Horror Stories

by E. Nesbit, Naomi Alderman (Introduction)

A groom promises to be at the church on time, even if he has to come back from the grave to do it. A man inherits a property where he discovers a portrait of a woman that will change his life forever. Two newlyweds find their dream country cottage, unaware of an ancient curse from the previous owners. A gripping, unsettling and utterly chilling collection of short stories from a best loved storyteller.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Classics, Gothic, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Short Story Collection

194 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2017

About the author

Edith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland; 15 August 1858 – 4 May 1924) was an English author and poet; she published her books for children under the name of E. Nesbit.
She wrote or collaborated on over 60 books of fiction for children, several of which have been adapted for film and television. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, a socialist organisation later connected to the Labour Party.

Edith Nesbit was born in Kennington, Surrey, the daughter of agricultural chemist and schoolmaster John Collis Nesbit. The death of her father when she was four and the continuing ill health of her sister meant that Nesbit had a transitory childhood, her family moving across Europe in search of healthy climates only to return to England for financial reasons. Nesbit therefore spent her childhood attaining an education from whatever sources were available—local grammars, the occasional boarding school but mainly through reading.

At 17 her family finally settled in London and aged 19, Nesbit met Hubert Bland, a political activist and writer. They became lovers and when Nesbit found she was pregnant they became engaged, marrying in April 1880. After this scandalous (for Victorian society) beginning, the marriage would be an unconventional one. Initially, the couple lived separately—Nesbit with her family and Bland with his mother and her live-in companion Maggie Doran.

Initially, Edith Nesbit books were novels meant for adults, including The Prophet's Mantle (1885) and The Marden Mystery (1896) about the early days of the socialist movement. Written under the pen name of her third child 'Fabian Bland', these books were not successful. Nesbit generated an income for the family by lecturing around the country on socialism and through her journalism (she was editor of the Fabian Society's journal, Today).

In 1899 she had published The Adventures of the Treasure Seekers to great acclaim.

Reviews

[Blair · Rating 3 out of 5]

This new collection of E. Nesbit's Horror Stories starts – whether to get them out of the way, or to lower the reader's expectations, I'm not sure – with three of the worst: 'Hurst of Hurstcote', 'The Ebony Frame', and 'Man-Size in Marble'. Each is narrated by a male character, none of whom really convince, and the stories also have a tedious focus on relationships and love. They certainly don't live up to the title, or the lurid cover; they might just as easily be described as romantic stories.

Then comes the fourth story, 'The Violet Car'. The difference in quality between the first three and this one is enormous, and it is a perfect combination of gloomy atmosphere, mystery and terror. There's more of the romance stuff in 'John Charrington's Wedding', but here, the characterisation of the narrator feels more assured and knowing – making for some amusing moments of pomposity – and the twist is pleasingly ghoulish. 'The Five Senses', about a scientist who invents a sense-magnifying drug, is one of the few of these stories to have a genuinely frightening premise. In 'The Head', a caddish journalist unwisely convinces a reclusive sculptor to create a life-size version of his masterpiece, a depiction of the fire that killed his wife; this is perhaps the nastiest of the tales and, not coincidentally, it is also the most entertaining.

The collection is uneven, though, and if these are the best of Nesbit's horror stories, I can't help but think there can't be much to choose from. 'The Shadow' would be a neat, spooky little tale, but it's hampered by bizarre narrative decisions (it vacillates between first person plural and singular, and two separate characters are referred to as 'the youngest of us' and 'the youngest of all'; it was only at the end I realised they weren't the same person.) The stories towards the end of the book don't offer anything particularly imaginative, and they are quite repetitive too: an introductory passage from 'The Three Drugs' is reproduced almost word-for-word in 'To the Adventurous'.

Naomi Alderman's foreword frames Nesbit's horror stories as a reflection of darker aspects of her life: 'her own biography includes an adulterous husband who got one of her dearest friends pregnant. She knew about anger, hatred and sexual jealousy... [in these] stories she lets the knowledge out that she held back so carefully in her work for children.' Seen in this light, some features of the stories – Nesbit's portrayal of men as fickle, superficial creatures, obsessed with physical beauty but consumed by hate towards women once their attraction fades; her apparent fixation with the idea of doomed love – become more interesting. And there is something inherently intriguing in the idea of a beloved children's author also writing morbid tales of horror, though of course it isn't without precedent.

Some of the stories here are enjoyable enough, with 'The Violet Car' and 'The Head' standing out as the best. The rest rarely get close to what makes a good horror story, and knowing the author's possible motivation in writing around some of these themes doesn't make them any better to read. It's not too difficult to see why they aren't widely known or read nowadays. But ghost stories are weirdly personal, I think: there's no other genre I read in which I so frequently find myself out of step with what both critics and other readers find to be effective, atmospheric, frightening, memorable. While most of these Horror Stories didn't work for me, they may well work for you.

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[4cats · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic horror collection from E Nesbit who wrote The Railway Children! To compare with another author I would say we are in MR James territory at times. Not full of gore, instead there is something dark and dreadful hiding round the corner. Tales of the dead haunting us, one of the most chilling is a very short piece about a Broadmoor patient.

[Alex Sarll]

In much the same way as MR James also wrote a charming magical adventure for children which now seems mostly forgotten, so the author of Five Children and It et al turns out to have had a sideline in chillers. Sad how posterity flattens us out, isn't it? It wouldn't be quite right to call this a book of ghost stories; many are, but some lack any supernatural element. Still, Horror Stories feels anachronistic and blunt. I think I favour Nesbit's own term: grim stories. Certain themes recur; two of the tales share the device of a drug for heightening perception which proves a double-edged sword, and more than that there keep being friends who prove rather less than trustworthy once an attractive member of the opposite sex hoves into view. Which makes a painful amount of sense once you read Naomi Alderman's introduction and learn that Nesbit's husband got one of her best friends pregnant. Still, between the very English hauntings and the fabulously bleak and bitchy turns of phrase, it seems unlikely that any fan of James or especially EF Benson wouldn't go for this too.

[Phoenix Scholz-Krishna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've seen some comments by readers who found this less than scary. Well, the title "Horror Stories" can be a little misleading if you go by the contemporary definition of "horror". These are quiet, old-fashioned (indeed, properly Victorian) stories of ghosts and hauntings (of all kinds). They rely on the slow-moving, sometimes implied, atmospheric uncanny, often based on domestic situations and love triangles. Nesbit's writing is top-notch: she knows how to fine-tune a phrase and often uses clever rhetorical devices (I've read some sentences several times just because of - for example - a very clever use of chiasma for aesthetic pleasure and subtle emphasis). And even if you think that most of the stories in this book are "not scary enough", I think it's all worth it for "The Shadow", whose haunting - the crouching, sinking thing - is a perfectly wielded metaphor that rivals the ghosts of M.R. James (and, like all the best ghosts, works on a psychological level as well).

[Contrary Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't entirely agree with prior reviews- while the stories span a range, quite a few are excellent. I think this is because some are ghost stories and not horror as the title suggests. Considered in this light Man Sized in Marble is phenomenal. More than a touch of the strange- almost like a mixture of Aickman and Dahl- hammer horror with a moralistic twist. Something strange to scratch away at beneath the surface. Something unsettling...

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Giving this four stars because having read some of the stories here I know it will be a real treat.

[Kirsty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the stories feel a little tame and dated now, but there are still some real creeps here. My favourites are 'The Shadow' and 'The Head' - I'm still thinking about them.

[Cade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good if you want classic spooky tales, but it's not as horrifying as the cover would lead you to believe.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

First read (this edition) 2016, reread 2024

[Karen S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just what I was in the mood for at the start of autumn 🍃🍂🍁

[Stuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horror Stories is one of five different books in the Penguin Worlds series published by Penguin Books. These books look spectacular and I have been giving the opportunity to share the artwork here with you during my review so that is why there are several other cover images to the left of this text.

After Naomi Alderman's (Author of The Power) brief introduction to E. Nesbit's work within these pages we get straight into over a dozen of her best pieces of horror fiction. I really enjoyed both EN's approach to the stories and the massive variety of content give to the reader. Due to my modern, over de-sensitised mind, these stories didn't really scare me (though a few were actually close) but these stories are over a century old. I could definitely see the style and influences that Nesbit installed in the genre that are still present in horror fiction today.

EN choose to use a human approach to her stories instead of an overly supernatural/paranormal. A lot of the horror in these stories are created within the people's minds, due to subtle influences or situational cues. As per usual with short stories, there were some I absolutely adored and some that I didn't care for much. I felt that EN was at her best when she was writing stories about the human mind and condition. I felt the ghost stories were fairly basic, with interesting points but overall relatively standard. That said, EN was among the first writers of the 20th Century to continue the horror genre so she a pioneer of modern horror, which adds an extra dimension to these tales.

My favourite was a story about a scientist who is aiming to create the first wave of super-humans. He has created a drug that will enhance all of the 5 senses a thousand-fold, giving people abilities and enhanced capabilities. Of course being a scientist, he must test the drug on himself first. The drug works magnificently, giving him outstanding sensual abilities, but unfortunately due to his body overloading with sensory information, he is left paralysed. The horror element to this piece comes into play when he is found in his lab and presumed dead, so he is buried, still alive, with all of his senses still at 1000x magnification.

The writing style here is surprisingly modern, even being over 100 years old, Nesbit is definitely an observational author, telling her stories from the outside and letting things develop naturally over the course of the characters story. EN has created some potent and terrifying stories here that would sit well with any horror/ghost story lover. There is such a vast array of different elements of horror included that there is definitely something to scare everyone! From the fear of being buried alive, losing a loved one, black magic, death, mysticism, pain, lost opportunities, ghosts and religion.

Overall, I have given this book 3.5 stars due to the fact that though the stories were impressive, there was a low hit/miss ratio for me and I found myself only really engrossed in a few pieces. That is my personal opinion and won't reflect on your own reading experience. EN has outstanding talent and is well respected across all age groups and any of her work would be a welcome addition to your bookcase.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘This is not an artistically rounded off ghost story, and nothing is explained in it, and there seems to be no reason why any of it should have happened. But that is no reason why it should not be told. You must have noticed that all the real ghost stories you have ever come close to are like this in these respects — no explanation, no logical coherence. Here is the story.’

Every person will probably feel, at some point in their lives, as though they are not really part of the world. Even if they feel at home in human society, the wider world will probably strike them as something alien. Outside is defined by hazards; inside the home, inside the head, is safety and comfort. But in order to live in a comfortable, regular way, we have to do this. We have to forget about time. We have to pretend that history is something which happens to other people, and that death can be indefinitely postponed.

Supernatural stories are a way of bursting this bubble. An encounter with something inexplicable provides a way to think about ourselves outside the limits of plausibility. Questions of immediate responsibility are suspended. All that matters is the moment of encounter, in which the protagonist feels themselves in contact with something much greater than themselves. Sometimes it might only be some aspect which they cannot or will not confront; other times it represents the visitation of some curse or apparition which has nothing at all to do with them.

In most realistic fiction, the division between the inner and outer life is quite clear; it’s this which sustains the drama between the individual and the world around them. But in something like a ghost story, that division dissolves, and it is left to the reader to try to establish some kind of relationship between the events and the character.

‘I am unaccustomed to literary effort — and I feel that I shall not say what I have to say, nor that it will convince you, unless I say it very plainly. I thought I could adorn mystery with pleasant words, prettily arranged. But as I pause to think of what really happened, I see that the plainest words will be best. I do not know how to weave a plot, nor how to embroider it. It is best not to try. These things happened. I have no skill to add to what happened; nor is any adding of mine needed.’

Edith Nesbit is best known in Britain as an author of stories for children — most notably The Railway Children — but she also wrote quite a few strange stories. A selection of these have been reissued in this collection by Penguin, complete with a pleasingly outrageous front cover that has very little to do with anything. For the most part they’re written in the Edwardian vein; they have something in common with the work of E. F. Benson, though the writing is often better (not quite so dandyish nor so starkly horrible). There’s only a little of M. R. James here, in the coldness of the surrounds. Nesbit was too interested in people to be quite so aloof as James, I think. The best stories here are all really about relationships with other human beings, and how one might render vivid what goes unsaid between them.

‘Hurst of Hurstcote’ and ‘The Ebony Frame’ are fairly good examples of this type: fun, though rather predictable. A man falls in love with a woman who emerges from an old picture in his living room, while another man swears he can preserve the life of his wife even beyond her mortal illness. Nesbit’s stories sometimes bear disclaimers like the ones I’ve quoted above, but the outcomes are often not unfamiliar.

You generally know exactly when something uncanny is going to occur. Yet the style carries it off rather well. It is not so much that they are frightening, and in fact I don’t think we are really expected to be scared by some of these tales. But they are executed with a remarkable faith in their subject matter; it’s the kind of thing that only an author comfortable with writing for young people without patronising them can master. There is a certain dignity to it. ‘It is very difficult to tell this story,’ writes the man in love with the ghost from the portrait. And somehow you believe it.
I will say that ‘The Shadow’ is unsettling. It is also the one most deliberately framed as a ghost story:

‘…The odd thing was that it wasn’t only at night — but in broad daylight — and particularly on the stairs and passages. On the staircase the feeling used to be so awful that I have had to bite my lips till they bled to keep myself from running upstairs at full speed. Only I knew if I did I should go mad at the top. There was always something behind me — exactly as he had said — something that one could just not see. And a sound that one could just not hear. There was a long corridor at the top of the house. I have sometimes almost seen something — you know how one sees things without looking — but if I turned round, it seemed as if the thing drooped and melted into my shadow. There was a little window at the end of the corridor.’

That corridor. That window.

The outliers here read more like science fiction than horror. Some of them are comic, like the story of a theatre producer who discovers a naive artist obsessed with building a trompe l’oeil sculptural reconstruction of the scene of his lover’s death. Another follows a doctor who develops a drug which magnifies all five human senses many times over; needless to say he overdoses and is buried alive, paralysed by the overload of his sensations.

‘The Violet Car’ is notable above most of the others for the remarkable picture it paints of psychological trauma: it follows a couple, one of whom is deaf and blind, while the other hallucinates the sudden apparition of a motor car hurtling down the local country lanes. It isn’t so much the description of the thing itself as Nesbit’s marvellous scene-setting that does the legwork here:

‘Do you know the downs — the wide windy spaces, the rounded shoulders of the hills leaned against the sky, the hollows where farms and homesteads nestle sheltered, with trees round them pressed close and tight as a carnation in a button-hole? On long summer days it is good to lie on the downs, between short turf and pale, clear sky, to smell the wild thyme, and hear the tinny tinkle of the sheep bells and the song of the skylark. But on winter evenings when the wind is waking up to his work, spitting rain in your eyes, beating the poor, naked trees and shaking the dusk across the hills like a grey pall, then it is better to be by a warm fireside, in one of the farms that lie lonely where shelter is, and oppose their windows glowing with candlelight and firelight to the deepening darkness, as faith holds up its love-lamp in the night of sin and sorrow that is life.’

[Simon Reid · Rating 3 out of 5]

This set of horror stories from E. Nesbit, author of beloved childrens' books The Phoenix and the Carpet, Five Children and It and The Railway Children, represent quite a contrast to her other work - sharing the penchant for fantastical elements, but pouring in doomed love and ghoulish violence.

Most of the stories introduce cosy domestic settings, then interrupt them with creeping supernatural terror, and the Gothic return of the past to exact revenge is often present and correct. Whilst some of the concepts felt over-familiar ('The Shadow') or clumsy (the denouement of 'The Head'), overall I enjoyed them. Even the most predictable pieces like 'Man-Size in Marble' have a perfectly constructed atmosphere, be it a lonely farm sheltered in a hollow on the wind-swept downs, or a path through the woods with tree trunks 'like Gothic columns' in pale moonlight - they can be admired for this even if the plot holds no surprises. 'The Five Senses' is perhaps the most innovative story here, with echoes Frankenstein in its foolish, questing scientist, but with an ending that subverts expectations.

[Timothy · Rating 3 out of 5]

14 stories:

Hurst of Hurstcote (1893)
The Ebony Frame (1891)
Man-Size in Marble (1887)
The Violet Car (1910)
John Charrington's Wedding (1891)
The Shadow (1910)
The Five Senses (1909)
The Head (1907)
In the Dark (1910)
From the Dead (1893)
The Three Drugs (1908)
The Pavilion (1915)
The Judgment: A Broadmoor Biography (1922)
To the Adventurous (1922)

Favorites: The Ebony Frame, The Head

[Liam Berry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of the stories contained in this collection of late-era Victorian ghost stories are enjoyable and a little spooky. The run in the middle of The Five Senses, The Head, In the Dark, and The Three Drugs being the best of the bunch. It was a difficult book to enjoy though due to the repetitive thematic formulae of the ghost or the curse or whichever supernatural element Nesbit employed across each story being so closely tied to an upsetting of a conservative social contract, usually marriage, sometimes love. It made the stories all feel like the same one being told over and over and as such reading more than one of these short pieces at at time began to feel like a really boring slog.

On their own I think these stories would work very well if read to a group of 11 or 2 year olds looking to be spooked at a Halloween sleepover, as a collection for adults they are dated, trite and repetitive.

[Tandava Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was surprised when I found out that E. Nesbit had a book of horror stories, since I had certainly read plenty of her children’s books when I was young, though unfortunately I don’t have a clear enough memory of the style to make a direct comparison here. The stories are, naturally, very victorian, and so may come across as relatively slow and unscary to modern readers, though I also found a number of them interestingly imaginative, particularly “The Ebony Frame,” “The Five Senses,” and “The Three Drugs.” I thought “The Shadow” was the spookiest, actually by virtue of being the simplest, and thus easiest to read in the dark and expect it to come true.

The cover, by the way, has nothing to do with anything.

[Rach scifi.book.club · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just finished this little book of Horror Stories by E.Nesbit. Not gonna lie, I was sold on the cover.
I loved how short these stories were. A lot were written in a sort of ‘informal report’ style, and some were as short as 2 pages! They were absolutely perfect to read on my bus commute in the morning.

These were all set in a Victorian - ish era, so the language was much more classic and old fashioned. If you like classic ghost stories, this is for you. They were a mix of themes, from haunted house, murder, mad scientist... definitely spooky and definitely entertaining!

[Kronk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love short stories and was pleasantly surprised by this collection. The E Nesbit of The Phoenix and the Carpet is most definitely pushed to one side for this series of short stories. Not as dark and genuinely terrifying as MR James or some of Poe. But like James, often there are things to be found in everyday things, places and people that can bring about chilling horror. Good, but not great. Enjoyed them.

[✥ Simy · Rating 1 out of 5]

1) not scary
2) all the stories were about marriages or marriages AND Madness/Witholding Info but it wasn't really advertised.
3) This isn't my copy. So glad i dont own this.
4) I know its controversial to mark a DNF book as finished, but I did not spend my valuable time reading this for it to not count to my reading goal this year LMAO.

[Ris Schortinghuis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining little horror stories. I enjoyed a lot of the different characters and although it didn't creep me out as much as some other stories do, I found them very well crafted and enjoyable.

[Kathryn Chiety · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is writing good some story was good some for me was for child but in all I enjoy I recommend

[Penny · Rating 3 out of 5]

pleasing mix of social observation and chill.

[Cikita · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know why i didn't get the sense of horor in it :(

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh E. Nesbit, was there anything writerly you could not do? Apparently not. Read this if you like excellent writing because E. Nesbit is an excellent writer, sez I.

[Sérgio Pelado · Rating 3 out of 5]

boo austen-core

but still worth the price if just for the convoluted squirminess of "the head".

[Alsjem · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who knew E. Nesbit wrote horror stories?

[Anirudh Mannattil · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the better anthologies I read this year. Nesbit definitely possessed a knack for experimenting with different literary themes, while also incorporating classical elements.

[Kirst Yeo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A couple of the stories were fab but a lot of them didn’t really hit the spot for my tastes.

[Bookwormthings · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some quite horrid ones, some not quite so horrid, still chilling

[bbgchels · Rating 2 out of 5]

boo. (that's how scary it was)