
L. P. Hartley - Night-Fears -A night watchman is talked into suicide by a stranger whose face he never sees.
Edith Wharton - Bewitched - A tale of vampirism in rural New England.
F. Scott Fitzgerald - A Short Trip Home - An 18 year old girl home in St. Paul for Christmas vacation from school in the east becomes involved with a low-life she met on the train. He proves to be the revenant one expects from the nature of this collection, but the revelation seems highly improbable within the world of Fitzgerald's bright young things.
H. Russell Wakefield - Blind Man's Buff - A potential buyer enters a house at dusk and within a few steps finds himself lost in the dark. Terror with minimal effects.
Algernon Blackwood - The Blackmailers - A man buys back a series of compromising letters a few pounds at a time from a shabby blackmailer who's seen better days. The title's plural is puzzling: perhaps indicating the two characters are driving each other to suicide.
Thomas Burke - Yesterday Street - A middle aged man revisist his childhood neighborhood to find his three companions still children who play with him. Tht evening he reads their three separate obituaries.
Fritz Leiber - Smoke Ghost - In an urban setting, a man who was touted as a clairvoyant in his childhood perceives himself as being pursued by a sooty gray-black figure. He causes it to disappear, he feels temporarily, by promising fealty to it.
Elizabeth Bowen - The Cheery Soul - In wartime Britain a young woman factory worker is invited to spend Christmas with a locally prominent family who, at the end, are revealed to have been spies. The other guest in the house is an aunt of the family, who had been living in Italy - I found it not entirely clear whether the only ghost in the story is the family cook, who has been dead for a year but still leaves mischievous notes in the house, or the aunt is also a ghost, as she seems unconcerned about the lack of meals in the house and is seen only by the narrator. reminiscent of "My Kinsman, Major Molineux".
Graham Greene - All But Empty - A murder victim sits next to the narrator in an empty cinema. Also in Strange Tales from the Strand Magazine.
Elizabeth jane Howard - Three Miles Up -Two men on a canal boating holiday pick up an unknown woman, then motor into an uncharted and abandoned branch of the waterway.
John Wyndham - Close Behind Him - After committing murder while robbing a collector of occult paraphernalia, two burglars are pursued by phantom footprints. Vampirism suggested.
Walter de la Mare - The Quincunx -An unwanted heir is possessed at night by his unwilling benefactor until the secret of her buried wealth is beyond his recovery.
Marghanita Laski - The Tower - A woman climbs a Renaissance tower near Florence where she experiences but resists a suicidal impulse. In descending she encounters more steps than in her ascent. Madness? Damnation?
Elizabeth Taylor - Poor Girl - An assignation between a mousy governess and her charge's father is in the nature of a possession by a previous governess who appears at the end as a ghostly "flapper" of the 20s. The time setting of the action is so ambiguous, that this figure may equally well be from the future as the past.
Robert Bloch - I Kiss Your Shadow- - A man's dead fiancee returns as a succubus; he confides in her brother who persuades him to see a psychiatrist. Twisty, but after turning the supernatural into a crime tale, it unconvincingly reverts to the fantastic at the end.
William Sansom - A Woman Seldom Found - A lonely man is picked up by an attractive, apparently wealthy woman in Rome. Improbable, then bad.
Muriel Spark - The Portobello Road - The story of four friends from the 30s through 50s, told by the ghost of one of the friends, murdered by another.
Robert Aickman - Ringing the Changes - An almost-newlywed couple, he 25 years older than she, spend an October honeymoon night in a small coastal village on the night where bells are rung, incessantly and maddeningly, to wake the dead.
Christine Brooke-Rose - On Terms - The language repeats, stutters into incoherency, fades out: the ghost tells the tale, one of unhappy, one-sided love for a married man. Form matches subject, metafictional hints.
William Trevor - The Only Story - An advertising man experiences spiritual death, then loses job, family, and physical life.
Angela Carter - The Loves of Lady Purple - A life-size marionette, used in a pornographic carnival show, takes on life at the expense of her puppeteer's.
Penelope Lively - Revenant as Typewriter - A senior lecturer in English becomes possessed by the vulgar spirit of the dead woman whose house she has bought and renovated.
Joanna Russ - The Little Dirty Girl - A nameless little girl attaches herself to the narrator, a college writing teacher, who realizes, halfway through the story, that the child is a ghost. The story ends with the narrator's reconciliation with her mother and the revelation that apparently she herself is the little girl.
Fay Weldon - Watching Me, Watching You - The story of the divorce, remarriage, and divorce of a male writer who sells out to Hollywood, and the women hew takes up with and abandons, told from the POV of a not-very-active ghost.
A. S. Byatt - The July Ghost - A man's live-in girlfriend leaves him and he moves to some attic rooms in a private home. In the garden he sees a child who is evidently his landlady's dead son. He wants to move after an unsuccessful attempt, which he feels is the ghost's wish, to impregnate the landlady. In the framing story, he is telling this to an American woman in a situation very much like that in which he claims to have me his landlady.
Alison Lurie - The Highboy - The titular furnishing, inherited by an in-law of the narrator, has a way of looking out for its own interests. More humor than other selections.
Jane Gardam - The Meeting House - A squatter in an abandoned farmhouse seeks to disrupt the silence of the weekly Quaker meetings in an adjoining building.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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November 10, 2019
A fairly good anthology on the subject, although the editor seems to have a bias towards the more respectable end of the genre, meaning that many of the best writers in the genre are excluded. This was rather irritating to me, because I would rather read a good, creepy ghost story than a pretentious attempt at giving it some sort of "literary credibility". In particular, the absence of Ramsey Campbell is particularly irksome, seeing that his works are to the final third of the 20th century what James's are to the first third, and Aickman's are to the second. The book does, however, contain plenty of good stories, some of which I have not previously read. The stories are:
In The Dark
A series of unsettling events lead a man to confess to murder. Interestingly, the author provides an alternate "rational" explanation to the events.
Rooum
An engineer is haunted by a strange running figure, which seems to have some sort of effect on his health whenever it touches him. Unnerving and enigmatic.
The Shadowy Third
A house is haunted by a ghostly child which only is visible to some of the characters. The narrator tries to prove that it exists in order to prevent the elderly owner of the house from being declared insane.
The Diary Of Mr. Poynter
A man who purchases an old book finds a peculiar scrap of fabric in it. His attempt at getting curtains made in the pattern found on the scrap leads to an encounter with a typically frightening Jamesian spectre. One of the best in the volume, unsurprisingly.
Mrs. Porter and Miss Allen
The protagonist, Miss Allen, is hired to care for an elderly woman, Mrs. Porter. However, Mrs. Porter seems to be afraid of something. Some nicely creepy scenes in this one.
The Nature Of The Evidence
After the death of his first wife, a man remarries. The first wife comes back from the dead and interferes.
Night Fears
A police officer on a foggy street encounters a strange man, who has an increasingly unsettling conversation with him. Great atmosphere and a truly unnerving ghost.
Bewitched
Nicely atmospheric New England ghost story, full of mysterious footprints and illnesses that may be supernatural in origin. Quite good.
A Short Trip Home
The protagonist becomes suspicious of the influence a strange man seems to have over one of his (the protagonist's) friends. More unsettling than I expected going into it.
Blind Man's Buff
A man moves into an old house. The lights don't work, and he thinks that something else is inside with him. One of the most frightening stories in the collection.
The Blackmailers
This one is hard to summarize without giving away the ending.
Yesterday Street
A man decides to visit the street he once lived on, and meets some people from his past.
Smoke Ghost
Each day on the way to work, the protagonist sees something on the roof of a building that he passes by. Things get even creepier from there. One of the classic ghost stories, for good reason.
The Cheery Soul
The protagonist is invited to stay at the house of an acquaintance. When they arrive, they find the hosts absent and strange messages written throughout the house.
All But Empty
A man has an unsettling encounter at a movie theater. A twist ending story.
Three Miles Up
Some people on a canal trip pick up a strange woman. As their trip continues, they have several unsettling experiences. A very atmospheric story with a truly strange ending that borders on the lovecraftian (and also recalls the much more
recent The Fisherman). One of my favourites in the book.
Close Behind Him
After a burglary goes wrong, some minor criminals find themselves haunted by an invisible being. Arguably more a vampire story than a ghost story but still quite atmospheric and interesting.
The Quincunx
A man inherits an old house, and becomes convinced that the ghost of its previous owner is trying to prevent him from finding something. Quite unnerving and atmospheric.
The Tower
While vacationing in Italy, a woman decides to visit an old tower which the locals seem to fear. One of the most terrifying stories in the collection, this one is highly recommended. Read this one carefully, and pay close attention to the numbers.
Poor Girl
A woman is hired as a governess for an annoying kid, his parents are also annoying, some slightly ghostly things happen that don't amount to much. I found this story to be, quite frankly, boring; and the ghost story elements don't really have anything to do with the plot. The weakest story so far.
I Kiss Your Shadow
A man is tormented by the shadow of a woman he knew. Unlike the last story, this one is definitely a horror story, featuring mysterious suicides and a disturbing climax in a graveyard. Quite good.
A Woman Seldom Found
A guy visiting Rome meets a strange woman on a dark street. When he comes with her to her house, he finds that she isn't quite human. Not strictly a ghost story, but quite intriguing with an memorably grotesque final paragraph.
The Portabello Road
A ghost describes the events of their life leading up to death. This one strikes me as being more a mainstream literary story with a slight supernatural element to justify how the narrator can know certain things than a true ghost story.
Ringing The Changes
The protagonists visit a rundown seaside resort where a strange ritual involving bells is being performed. Full of subtly unsettling details, this is one of the great folk horror stories.
On Terms
The main thing I noticed in this story was the apparent omission of several commas. Otherwise, I didn't get it.
The Only Story
A man who is already in an unstable condition sees weird people appear in his house. Reminiscent of the sort of story one finds in the classic Shadows series of anthologies.
The Loves Of Lady Purple
A gothic-ish story about a traveling carnival and a sinister puppet. Rather intriguing.
Revenant As Typewriter
An odd piece combining ghostly possession with a mid-life crisis. Not quite my thing, probably because I'm only 20 (as of this writing).
The Little Dirty Girl
A story of a ghostly child who attaches herself to a college professor. Like several other stories here, I have read this one before, but I don't object to rereading it.
Watching Me, Watching You
A fairly standard domestic drama, told from the point of view of a ghost haunting the house where it occurs.
The July Ghost
This one didn't really do much for me. Something about a ghost child, who doesn't really do anything, just stands around in the area where it died.
The Highboy
A story about a malevolent cabinet. Not strictly a ghost story, but at least it tried to frighten, which is more than can be said for the last few stories. The atmosphere isn't right for a horror story, though.
The Meeting House
A story about how the titular building became haunted. Nicely atmospheric, although not particularly frightening.
In The Dark
A series of unsettling events lead a man to confess to murder. Interestingly, the author provides an alternate "rational" explanation to the events.
Rooum
An engineer is haunted by a strange running figure, which seems to have some sort of effect on his health whenever it touches him. Unnerving and enigmatic.
The Shadowy Third
A house is haunted by a ghostly child which only is visible to some of the characters. The narrator tries to prove that it exists in order to prevent the elderly owner of the house from being declared insane.
The Diary Of Mr. Poynter
A man who purchases an old book finds a peculiar scrap of fabric in it. His attempt at getting curtains made in the pattern found on the scrap leads to an encounter with a typically frightening Jamesian spectre. One of the best in the volume, unsurprisingly.
Mrs. Porter and Miss Allen
The protagonist, Miss Allen, is hired to care for an elderly woman, Mrs. Porter. However, Mrs. Porter seems to be afraid of something. Some nicely creepy scenes in this one.
The Nature Of The Evidence
After the death of his first wife, a man remarries. The first wife comes back from the dead and interferes.
Night Fears
A police officer on a foggy street encounters a strange man, who has an increasingly unsettling conversation with him. Great atmosphere and a truly unnerving ghost.
Bewitched
Nicely atmospheric New England ghost story, full of mysterious footprints and illnesses that may be supernatural in origin. Quite good.
A Short Trip Home
The protagonist becomes suspicious of the influence a strange man seems to have over one of his (the protagonist's) friends. More unsettling than I expected going into it.
Blind Man's Buff
A man moves into an old house. The lights don't work, and he thinks that something else is inside with him. One of the most frightening stories in the collection.
The Blackmailers
This one is hard to summarize without giving away the ending.
Yesterday Street
A man decides to visit the street he once lived on, and meets some people from his past.
Smoke Ghost
Each day on the way to work, the protagonist sees something on the roof of a building that he passes by. Things get even creepier from there. One of the classic ghost stories, for good reason.
The Cheery Soul
The protagonist is invited to stay at the house of an acquaintance. When they arrive, they find the hosts absent and strange messages written throughout the house.
All But Empty
A man has an unsettling encounter at a movie theater. A twist ending story.
Three Miles Up
Some people on a canal trip pick up a strange woman. As their trip continues, they have several unsettling experiences. A very atmospheric story with a truly strange ending that borders on the lovecraftian (and also recalls the much more
recent The Fisherman). One of my favourites in the book.
Close Behind Him
After a burglary goes wrong, some minor criminals find themselves haunted by an invisible being. Arguably more a vampire story than a ghost story but still quite atmospheric and interesting.
The Quincunx
A man inherits an old house, and becomes convinced that the ghost of its previous owner is trying to prevent him from finding something. Quite unnerving and atmospheric.
The Tower
While vacationing in Italy, a woman decides to visit an old tower which the locals seem to fear. One of the most terrifying stories in the collection, this one is highly recommended. Read this one carefully, and pay close attention to the numbers.
Poor Girl
A woman is hired as a governess for an annoying kid, his parents are also annoying, some slightly ghostly things happen that don't amount to much. I found this story to be, quite frankly, boring; and the ghost story elements don't really have anything to do with the plot. The weakest story so far.
I Kiss Your Shadow
A man is tormented by the shadow of a woman he knew. Unlike the last story, this one is definitely a horror story, featuring mysterious suicides and a disturbing climax in a graveyard. Quite good.
A Woman Seldom Found
A guy visiting Rome meets a strange woman on a dark street. When he comes with her to her house, he finds that she isn't quite human. Not strictly a ghost story, but quite intriguing with an memorably grotesque final paragraph.
The Portabello Road
A ghost describes the events of their life leading up to death. This one strikes me as being more a mainstream literary story with a slight supernatural element to justify how the narrator can know certain things than a true ghost story.
Ringing The Changes
The protagonists visit a rundown seaside resort where a strange ritual involving bells is being performed. Full of subtly unsettling details, this is one of the great folk horror stories.
On Terms
The main thing I noticed in this story was the apparent omission of several commas. Otherwise, I didn't get it.
The Only Story
A man who is already in an unstable condition sees weird people appear in his house. Reminiscent of the sort of story one finds in the classic Shadows series of anthologies.
The Loves Of Lady Purple
A gothic-ish story about a traveling carnival and a sinister puppet. Rather intriguing.
Revenant As Typewriter
An odd piece combining ghostly possession with a mid-life crisis. Not quite my thing, probably because I'm only 20 (as of this writing).
The Little Dirty Girl
A story of a ghostly child who attaches herself to a college professor. Like several other stories here, I have read this one before, but I don't object to rereading it.
Watching Me, Watching You
A fairly standard domestic drama, told from the point of view of a ghost haunting the house where it occurs.
The July Ghost
This one didn't really do much for me. Something about a ghost child, who doesn't really do anything, just stands around in the area where it died.
The Highboy
A story about a malevolent cabinet. Not strictly a ghost story, but at least it tried to frighten, which is more than can be said for the last few stories. The atmosphere isn't right for a horror story, though.
The Meeting House
A story about how the titular building became haunted. Nicely atmospheric, although not particularly frightening.
March 4, 2023
Re-read this beloved and deliciously creepy haunted house story once again.
Wakefield is simply the best in portraying nasty characters while delivering suitable comeuppances to them.
Highly Recommended.
Wakefield is simply the best in portraying nasty characters while delivering suitable comeuppances to them.
Highly Recommended.
September 19, 2021
Short story only listen to Blind Man's Buff
Not bad
Not bad
March 18, 2022
It would have made a great first chapter... The moral: never look at real estate after dark.
July 16, 2023
Simple short story, but I found it very effective.
April 27, 2021
Firstly, as someone who's been affectionately described as "well nesh" - which means always cold - I might have to permanently borrow the description "cold as the penny in a dead man's eye", because I absolutely love the image that this conjures.
This incredibly short story opens with all the makings of a classic ghost story; a cold night, a man heading towards a house with "window eyes" - which if this doesn't immediately make you think of the Amityville house then I don't know what would - and a darkness so all consuming that it will soon have you fearing what lies within it.
If you're at all claustrophobic, I think your anxiety will grow with each moment the man spends in the darkness. I know mine certainly did. And then that ending, which although wasn't a shock, was still enough to make me go 'ooooh'.
You can find this story beautifully read on the Classic Ghost Stories Podcast along with many others I've reviewed.
This incredibly short story opens with all the makings of a classic ghost story; a cold night, a man heading towards a house with "window eyes" - which if this doesn't immediately make you think of the Amityville house then I don't know what would - and a darkness so all consuming that it will soon have you fearing what lies within it.
If you're at all claustrophobic, I think your anxiety will grow with each moment the man spends in the darkness. I know mine certainly did. And then that ending, which although wasn't a shock, was still enough to make me go 'ooooh'.
You can find this story beautifully read on the Classic Ghost Stories Podcast along with many others I've reviewed.
May 23, 2020
"In the Dark," by E. Nesbit (1910): 8
- I like how Nesbit makes both characters fairly contemptible and the ambiguity about whether or not Haldane is seeing or doing anything quite clear. Otherwise, there's the wonderful pre-WWI tell then show mix, in which the first half is Haldane relating his murder and paranoia at refinding the body to a passive audience (protagonist and us) and the second half is us understanding that from inside, i.e. finding the body in the bed.
"Rooum," by Oliver Onions (1910): 7.75
- Other ghost stories have certainly been more effective in toto, with the larger spell they cast or story they tell, yet few match several of this story's scene-specific conveyances of unease and dread (I'm thinking especially of: when our narrator comes upon Rooum unawares in the subway and sees the terror in his eyes; or when he hears Rooum speaking to himself so lucidly while sleeping in the dead of night) The racialism here is very 1910-appropriate and doesn't deserve much acknowledgement beyond this.
"The Diary of Mr. Poynter," by M.R. James (1919): 8.5
- My first James, the seeming consensus choice master of the Victorian ghost story. I don’t know what my final estimation is there — I’m gonna need to read more than one, and some earlier than the end of the First World War — but what I can say is that this story has had the single best example of pure ‘horror’ writing I’ve come across yet [that being, obviously, the longish paragraph on the penultimate page in which our protagonist experiences the supernatural terror itself: realizing the ‘dog’ he thought he’d been petting in the dark was actually a faceless, cold human-like figure (the sentence when he describes the ‘thing’ standing up to its full height in front of him being the best of this section, at that)].
- I like how Nesbit makes both characters fairly contemptible and the ambiguity about whether or not Haldane is seeing or doing anything quite clear. Otherwise, there's the wonderful pre-WWI tell then show mix, in which the first half is Haldane relating his murder and paranoia at refinding the body to a passive audience (protagonist and us) and the second half is us understanding that from inside, i.e. finding the body in the bed.
"Rooum," by Oliver Onions (1910): 7.75
- Other ghost stories have certainly been more effective in toto, with the larger spell they cast or story they tell, yet few match several of this story's scene-specific conveyances of unease and dread (I'm thinking especially of: when our narrator comes upon Rooum unawares in the subway and sees the terror in his eyes; or when he hears Rooum speaking to himself so lucidly while sleeping in the dead of night) The racialism here is very 1910-appropriate and doesn't deserve much acknowledgement beyond this.
"The Diary of Mr. Poynter," by M.R. James (1919): 8.5
- My first James, the seeming consensus choice master of the Victorian ghost story. I don’t know what my final estimation is there — I’m gonna need to read more than one, and some earlier than the end of the First World War — but what I can say is that this story has had the single best example of pure ‘horror’ writing I’ve come across yet [that being, obviously, the longish paragraph on the penultimate page in which our protagonist experiences the supernatural terror itself: realizing the ‘dog’ he thought he’d been petting in the dark was actually a faceless, cold human-like figure (the sentence when he describes the ‘thing’ standing up to its full height in front of him being the best of this section, at that)].
October 21, 2020
I’m surprised this book got such high ratings. I found most stories tough to get through. The only story I kind of enjoyed was The Highboy, a simple, scary story that made you think about things like old furniture having actual feelings.
I liked that the stories were arranged from the oldest (1910) to the most recent (1994.) As the dates of the stories got more recent, the stories seemed to get better, maybe. Here’s what I thought of a select few:
Blind Man’s Bluff: a man goes into a dark house and finally is able to find and light a match. What happens? Will never know.
Yesterday Street: this was good. A man visiting his old neighborhood 40 years later plays marbles and interacts with childhood friends. Later, he reads their recent obituaries.
All But Empty: A lonely cinema. A man sits right next to you. He actually died not long ago.
The Quincunx: A paper is found behind the painting of a dead aunt. A clue to where fortune may be hidden? We never find out.
The Tower: scary, but still, an abrupt ending. Is she climbing to get down the tower forever?
Ringing the Changes: a couple on their honeymoon find out they’re in a place where church bells are waking up the dead. Bad ending.
The Only Story: about mental problems?
On Terms: couldn’t finish. Boring.
Revenant as Typewriter: even the doctor in the story thought the woman was crazy because he thought she was going through menopause!
The Dirty Little Girl: had the potential of being a good ghost story. The little girl appearing to the woman was obviously a ghost. But the story fizzled out. Who was this girl long ago? Why was she in this woman’s life? What was her name??
I liked that the stories were arranged from the oldest (1910) to the most recent (1994.) As the dates of the stories got more recent, the stories seemed to get better, maybe. Here’s what I thought of a select few:
Blind Man’s Bluff: a man goes into a dark house and finally is able to find and light a match. What happens? Will never know.
Yesterday Street: this was good. A man visiting his old neighborhood 40 years later plays marbles and interacts with childhood friends. Later, he reads their recent obituaries.
All But Empty: A lonely cinema. A man sits right next to you. He actually died not long ago.
The Quincunx: A paper is found behind the painting of a dead aunt. A clue to where fortune may be hidden? We never find out.
The Tower: scary, but still, an abrupt ending. Is she climbing to get down the tower forever?
Ringing the Changes: a couple on their honeymoon find out they’re in a place where church bells are waking up the dead. Bad ending.
The Only Story: about mental problems?
On Terms: couldn’t finish. Boring.
Revenant as Typewriter: even the doctor in the story thought the woman was crazy because he thought she was going through menopause!
The Dirty Little Girl: had the potential of being a good ghost story. The little girl appearing to the woman was obviously a ghost. But the story fizzled out. Who was this girl long ago? Why was she in this woman’s life? What was her name??
October 28, 2020
I accidentally marked this as finished today, then tried to correct it and instead deleted it from my books. I think I started this in 2016 but stopped at page 132 and started reading it again this month for part of my Halloween Reads. I remember that one of my favorite reads in 2016 was "The Shadowy Third" by Ellen Glasgow.
November 1, 2018
Not going to finish these. "Boo" as in "these are bad."
December 8, 2020
Read “ringing the changes” by Robert Aickman and “the quincunx” by Walter de la Mare.
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