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Charles Keeping's Book of Classic Ghost Stories
Includes:
"The Body Snatchers," Robert Louis Stevenson
"The Black Cat," Edgar Allan Poe
"The Adventures of the German Student," Washington Irving
"The Canterville Ghost," Oscar Wilde
"Escort," Daphne du Maurier
"Wailng Well," M.R. James
"The Sweeper," A.M. Burrage
"The Signalman," Charles Dickens
"The Body Snatchers," Robert Louis Stevenson
"The Black Cat," Edgar Allan Poe
"The Adventures of the German Student," Washington Irving
"The Canterville Ghost," Oscar Wilde
"Escort," Daphne du Maurier
"Wailng Well," M.R. James
"The Sweeper," A.M. Burrage
"The Signalman," Charles Dickens
135 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1986
2 people are currently reading
135 people want to read
About the author
Charles Keeping
131 books8 followersCharles William James Keeping was an English illustrator, children's book author and lithographer, born in Lambeth, South London. This childhood background of markets and docks influenced much of his work. At fourteen he became an apprentice in the printing trade before working as an engineer. Later he served in the Royal Navy. On leaving the Navy he changed careers yet again and worked for a while as a rent collector before starting on a three year course at the Regent Street Polytechnic studying drawing, etching, and lithography. (He later took up a teaching position here).
Charles Keeping had his work exhibited all over the world and throughout his career illustrated over 100 books. He received many awards, including the 1967 Kate Greenaway Medal for his picture book Charley, Charlotte and the Golden Canary, and the 1981 Kate Greenaway Medal for The Highwayman.
Charles Keeping had his work exhibited all over the world and throughout his career illustrated over 100 books. He received many awards, including the 1967 Kate Greenaway Medal for his picture book Charley, Charlotte and the Golden Canary, and the 1981 Kate Greenaway Medal for The Highwayman.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 17, 2021
Note, Jan. 16, 2021: 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.
This was the third ghost story collection I read back-to-back at the public library in Harrisonburg; and while I might have been tempted to go for more variety in my third selection, I opted for this one because it contains Oscar Wilde's "The Canterville Ghost," which someone here on Goodreads had recommended to me sometime earlier. (After a subsequent re-read of that story, I gave it its own review, here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .) The "classic" in the title is appropriate; all of the eight selections (all by British or American writers) are drawn from the 19th or the first half of the 20th century, and each of the authors represented are well known either in this genre or in the world of letters in general.
Both of the two American writers here, Poe and Irving, happen to be represented by the two stories in the collection that I'd read before, and both are good. "The Adventure of the German Student" links a romantic/erotic (which is not the same thing as dirty) element to the motif of supernatural menace, in a way that's always struck me as being rather frank for the early 1800s. (While there's nothing explicit said about what they do there, the protagonist does take a young woman to his bed; and they're not legally wed, though, to be fair, they consider themselves married and have shaken hands on it.) Irving also plays very effective head games with the reader in making it dubious whether or not the supernatural denouement here is real --a common theme in stories of this type, but more prominent than usual here. Poe's "the Black Cat" is a tale of the narrator's personality disintegration, under steady alcohol abuse, from gentle normality to sadistic and homicidal sociopathy, told in the author's characteristic purple prose. One of my Goodreads friends found the psychological portrayal here unrealistic, but I think it illuminates something that's possible (though, to be sure, abnormal and unusual). Also, I personally don't interpret the cats here as agents of evil, though this could no doubt be debated. Strictly speaking, of course, this isn't really a ghost story (unless one interprets the second cat as the ghost of the first?).
The remaining six stories in the collection all proved to be well-crafted and rewarding, though commenting on the plots of specific ones is (as is typically the case with short stories that depend heavily on their conclusions for the intended effect) often difficult to do without resorting to spoilers. We can say, without the latter, that the specters in these tales run the gamut from malevolent, homicidal ghosts, through ghosts seeking vengeance for wrongs inflicted by the living, to ghosts whose intentions are benevolent. While "The Canterville Ghost" is an exercise in wry whimsy from the beginning, no humorous note is evident in the other stories. Stevenson's "The Body Snatchers" is set in his native Scotland, against the dark milieu of the notorious Burke and Hare, who ran a real-life racket of not only grave-robbing but murdering people to serve as dissecting specimens for medical students. (Burke and Hare themselves don't appear in this story, but it involves similar activities.) Charles Dickens' "The Signalman" is an eerie tale of the uncanny and inexplicable, but nothing clearly identifies the apparition the title character sees as a ghost as such. (It does, though, illustrate the fact that Dickens was a master of the short story form, though the prominence of his novels has tended to obscure his work in the shorter format.) M. R. James' "Wailing Well" and A. M. Burrage's "The Sweeper" (which I think, after having read it, that I read years ago in another collection; it has a frisson of familiarity) are both typical of these two supernatural-genre giants. My favorite of the entire collection, though, was Daphne Du Maurier's "Escort," a tale of the uncanny and supernatural at sea, in the submarine-infested waters of the North Sea during World War II, which shows the author, like Dickens, to be as able in short fiction as in the novel.
Overall, I rated the collection at four stars, but a good case could be made for five; every one of the stories are good, and some are certainly very good examples of their type. (If I could give half stars, it would easily have rated four and a half.) I chose not to go all the way to five only because eight stories arguably makes for a rather short collection, and because of the lack of bio-critical comments on the authors/stories (or even dates for the selections); but nonetheless, this is still an excellent anthology, highly recommended for readers who like this type of fiction.
This was the third ghost story collection I read back-to-back at the public library in Harrisonburg; and while I might have been tempted to go for more variety in my third selection, I opted for this one because it contains Oscar Wilde's "The Canterville Ghost," which someone here on Goodreads had recommended to me sometime earlier. (After a subsequent re-read of that story, I gave it its own review, here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .) The "classic" in the title is appropriate; all of the eight selections (all by British or American writers) are drawn from the 19th or the first half of the 20th century, and each of the authors represented are well known either in this genre or in the world of letters in general.
Both of the two American writers here, Poe and Irving, happen to be represented by the two stories in the collection that I'd read before, and both are good. "The Adventure of the German Student" links a romantic/erotic (which is not the same thing as dirty) element to the motif of supernatural menace, in a way that's always struck me as being rather frank for the early 1800s. (While there's nothing explicit said about what they do there, the protagonist does take a young woman to his bed; and they're not legally wed, though, to be fair, they consider themselves married and have shaken hands on it.) Irving also plays very effective head games with the reader in making it dubious whether or not the supernatural denouement here is real --a common theme in stories of this type, but more prominent than usual here. Poe's "the Black Cat" is a tale of the narrator's personality disintegration, under steady alcohol abuse, from gentle normality to sadistic and homicidal sociopathy, told in the author's characteristic purple prose. One of my Goodreads friends found the psychological portrayal here unrealistic, but I think it illuminates something that's possible (though, to be sure, abnormal and unusual). Also, I personally don't interpret the cats here as agents of evil, though this could no doubt be debated. Strictly speaking, of course, this isn't really a ghost story (unless one interprets the second cat as the ghost of the first?).
The remaining six stories in the collection all proved to be well-crafted and rewarding, though commenting on the plots of specific ones is (as is typically the case with short stories that depend heavily on their conclusions for the intended effect) often difficult to do without resorting to spoilers. We can say, without the latter, that the specters in these tales run the gamut from malevolent, homicidal ghosts, through ghosts seeking vengeance for wrongs inflicted by the living, to ghosts whose intentions are benevolent. While "The Canterville Ghost" is an exercise in wry whimsy from the beginning, no humorous note is evident in the other stories. Stevenson's "The Body Snatchers" is set in his native Scotland, against the dark milieu of the notorious Burke and Hare, who ran a real-life racket of not only grave-robbing but murdering people to serve as dissecting specimens for medical students. (Burke and Hare themselves don't appear in this story, but it involves similar activities.) Charles Dickens' "The Signalman" is an eerie tale of the uncanny and inexplicable, but nothing clearly identifies the apparition the title character sees as a ghost as such. (It does, though, illustrate the fact that Dickens was a master of the short story form, though the prominence of his novels has tended to obscure his work in the shorter format.) M. R. James' "Wailing Well" and A. M. Burrage's "The Sweeper" (which I think, after having read it, that I read years ago in another collection; it has a frisson of familiarity) are both typical of these two supernatural-genre giants. My favorite of the entire collection, though, was Daphne Du Maurier's "Escort," a tale of the uncanny and supernatural at sea, in the submarine-infested waters of the North Sea during World War II, which shows the author, like Dickens, to be as able in short fiction as in the novel.
Overall, I rated the collection at four stars, but a good case could be made for five; every one of the stories are good, and some are certainly very good examples of their type. (If I could give half stars, it would easily have rated four and a half.) I chose not to go all the way to five only because eight stories arguably makes for a rather short collection, and because of the lack of bio-critical comments on the authors/stories (or even dates for the selections); but nonetheless, this is still an excellent anthology, highly recommended for readers who like this type of fiction.
July 17, 2014
This was my All Hallow's Read for myself. Yesterday I reread The Body Snatchers and the Black Cat and The Canterville Ghost, all of which were deeply rewarding. I also read The Adventures of the German Student by Washington Irving, a story which was new to me in this form, but was familiar in a slightly different form as an oral tale. His version is better, and makes much more sense, reminding me once again why we should leave story telling to the professionals (and the many dedicated apprentices who haven't yet turned pro).
Of the four remaining, only The Signalman is familiar by title, but I may well have read du Maurier's Escort, James' Wailing Well, and Burrage's The Sweeper before. I have read collected stories of the first two, and since I love ghost anthologies, the last seems likely.
***
Nope, the Du Maurier and the James were new to me. They are also really good.
Of the four remaining, only The Signalman is familiar by title, but I may well have read du Maurier's Escort, James' Wailing Well, and Burrage's The Sweeper before. I have read collected stories of the first two, and since I love ghost anthologies, the last seems likely.
***
Nope, the Du Maurier and the James were new to me. They are also really good.
September 29, 2018
Charles Keeping's Book of Classic Ghost Stories is a collection of tales that ranged from interesting reads to absolute fantastic works of literature. Many works are not written in the vernacular, which makes the reading a little less interesting, but Keepings outstanding illustrations really enhance each story. I highly reccomend the following in this book:
The Black Cat
The Adventures of the German Student
The Canterville Ghost
The Sweeper
It is hard to rate collections because some are better than others, but overall this book is great for any reader of horror. Four stars!!!!!
The Black Cat
The Adventures of the German Student
The Canterville Ghost
The Sweeper
It is hard to rate collections because some are better than others, but overall this book is great for any reader of horror. Four stars!!!!!
February 5, 2020
Classic ghost stories told through various different means. As can be expected, I had my favourites but with such a diverse selection of authors sharing their unique voices, a ghost story fan would be hard pushed to find at least a single one they do not like. This was quite a quick read but in short story fashion it was delightfully digestable.
October 3, 2021
4.8 the addition of spooky illustrations, by Charles Keeping, makes this book worth more to me. The first two tales were more horrific than horror. Humans scare me more than ghosts. Perfect book to start off October 👻😱
June 24, 2019
Good collection of classic ghost stories. Definitely not scary and harder to hold my attention. I’d read most of these before.
September 24, 2023
"Escort" by Daphne du Maurier was the best story. Oscar Wilde's was just funny. :)
January 14, 2009
I am giving this book less than five stars, even though it is a collection of supernatural/macabre stories, only because it is A) too short (only 8 stories) and B) because the selection does not contain anything particularly daring. It's a book published simply to make money, HOWEVER, it does showcase Charles Keepings' artistic interpretations of some powerhouse stories of the macabre (Poe's The Black Cat, Dickens' The Signalman, Stevenson's The Body Snatchers). Keeping's art is suprising in that it varies in style in wonderful and unexpected ways. For example, his depiction of body snatchers with a dripping corpse is gruesome without being gory, and is executed in a style that blends deep, intense ink lines with spare charcoal shading that is so underdeveloped it creates a stark contrast-- to unique effect. His charcoal drawing that opens Poe's The Black Cat is beautifully rendered and suggestive. Keeping really "gets" the heart of horror-- that the mind's suggestiveness to horror is the key, and that giving too much detail pushes horror into humor.
keep-in-mind
July 12, 2011Added 7/11/11 - Recommended by Werner.
February 3, 2015
Most of them were boring, but I loved "The Canterville Ghost" by Oscar Wilde and "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe. I'm now a big fan of both authors! Those two stories were brilliant :)
January 19, 2016
Great collection of eight ghost stories, including my all time favorite story, The Black Cat by Edger Allen Poe.
April 4, 2016
Some were a bit tame, but still pretty cool.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews