Minor Hauntings: Chilling Tales of Spectral Youth

by Jen Baker (Editor), F. Marion Crawford, Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

A cradle rocking itself in a dusty chamber; an echoing giggle from somewhere upstairs; the feeling of a small hand in yours in the wilderness of a misty moor... From the haunting children of The Shining and The Grudge to Neil Gaiman's Coraline, the ghostly youth is still one of the most recognized and feared tropes of horror fiction and film. In this spine-tingling new collection Jen Baker gathers the most chilling tales of hauntings by children, expertly paired with snippets of the folklore and urban legends which inspired them. Truly lost stories return for the first time since their original publication along with nail-biting encounters from masters of the ghost story such as Elizabeth Gaskell, M. R. James and Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, Anthologies, Ghost Stories, Collections

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 20, 2021

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

The wronged innocents in this collection are quite a stark contrast to the fiendish children I’m used to from years of devouring horror movies: The Omen’s demonic Damien; budding mass murderer Michael Myers; or the possessed offspring in Sinister or The Prodigy. Most of these tales date from a time when child mortality in the West was high, yet the child ghosts that stalk these pages are more likely to have been created by murderous adults. Child victims killed for their inheritance or because they were inconvenient, or sometimes fodder for outlandish schemes as in M. R. James’s chilling “Lost Hearts”. The stories are more eerie or unsettling than horrific with the exception, perhaps, of Bessie Kyffin-Taylor’s surprisingly sadistic “Two Little Red Shoes”. There are some pieces that fall flat like the opening “The Dead Daughter” far too sentimental to be even vaguely scary. Some entries like Ellen Glasgow’s memorable account of manipulative doctors and gas-lit wives have strong feminist themes that reminded me of The Yellow Wallpaper and The Awakening; while Elizabeth Gaskell’s “The Old Nurse’s Story” and F. Marion Crawford “The Doll’s Ghost” supply large doses of old-fashioned gothic, perfect fireside tales for wintry nights. The collection’s edited by Jen Baker who researches spectral children in literature, it comes with an introduction, notes, author details and it’s interspersed with snippets from myth and folklore about child spirits.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

full post here: http://www.oddlyweirdfiction.com/2021...

On to yet another fine volume in the British Library Tales of the Weird Series, and it's somewhat unique in that the stories all center around the spirits or spectral imprints of dead children.

Jen Baker, the editor who put all of these terrific stories together here, reveals in her introduction that most of the tales included here

"ask whether children who do not have a good and peaceful death will definitely go to heaven; what the consequences might be if no glory awaits to compensate the child's suffering"

while also asking "what if the child is angry or even vengeful for their treatment in life and the fate to which they have been consigned?" These stories, as Baker also explains,

"revive, appropriate, and often merge domestic folkloric and literary traditions where the spirit of a wronged child would passively wander and bewail its fate with the darker traditions of non-Anglophone cultures, in which such spirits would terrorise and sometimes kill those who wronged them or even passers-by."

In between each story there are brief "snippets" of other literary works in various forms that "illustrate the sense of historical and cultural debt," all of which may send you on a quest to read the original source material once you've finished reading this book. At least that happened with me -- my geek self is easily sent down that kind of tangential rabbit hole where I'm happy to linger a while.

Of the thirteen tales in this book, I've previously read quite a few, but let me just say that it is never a waste of time to reread them. Once again I find myself a happy reader; I knew the British Library Tales of the Weird series was going to be great after the first book I read and I have yet to be disappointed; Minor Hauntings continues that streak. Very highly recommended.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

•The Dead Daughter: A Tale, Henry Glassford Bell (1831)
•The Old Nurse's Story, Elizabeth Gaskell (1935)
•The Ghost of Little Jacques, Ann M. Hoyt (1863)
•Kentucky's Ghost, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1868)
•Walnut-Tree House: A Ghost Story, Charlotte Riddell (1878)
•Was it an Illusion?: A Parson's Story, Amelia B. Edwards (1881)
•Lost Hearts, M. R. James (1895)
•The Doll's Ghost, F. Marion Crawford (1896)
•The Lost Ghost, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1903)
•The Shadowy Third, Ellen Glasgow (1916)
•Two Little Red Shoes, Bessie Kyffin-Taylor (1920)
•Anne's Little Ghost, H. D. Everett (1920)
•The Curse of the Stillborn, Margery Lawrence (1925)

[Alasdair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe not my favourite Tales of the Weird Anthology overall, but a strong contender for the best edited. Baker's introductions, both to the volume as a whole and the individual stories are concise and incisive, always giving a great sense of why these stories in particular were chosen. The decision to include little snippets of relevant folklore before each story is also an excellent one. The importance of not just baptism but specifically naming comes across strongly, especially in the little story of Short Hoggers, the ghost (excellently) named by a drunk. It really evocatively places the stories into a wider tradition of child hauntings, and I wish that more of the anthologies in this series did something like it.

Predictably M. R. James' Lost Hearts was a highlight, but I also really enjoyed The Old Nurse's Story, The Doll's Ghost (the old man in this one is truly one of the little guys of all time), and The Curse of the Stillborn (banger of a title, and some colonialists get their shit handed to them, what's not to love?).

Also really appreciated that Baker got the memo about focusing on spooky stories. While there are some that skew to the sweeter side of things like Walnut Tree House (classic sitcom setup: bachelor is remarkably chill about a little ghost in his house, solves mysteries, marries cousin) and Two Little Red Shoes (Too twee? Possibly the only dud?), the spotlight is more often on child ghosts as tiny little vessels of justice, or more subtly sinister absorbers of the life force of nearby women (chiefly in Anne's Little Ghost and The Lost Ghost).

[Tim Rideout · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superbly curated collection. The interwoven folkloric elements and the biographical detail add immeasurably to an excellent collection of child ghost stories.

[G · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories collected here veer between nice-ish and okay (even some M.R. James thrown in, so not as "dug from mouldy piles of forgotten magazines rotting away in the basement of the British Library" eclectic as the other entries of British Library's Tales of the Weird), but do yourself a favour and SKIP THE INTRODUCTIONS. The editor takes pains to spoil every single major plot point, completely ruining the reading experience. After letting Ms. Baker give away the first couple of stories' twists and turns, I took to reading the stories first and then catching up on the introductions, but most of the time these didn't even add that much information anyway.

Also, it didn't seem to me that Ms. Baker is exactly familiar with the literary genre of ghost stories. When it comes to this kind of tale, you'd be hard pressed to find a more monumental figure that MRJ; still, Ms. Baker, apparently in all earnestness, goes looking for (and fails to find) something that he is about as well known for as Dean Koontz is for subtlety: Lost Hearts "does not seem to follow the similar patterns of social commentary" the other stories in this collection do.
That's because James doesn't do social commentary. He does fright. And he's famous for doing it in a certain tone of wry, detached amusement, which apparently is also something Ms. Baker is not in the slightest familiar with: according to her, Lost Hearts, despite being "most macabre", "also has something unusually mocking, or perhaps just cynical, in terms of its treatment of the subject."
Really.

As far as BL's Tales of the Weird go, there are much better collections than this one.
Which is too bad, because the subject sounded rather intriguing to me; in the end, most of the stories didn't appeal to me all that much (in fact, Margery Lawrence's "The Curse of the Stillborn" must rank with the worst stories I've ever read; no surprise there, as I dimly remember reading her "Nights at the Round Table" collection and despising it so much that I feel myself boiling with hate even now).
Will stay clear of this editor in the future.

[Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another in the fine Tales of the Weird series, this time focusing on the narrow sub-genre of child ghosts. I wasn't as smitten with this one when I first heard about it, as I felt the idea behind the collection was extraordinarily limited and we'd end up with stories that feel very similar to one another, and I was partially right. There are a lot of tales that sort of blend together here, and it's the ones that do something different that really stand out.

I skipped the Gaskell, Crawford and James stories as I've already read (and enjoyed) them previously. THE DEAD DAUGHTER, which opens the story, is about the death of a 13 year old girl due to illness, and quite lyrically written; it captures a mournful air really nicely. THE GHOST OF LITTLE JACQUES is, alas, more mystery and intrigue than ghostliness, and it didn't grab me very well, and nor did KENTUCKY'S GHOST, in which a bullied stowaway boy returns on a sailing vessel to seek revenge from beyond the grave.

WALNUT-TREE HOUSE is by one of the genre's finest proponents, Charlotte Riddell, and typically engaging, with a memorable protagonist and friendly ghost. The Edwards story, WAS IT AN ILLUSION?, is also decent, a proto-James story with some thrilling events and a very nasty discovery and back story. THE LOST GHOST was my least favourite, with a couple of old women gossiping and an almost fleeting ghost appearance.

THE SHADOWY THIRD is traditional but notable thanks to a more psychological approach than the others, really getting into the mindset of those being haunted, while TWO LITTLE RED SHOES is unmemorable apart from a perfectly described location. ANNE'S LITTLE GHOST is slight and slender and has a 'true story' feel to it, and Lawrence's THE CURSE OF THE STILLBORN closes things on a high, with English missionaries in Egypt unwisely interfering in local customs to terrifying effect. Spooky stuff!

[Magdalena Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection; I just love this British Library series and these books are just perfectly curated! There are a few that I've already read but they're just so good, but there are also some new favourites. I didn't love the introductions to each story because most of them were rather spoilery? Bios were good and the collection includes some fascinating writers I haven't heard about before.

My favourites short stories are:
- "The Dead Daughter: A Tale" by Henry Glassford Bell
- "The Old Nurse's Story" by Elizabeth Gaskell - a favourite but also probably one of the most anthologised ghost stories ever
- "Walnut-Tree House: A Ghost Story" by Charlotte Riddell, prev. read in Weird Women: Classic Supernatural Fiction by Groundbreaking Female Writers, 1852-1923
- "Lost Hearts" by M.R. James - one of my favourite stories by James. SO GOOD.
- "The Doll's Ghost" by F. Marion Crawford - I'd forgotten I read it before so it was great to re-read this because it is a stunning story
- "Anne's Little Ghost" by H.D. Everett - lovely and sad.

[Michael F Simpson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short story collections edited and released by the British Library are always brilliant, especially in the Tales of the Weird series, and Minor Hauntings is one of the best - up there with what is probably my favourite of their collections, 'Promethean Horrors.'

Like 'Promethean Horrors,' Minor Hauntings is such a great read in part because the chosen theme is so inherently fascinating and compelling - in the former case, the mad scientist, and in this case, the ghostly child. I'm a big fan of ghosts as a general rule, so I knew I'd at least enjoy my time with these stories, but this is also simply a grand collection of tales, with versatility demonstrating the breadth of this trope and its associated themes and conversations, and stories anywhere from sad to frightening - both of which emotions I consider important to the ghost story.

Uniquely, this book puts the stories in chronological order, and also includes poems, quotations and excerpts - I really love this, it should become standard for the Tales of the Weird series.

In any case, like my previous reviews of the British Library's short story collections, this one ends with an easy recommendation to fans of classic horror.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another excellent entry in the British Library's Tales of the Weird series. The chilling tales in this collection include:

The Dead Daughter: A Tale by Henry Glassford Bell
The Old Nurse's Story by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Ghost of Little Jacques by Ann M. Hoyt
Walnut-Tree House: A Ghost Story by Charlotte Riddell
Was It an Illusion?: A Parson's Story by Amelia B. Edwards
Lost Hearts by M. R. James
The Doll's Ghost by F. Marion Crawford
The Shadowy Third by Ellen Glasgow
Two Little Red Shoes by Bessie Kyffin-Taylor
Anne's Little Ghost by H. D. Everett
The Curse of the Stillborn by Margery Lawrence

[p. · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is one of the stronger entries in the series. i found it very impactful but not so much as a horror anthology as saddening for the horrible things that happen to children and the grief the people left behind may feel.

i think i liked nearly every story from the collection. standouts were "the dead daughter", "the old nurse's story", "the ghost of little jacques", "walnut-tree house", "lost hearts", "the shadowy third" and "two little read shoes".

[Nikki in Niagara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fantastic! I'm so glad I found this publisher's series, "British Library Talesofthe Weird". Every story was excellent. I'd rate each of them a four with a couple of fives. A folktale before each story and a mini author biography and most of all each is given the first date of publication ranging from the 1830s to 1920s.

[George · Rating 2 out of 5]

skipped thru a few of these because they were really dull — I think I just don’t like ye olde worldy writing (anything before 1900). Way preferred the stories towards the end, specifically the little red shoes one. I want to explore abandoned houses and ~accidentally~ kill child abusers

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an enjoyable read, but I think the changes in ghost stories over time make the scares fall flat. This book is great if you want to see what old ghost stories were like, but ultimately they are nowhere near as creepy as modern ghost stories.

[♡ ellie ♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 **

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of stories, and good as a place to start if you want to dive deeper into the world of stories with similar concepts because of the author information provided.

[Clayton Skidmore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty solid horror tales- if you can handle the slow speed of victorian writing.

[Penny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Appropriate day to finish reading

[Ned Netherwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another chilling anthology, expertly curated

[Carmen Tudor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great selection of haunting tales featuring kids. The familiar 'The Old Nurse's Story' and 'Walnut-Tree House' do find a space, but they could hardly have been left out. And although many authors are well known, I haven't encountered most of the stories before.

While all thirteen tales are excellent, standouts for me include 'The Ghost of Little Jacques' for its unusual protag and setting; 'Two Little Red Shoes' because I'm easily taken in by the pathos engendered by children's shoes, as well as abandoned houses; 'The Lost Ghost'; 'The Doll's Ghost'; and 'Was It an Illusion?: A Parson's Story'.

Highly recommended. Thank you, Dr Jen Baker. I've been waiting years for such a collection.