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The Haunted Trail: Classic Tales of the Rambling Weird
A remarkable blood-soaked stranger upends the lives of two Lake District ramblers; a lonely tavern offers its guests something much more disturbing than a post-walk pint; a night hike on the Fens takes a terrifying turn when the fog rolls in.
From the darkly humorous to the chillingly sinister, tales of the haunted trail are as old as time. We have always travelled on foot and our worst fears have often accompanied us. Whether walking for pleasure or necessity, the ramblers of these classic stories trip across unseen boundaries, plotting routes towards the numinous, the uncanny and the plain evil.
Featuring fifteen pieces from an intrepid band of writers including Robert Aickman, Charlotte Riddell, M. R. James and many more, this new anthology is a haunting trail mate, guiding you into the wild unknown.
From the darkly humorous to the chillingly sinister, tales of the haunted trail are as old as time. We have always travelled on foot and our worst fears have often accompanied us. Whether walking for pleasure or necessity, the ramblers of these classic stories trip across unseen boundaries, plotting routes towards the numinous, the uncanny and the plain evil.
Featuring fifteen pieces from an intrepid band of writers including Robert Aickman, Charlotte Riddell, M. R. James and many more, this new anthology is a haunting trail mate, guiding you into the wild unknown.
288 pages, Paperback
First published September 19, 2024
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June 2, 2025One of the stronger BL collections I've read, lots of excellent stories here almost all of which were new to me. Good theme.
September 21, 2025
After discovering the British Library’s ‘Tales of the Weird’ series in a local bookshop, I was keen to sample a volume - and hurrah for libraries!
The classic British ghost story has never really gone out of fashion, despite a slightly old-style school approach and somewhat narrow range of variants. The thirteen anthologised in ‘The Haunted Trail’ track a golden period of activity between the 1880s and the 1950s.
Atmospheric, gently chilling, entertaining, provocative, each are prefaced with a helpful overview of author, plot style and the geographical location of each story for intrepid weird walkers. Although some are naturally stronger and more memorable than others, this is a rewarding celebration of discovery.
And I was absolutely delighted to find an offering from John Kendrick Bangs, the author one of my favourite childhood ghost stories ‘The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall.’
The classic British ghost story has never really gone out of fashion, despite a slightly old-style school approach and somewhat narrow range of variants. The thirteen anthologised in ‘The Haunted Trail’ track a golden period of activity between the 1880s and the 1950s.
Atmospheric, gently chilling, entertaining, provocative, each are prefaced with a helpful overview of author, plot style and the geographical location of each story for intrepid weird walkers. Although some are naturally stronger and more memorable than others, this is a rewarding celebration of discovery.
And I was absolutely delighted to find an offering from John Kendrick Bangs, the author one of my favourite childhood ghost stories ‘The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall.’
September 29, 2024
One of the strongest showings yet from the Tales of the Weird series, although it lacks perhaps a stand out story. Sometimes these anthologies are a little contrived in what stories fit the theme, but Weird Walk have done an excellent job in ensuring that everything fits in with haunted rambling - stretching from Victorian era into the 1950's with Robert Aickman.
They also return the series to producing better introductions which some of the more recent ones have strayed away from. They condense a quick and interesting history of the author, the story and connections to geography and walking quiet succintly into just over a page.
Whilst I've encountered a few of these before (I am a big fan of The Wind in the Woods by Bessie Kiffin-Taylor), I enjoyed discovering some new stories like The Adventure of Mr Bond by Nugent Barker.
Highly recommended for fans of classic ghost stories and the natural wilderness.
They also return the series to producing better introductions which some of the more recent ones have strayed away from. They condense a quick and interesting history of the author, the story and connections to geography and walking quiet succintly into just over a page.
Whilst I've encountered a few of these before (I am a big fan of The Wind in the Woods by Bessie Kiffin-Taylor), I enjoyed discovering some new stories like The Adventure of Mr Bond by Nugent Barker.
Highly recommended for fans of classic ghost stories and the natural wilderness.
March 8, 2025
The theme is strong; walking/rambling/tresspassing is more often central than peripheral to the stories in the collection, but barring a few notable exceptions most of the stories were firmly in the middling/alright zone. No real clunkers though so that's a plus!
Absolute highlights were M R James' The Wailing Well and Aickman's The Trains. The former has a really effective shift from stupid 1930s private school comedy to sudden violence. Unusually the violence is actually pretty explicitly shown, albeit being abserved from afar, which keeps the level of uncertainty that you need for something like this to work properly. While the first half is very much in the vein of the first halves of recent BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas offerings, I can very much imagine Mark Gatiss ruining this by having the threat stare directly into the camera while going boo. Aickman's offering is also unpleasantly vague. While there's an obvious metaphor in a traumatised character's pockets being stuffed full of train tickets, it remains unclear and abstract enough to be unsettling.
Loose thoughts on other stories:
- If you're going to have the devil turn up in a story, let him be powerful and unknowable (Sandy the Tinker) rather than a little wetty who can be defeated by the prayers of some guy (The Hill).
- The Wind in the Woods: Nothing like a narrator who pauses their story to expound on their loathing for the concept of sandwiches.
- Brickett Bottom: Keeps things nice and vague, the house that isn't there is made much more convincing by the second hand nature of our account of it.
- Between Sunset and Moonrise: Would make for a really good 1970s Ghost Story for Christmas. Very visual.
Absolute highlights were M R James' The Wailing Well and Aickman's The Trains. The former has a really effective shift from stupid 1930s private school comedy to sudden violence. Unusually the violence is actually pretty explicitly shown, albeit being abserved from afar, which keeps the level of uncertainty that you need for something like this to work properly. While the first half is very much in the vein of the first halves of recent BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas offerings, I can very much imagine Mark Gatiss ruining this by having the threat stare directly into the camera while going boo. Aickman's offering is also unpleasantly vague. While there's an obvious metaphor in a traumatised character's pockets being stuffed full of train tickets, it remains unclear and abstract enough to be unsettling.
Loose thoughts on other stories:
- If you're going to have the devil turn up in a story, let him be powerful and unknowable (Sandy the Tinker) rather than a little wetty who can be defeated by the prayers of some guy (The Hill).
- The Wind in the Woods: Nothing like a narrator who pauses their story to expound on their loathing for the concept of sandwiches.
- Brickett Bottom: Keeps things nice and vague, the house that isn't there is made much more convincing by the second hand nature of our account of it.
- Between Sunset and Moonrise: Would make for a really good 1970s Ghost Story for Christmas. Very visual.
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October 29, 2024For saying the actual 'zine has only had seven issues, Weird Walk has grown into quite the multimedia empire, spinning off everything from records and film screenings to water bottles, and now, for their second book, a collaboration with the British Library Tales of the Weird series. One which steers clear of my two regular bugbears regarding the imprint; everything here fits the theme, and it doesn't squander pages on overly familiar material. True, MR James' Wailing Well is here, which I nearly didn't reread, thinking Robert Powell's festive TV version definitive – but unless I'm misremembering, that turns out to have cut a few incidents from the inglorious career of Stanley Judkins, which only amp up the comedy from which the tale then plummets into sheer terror. Besides, that's only ten pages or so. The one other story I knew already, by James' mate RH Malden, is similarly brief, not to mention probably the finest hour of a writer who's hardly overexposed.
So what of the rest, the material new to me? Well, it must be admitted that there are a few Ronseal titles (R. Ellis Roberts' The Hill is at least minimal; Ulric Daubeny's The Garden That Was Desolate tips over into outright bathos). Marie Corelli's The Mystic Tune is as preachy and sentimental as I'd always suspected she'd be, and Amyas Northcote was always going to struggle to spook me after naming both his setting and his story Brickett Bottom. More systemically, the topic inevitably leads to stretches where you get a run of stories in each of which there bain't been a [house, farm, whatever] here forty years or more. But even when you'd think that reveal might be wearing thin, the better treatments of it, not least Bessie Kyffin-Taylor's The Wind In The Woods, can still chill. That one has additional interest in a protagonist who, long before the term was in common use, strongly suggests neurodivergence: I was slightly thinking as much from the set-up, where he's obliged to flee town every so often simply to escape the noise of humanity, but what really sealed the deal was the most extreme version I've encountered of the classic aspie aversion to foods being in contact with other foods: "Some of that fine ham, and some bread and butter, if you please. Don't make it into those abominations called sandwiches though, it would utterly spoil both bread and ham. I never can enjoy food done up in that way, the bread tastes of ham and the ham only tastes of bread, and both are dry and worn out by the time you want your lunch; so separately, please – if you love me."
This stern plea to a hostess does point up a wider trend, in which the protagonists are mostly strangers, often from urban environments, with a certain sense of entitlement to the time, hospitality and eerie anecdotes of the awed rustics among whom they holiday. Anthony Gittins' 1935 Gibbet Hill, one of the later inclusions, has a hoot at this, and you could also suggest a certain pushing back against it in the last and longest piece, Aickman's The Trains. Although, given Aickman, it might simply be his natural revulsion at, well, most things, really; it's more explicable than a lot of his tales, but still feels like its main horror is not so much the strange inhabitants of the Quiet Valley as simply the North in its entirety. This does point up a certain inherent contradiction in the whole volume, where Weird Walk, introducing each story, have a stab (some more speculative than others) at identifying its location and suggesting walking routes thereabouts. Which, after all, is their whole raison d'etre. Except that pretty much all of the stories here would be considered at best sub-optimal results for a hike, and often worse, so I worry they might inadvertently have put out an anthology of discouragements instead, convincing everyone who reads it that their best bet is to stay safely home and read about some other poor bastards dooming themselves by taking a stroll.
So what of the rest, the material new to me? Well, it must be admitted that there are a few Ronseal titles (R. Ellis Roberts' The Hill is at least minimal; Ulric Daubeny's The Garden That Was Desolate tips over into outright bathos). Marie Corelli's The Mystic Tune is as preachy and sentimental as I'd always suspected she'd be, and Amyas Northcote was always going to struggle to spook me after naming both his setting and his story Brickett Bottom. More systemically, the topic inevitably leads to stretches where you get a run of stories in each of which there bain't been a [house, farm, whatever] here forty years or more. But even when you'd think that reveal might be wearing thin, the better treatments of it, not least Bessie Kyffin-Taylor's The Wind In The Woods, can still chill. That one has additional interest in a protagonist who, long before the term was in common use, strongly suggests neurodivergence: I was slightly thinking as much from the set-up, where he's obliged to flee town every so often simply to escape the noise of humanity, but what really sealed the deal was the most extreme version I've encountered of the classic aspie aversion to foods being in contact with other foods: "Some of that fine ham, and some bread and butter, if you please. Don't make it into those abominations called sandwiches though, it would utterly spoil both bread and ham. I never can enjoy food done up in that way, the bread tastes of ham and the ham only tastes of bread, and both are dry and worn out by the time you want your lunch; so separately, please – if you love me."
This stern plea to a hostess does point up a wider trend, in which the protagonists are mostly strangers, often from urban environments, with a certain sense of entitlement to the time, hospitality and eerie anecdotes of the awed rustics among whom they holiday. Anthony Gittins' 1935 Gibbet Hill, one of the later inclusions, has a hoot at this, and you could also suggest a certain pushing back against it in the last and longest piece, Aickman's The Trains. Although, given Aickman, it might simply be his natural revulsion at, well, most things, really; it's more explicable than a lot of his tales, but still feels like its main horror is not so much the strange inhabitants of the Quiet Valley as simply the North in its entirety. This does point up a certain inherent contradiction in the whole volume, where Weird Walk, introducing each story, have a stab (some more speculative than others) at identifying its location and suggesting walking routes thereabouts. Which, after all, is their whole raison d'etre. Except that pretty much all of the stories here would be considered at best sub-optimal results for a hike, and often worse, so I worry they might inadvertently have put out an anthology of discouragements instead, convincing everyone who reads it that their best bet is to stay safely home and read about some other poor bastards dooming themselves by taking a stroll.
January 5, 2025
Considering I’d never even heard of the British Library’s ‘Tales of the Weird’ series before reading this, I’ve very quickly become obsessed. I’ve followed Weird Walk since it was first formed and have bought every single zine they’ve ever released, so seeing this collaboration really excited me. It was the perfect book to read over October and accompanied my love of the spookiest season so perfectly. It felt like I was really revelling in the time of year, with each story selected having the common theme of haunted rambling. The stand out stories for me were ‘Crowdy Marsh’, ‘The Wind in the Woods’ and ‘Curious Adventures of Mr Bond’. I’m always so pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoy reading anthologies of short stories, and this book was no exception. I’m very much considering a subscription to the ‘Tales of the Weird’ series to further satisfy my fascination for strange fiction all year round.
June 13, 2025
The series of books from the British Library that collect short stories are awesome overall! This one is an interesting set that includes only a few well known authors and several I had never heard of before. Not all of them are equally strong, but several are quite good and all are worth reading.
January 1, 2025
A fantastic anthology of stories dating from the 1830s-1950s. All of them have the common theme of rambling, some by authors I'd heard of, but many by unknowns to me.
This is some great output by the zine Weird Walk which are also well worth checking out.
This is some great output by the zine Weird Walk which are also well worth checking out.
January 7, 2025
3.5 stars. some great stories, some forgettable ones. my favourites were the hill by r. ellis roberts, curious adventure of mr bond by nugent barker and crowdy marsh by sabine baring-gould (that one was borderline magic)
December 17, 2024
Probably one of the best entries in the series with a pretty consistent quality of the selected works. Probably best read during the summer season, though.
Favourite entries: "Sandy the Tinker" by Charlotte Riddell, "The Hill" by R. Ellis Roberts, "The Garden that Was Desolate" by Ulric Daubeny, "The Wind in the Woods" by Bessie Kyffin-Taylor, "Curious Adventures of Mr Bond" by Nuget Barker, "The Trains" by Robert Aickman
Favourite entries: "Sandy the Tinker" by Charlotte Riddell, "The Hill" by R. Ellis Roberts, "The Garden that Was Desolate" by Ulric Daubeny, "The Wind in the Woods" by Bessie Kyffin-Taylor, "Curious Adventures of Mr Bond" by Nuget Barker, "The Trains" by Robert Aickman
August 21, 2025
A good collection of weird and strange tales from the trail. Definitely makes you think twice about going on certain roads while exploring the great British countryside. I think there's no better collective to compile these tales than Weird Walk, they've put together some great and eerie tales in this collection. I think my favourite was Gibbet Lane, proper creepy.
July 7, 2025
“There are powers of darkness which walk abroad in waste places: and that man is happy who has never had to face them.”
R. H. Malden, "Between sunset and moonrise"
This is a first-rate collection of mostly oft-anthologized tales about travelers on foot -- and their troubles along the way.
* Sandy the Tinker: A minister recounts a chilling dream where a man bargains with the Devil.
* Carleton Barker, First and Second: A man encounters a doppelgänger and a series of crimes.
* Crowdy Marsh: A wanderer lost on Bodmin Moor stumbles upon a spectral hunt and a house where wasted human "faculties" are recycled.
* The Hill: A man fights to prevent a dark ritual.
* The Garden that Was Desolate: A traveler seeks shelter from a storm and uncovers time-bending secrets of a walled garden.
* The Mystic Tune: A man on a Hebridean island follows a haunting violin melody to a crofter's cottage.
* The Wind in the Woods: A painter's peaceful retreat in a Welsh pine wood turns terrifying as he uncovers a past murder and encounters malevolent spirits.
* Brickett Bottom: Two sisters discover a seemingly charming house in a secluded glen, leading to a mysterious disappearance and unsettling revelations.
* Wailing Well: Scouts on holiday encounter a local legend about a haunted well and its ghostly inhabitants.
* Gibbet Lane: Two skeptical hikers on a Surrey lane encounter a strange man who reveals the road's dark history and a disturbing personal connection.
* Curious Adventure of Mr Bond: A traveler finds himself trapped in a series of increasingly bizarre inns run by a peculiar trio of sinister brothers.
* Between Sunset and Moonrise: A vicar's visit to a reclusive parishioner in the Fens leads to a terrifying supernatural encounter and a nervous breakdown.
* The Trains: Two women hiking in the Pennines stumble upon a house with a disturbing connection to passing trains and a lonely, unsettling occupant.
R. H. Malden, "Between sunset and moonrise"
This is a first-rate collection of mostly oft-anthologized tales about travelers on foot -- and their troubles along the way.
* Sandy the Tinker: A minister recounts a chilling dream where a man bargains with the Devil.
* Carleton Barker, First and Second: A man encounters a doppelgänger and a series of crimes.
* Crowdy Marsh: A wanderer lost on Bodmin Moor stumbles upon a spectral hunt and a house where wasted human "faculties" are recycled.
* The Hill: A man fights to prevent a dark ritual.
* The Garden that Was Desolate: A traveler seeks shelter from a storm and uncovers time-bending secrets of a walled garden.
* The Mystic Tune: A man on a Hebridean island follows a haunting violin melody to a crofter's cottage.
* The Wind in the Woods: A painter's peaceful retreat in a Welsh pine wood turns terrifying as he uncovers a past murder and encounters malevolent spirits.
* Brickett Bottom: Two sisters discover a seemingly charming house in a secluded glen, leading to a mysterious disappearance and unsettling revelations.
* Wailing Well: Scouts on holiday encounter a local legend about a haunted well and its ghostly inhabitants.
* Gibbet Lane: Two skeptical hikers on a Surrey lane encounter a strange man who reveals the road's dark history and a disturbing personal connection.
* Curious Adventure of Mr Bond: A traveler finds himself trapped in a series of increasingly bizarre inns run by a peculiar trio of sinister brothers.
* Between Sunset and Moonrise: A vicar's visit to a reclusive parishioner in the Fens leads to a terrifying supernatural encounter and a nervous breakdown.
* The Trains: Two women hiking in the Pennines stumble upon a house with a disturbing connection to passing trains and a lonely, unsettling occupant.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 28, 2025
Yet another classic read form British Library of the Weird. The Haunted Trail kept me enthralled throughout. Every story was spot on in my opinion. As an avid reader of British Library of the Weird, I look forward to the next one to come through my letter box. 10/10
June 11, 2025
A strong selection of short stories with a high rate of narratives that landed for me. A couple outstayed their welcome, and there was no clear highlight in contrast to most collections.
June 1, 2025
Such a great idea from the British Library. Some hit and miss stories. Last one is definitely the best, fantastic dialogue.
June 2, 2025
An interesting collection of old fashioned ghost stories.
October 16, 2025
Rural Britain, with its rich imagionational power, is the perfect setting for the eerie and weird. This excellent volume - one of the finest in the Tales of the Weird-series - is crammed with stories about lonely hikers tripping across boundaries. The stories are varied in setting, date of publication and style, and are always introduced with a reference to a contemporary trail (let's not walk this path!)
The crème de la crème:
The hill by R. Ellis Roberts is a story in the tradition of Arthur Machen and based on Colmer's hill in Dorset. The hill with its conical shape suddenly turns ominous and primitive as our narrator feels compelled to climb it. Surrounded by defiant music and an atrocious glow, he finds a young lad piling stones for an altar, in order to sacrifice a spaniel.
The wind in the woods by Bessie Kyffin-Taylor , in which a painter enjoys a 'Silent wood' of gloomy pines. But his wood lacks animal life and is thronged with mocking laughter and echoes. He finds a ruined cottage, in which a man killed his wife and child in order to join a criminal gang.
Curious adventure of mr. Bond by Nugent Barker must have inspired Tim Burton's black humour. Our unfortunate traveller, mr. Bond, meets a set of unusual hosts in three connected country inns, before finally (literally) losing his head in the last inn.
Honourable mentions to 'Carleton Baker, first and second' by John Kendrick Bangs, 'The garden that was desolate' by Ulric Daubeny, 'The mystic tune' by Marie Corelli and 'Bricket Bottom' by Amyas Northcote.
The crème de la crème:
The hill by R. Ellis Roberts is a story in the tradition of Arthur Machen and based on Colmer's hill in Dorset. The hill with its conical shape suddenly turns ominous and primitive as our narrator feels compelled to climb it. Surrounded by defiant music and an atrocious glow, he finds a young lad piling stones for an altar, in order to sacrifice a spaniel.
The wind in the woods by Bessie Kyffin-Taylor , in which a painter enjoys a 'Silent wood' of gloomy pines. But his wood lacks animal life and is thronged with mocking laughter and echoes. He finds a ruined cottage, in which a man killed his wife and child in order to join a criminal gang.
Curious adventure of mr. Bond by Nugent Barker must have inspired Tim Burton's black humour. Our unfortunate traveller, mr. Bond, meets a set of unusual hosts in three connected country inns, before finally (literally) losing his head in the last inn.
Honourable mentions to 'Carleton Baker, first and second' by John Kendrick Bangs, 'The garden that was desolate' by Ulric Daubeny, 'The mystic tune' by Marie Corelli and 'Bricket Bottom' by Amyas Northcote.
November 2, 2025
13 frightening tales (and one poem) for spooooky season. Ranging from late Victorian to the middle of the last century, this is an idiosyncratic collection of tales about walking in the wyrd. Not for this editor is such obvious horror writers as Arthur Machen, E.F. Benson, or Conan Doyle, and the stories stick to these isles (weirdly walking in Perth & Kinross, Cumbria, Cornwall, Dorset, Wiltshire, the Hebrides, Wales, the South Downs, Surrey, Dumfries and Galloway, the Fens, and the Pennines), so no H.P. Lovecraft or E.A. Poe.
September 8, 2025
3.5 stars
I liked the theme of this anthology, as it consists of weird stories that happen to people traveling, and it's a nice change to have as a backdrop to the stories landscapes and trails, and very often the summer sun, in contrast to the more standard haunted story that takes place indoors or in the gloomy nights of winter. Like always in an anthology, some are better than others: I enjoyed most "The trains", "Wailing Well" and "The curious case of Mr Bond".
I liked the theme of this anthology, as it consists of weird stories that happen to people traveling, and it's a nice change to have as a backdrop to the stories landscapes and trails, and very often the summer sun, in contrast to the more standard haunted story that takes place indoors or in the gloomy nights of winter. Like always in an anthology, some are better than others: I enjoyed most "The trains", "Wailing Well" and "The curious case of Mr Bond".
October 23, 2025
These anthologies are uneven but this one is definitely one of the best I've read. I hadn't read the M.R. James story before and its jocularity rather clashed with the fate of its rather unpleasant protagonist. The Aickman story is superb, as one would expect but the pearl of the collection is Nugent Barker's contribution, which would make a terrific short film.
October 29, 2024
My favorite so far of the British library weird collection. I don’t live in the UK unfortunately, but appreciate that they give you the likely setting of each story so you could use this as a companion book to be read while going on specific rambles. Fantastic!
September 20, 2024
Tales of the Weird is a mega series and this edition is pretty far out. Highly recommended.
September 21, 2024
Loved this book! A great collection of stories - highly recommend.
October 10, 2025
3.5 stars
November 21, 2025
overall a fantastic collection of short stories, although did struggle to follow along at times because of the older English language used
Great autumn / winter book!
Great autumn / winter book!
November 23, 2025
No standout story, and several overlap, but all pretty enjoyable. The British countryside is full of eeriness that anyone can feel, and these stories capture that well.
December 4, 2025
Fun collection of stories. not everyone hits but they're short enough that you can always go to the next one quick. excited to read more from this collection.
December 12, 2025
Another mixed bag, although overall I'd rank this higher than most other BL weird collections I've read so far.
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