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The Valancourt Books of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories #5
The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories: Volume Five
It's the most wonderful time of the year - time for more rare ghostly tales of Yuletide terror from Victorian England!
For this fifth Valancourt volume of Christmas ghost stories, editor Christopher Philippo has dug deeper than ever before, delving into the archives of Victorian-era newspapers and magazines from throughout the British Isles to find twenty-one rare texts for the Christmas season - seventeen stories and four poems - most of them never before reprinted.
Featured here are gems by once-popular but now-forgotten 19th-century masters of the supernatural like Amelia Edwards, Barry Pain, and Florence Marryat, alongside contributions by totally obscure authors like James Skipp Borlase, a writer of penny dreadfuls who specialized in lurid Christmas horror stories, and Harry Grattan, who made history by writing the first ghost story recorded by Edison for the phonograph. Also included are an introduction and bonus materials, such as 19th-century news articles and advertisements related to Christmas ghosts.
"I endeavoured to call out; I could not utter a sound. As I gasped and panted, there stole into my nostrils a deadly, terrible, overpowering stench . . . It was the dread odour of decomposing mortality . . . I felt that I must break the spell, or die." - John Pitman, "Ejected by a Ghost"
"It was a coach made of dead men's bones . . . Behind the awful vehicle stood two fleshless skeletons in place of footmen, the driver was a horned and tailed fiend, and the six coal--black steeds that he drove had eyes of fire, and snorted flame from their nostrils as they tore madly along." - James Skipp Borlase, "The Wicked Lady Howard"
For this fifth Valancourt volume of Christmas ghost stories, editor Christopher Philippo has dug deeper than ever before, delving into the archives of Victorian-era newspapers and magazines from throughout the British Isles to find twenty-one rare texts for the Christmas season - seventeen stories and four poems - most of them never before reprinted.
Featured here are gems by once-popular but now-forgotten 19th-century masters of the supernatural like Amelia Edwards, Barry Pain, and Florence Marryat, alongside contributions by totally obscure authors like James Skipp Borlase, a writer of penny dreadfuls who specialized in lurid Christmas horror stories, and Harry Grattan, who made history by writing the first ghost story recorded by Edison for the phonograph. Also included are an introduction and bonus materials, such as 19th-century news articles and advertisements related to Christmas ghosts.
"I endeavoured to call out; I could not utter a sound. As I gasped and panted, there stole into my nostrils a deadly, terrible, overpowering stench . . . It was the dread odour of decomposing mortality . . . I felt that I must break the spell, or die." - John Pitman, "Ejected by a Ghost"
"It was a coach made of dead men's bones . . . Behind the awful vehicle stood two fleshless skeletons in place of footmen, the driver was a horned and tailed fiend, and the six coal--black steeds that he drove had eyes of fire, and snorted flame from their nostrils as they tore madly along." - James Skipp Borlase, "The Wicked Lady Howard"
258 pages, Paperback
First published November 14, 2021
21 people are currently reading
356 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Philippo
12 books8 followersA historical society's website of merely 10 pages was turned by Christopher Philippo into an encyclopedic one of over 750 spanning the 17th-20th centuries. His research about forgotten 19th C. suffragist Caroline Gilkey Rogers secured a grant for a historical marker placed near her former home. He has helped with gravestone conservation in municipal, family, Catholic & Jewish cemeteries of the 18th-20th centuries in New York's Capital District, work recognized in newspaper articles & podcasts & visible from Google Satellite. He wrote the entry on Mad Love (1935) for
Horror 101: The A List Of Horror Films and Monster Movies
, edited the
The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories: Volume Four,
and
Five.
.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
December 27, 2021
between a 4 and a 4.5; full post here: http://www.oddlyweirdfiction.com/2021...
"The Christmas Party that has just listened to a ghost story would rather go on all night, drinking in fresh horrors, than separate to their cold and gloomy chambers."
I would happily reinstate this Victorian Christmas tradition if I thought that anyone in my family would love it as much as I do, but alas that's just not realistic, and I'm quite content to settle for just reading these old ghost stories each year on my own. After all, as we're told in this book,
"The telling of ghost-stories, no less than the eating of turkey and plum pudding, is inseparably connected with Christmas in the popular idea!"
For the last five years, at least, it's just not been Christmas anymore without taking my copy of the latest of edition of Valancourt's Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories off of its shelf, and as long as they keep publishing them, I'll keep buying them. While it's true that I have a deep fondness for ghost stories in general, what I really love about these anthologies is that I always find a few stories by authors previously unknown to me. This year that list is nice and long -- leaving out the poems, and the one story attributed to Anonymous, out of the remaining sixteen tales editor Christopher Philippo has selected for inclusion, there are a whopping ten (with one of these having two stories here) who are brand new to me. That's always a bonus.
As an appetite whetter, one of those ten unknowns is Mabel Collins, whose short bio blurb reveals that she had "learned of Helena Blavatsky's occult Theosophy religion in 1881," meeting her in 1884. In 1885, she had published a book she'd begun the year before, The Light on the Path, claiming that it had been "dictated to her by some mystic source". A little digging reveals that this "mystic source" was the Master Hilarion, who had himself "received it from his own teacher, the Great One who among Theosophical students is sometimes called 'The Venetian.' " Philippo notes that The Light on the Path had been "written in an astral cipher, and can therefore only be deciphered by one who reads astrally." The background info is important, as it's easy to see some of her beliefs embedded in her story included in this volume, "A Tale of Mystery," in which a young man becomes beyond infatuated with a woman, leaving his friend in despair because he is absolutely certain that this woman wants to lead said young man "to his destruction." Evidently his "suffering" has been transmitted far and wide across the spiritual plane, as he receives some help with his problem from a strange and completely unexpected source.
The other stories are all great fun, and I had a great time reading them. Once again (as he did in Volume Four), Christopher Philippo has done an excellent job not only finding the material but also in writing his brief introductions to each and every story. I will also say that while it's a fun book to read over the holidays, it would be a fine read at any time of the year for those people who, like me, love these older ghostly tales.
Now I'm already looking forward to volume six ...
"The Christmas Party that has just listened to a ghost story would rather go on all night, drinking in fresh horrors, than separate to their cold and gloomy chambers."
I would happily reinstate this Victorian Christmas tradition if I thought that anyone in my family would love it as much as I do, but alas that's just not realistic, and I'm quite content to settle for just reading these old ghost stories each year on my own. After all, as we're told in this book,
"The telling of ghost-stories, no less than the eating of turkey and plum pudding, is inseparably connected with Christmas in the popular idea!"
For the last five years, at least, it's just not been Christmas anymore without taking my copy of the latest of edition of Valancourt's Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories off of its shelf, and as long as they keep publishing them, I'll keep buying them. While it's true that I have a deep fondness for ghost stories in general, what I really love about these anthologies is that I always find a few stories by authors previously unknown to me. This year that list is nice and long -- leaving out the poems, and the one story attributed to Anonymous, out of the remaining sixteen tales editor Christopher Philippo has selected for inclusion, there are a whopping ten (with one of these having two stories here) who are brand new to me. That's always a bonus.
As an appetite whetter, one of those ten unknowns is Mabel Collins, whose short bio blurb reveals that she had "learned of Helena Blavatsky's occult Theosophy religion in 1881," meeting her in 1884. In 1885, she had published a book she'd begun the year before, The Light on the Path, claiming that it had been "dictated to her by some mystic source". A little digging reveals that this "mystic source" was the Master Hilarion, who had himself "received it from his own teacher, the Great One who among Theosophical students is sometimes called 'The Venetian.' " Philippo notes that The Light on the Path had been "written in an astral cipher, and can therefore only be deciphered by one who reads astrally." The background info is important, as it's easy to see some of her beliefs embedded in her story included in this volume, "A Tale of Mystery," in which a young man becomes beyond infatuated with a woman, leaving his friend in despair because he is absolutely certain that this woman wants to lead said young man "to his destruction." Evidently his "suffering" has been transmitted far and wide across the spiritual plane, as he receives some help with his problem from a strange and completely unexpected source.
The other stories are all great fun, and I had a great time reading them. Once again (as he did in Volume Four), Christopher Philippo has done an excellent job not only finding the material but also in writing his brief introductions to each and every story. I will also say that while it's a fun book to read over the holidays, it would be a fine read at any time of the year for those people who, like me, love these older ghostly tales.
Now I'm already looking forward to volume six ...
January 4, 2022
3.5 stars, rounded down because some of these stories were a little bit of a slog.
Like the title says, this is a collection of Victorian-era (sometimes) Christmas ghost stories. This is the fifth volume of this collection. I haven't read any of the others, but some of these stories weren't great and I can see why they weren't in earlier volumes. That said, there were some good stories: Old Hell Shaft, That Awful Face!, Hel-ya-water, The Undying Thing (Lovecraftian), and The Mummy Hand. A nice spooky holiday read.
Like the title says, this is a collection of Victorian-era (sometimes) Christmas ghost stories. This is the fifth volume of this collection. I haven't read any of the others, but some of these stories weren't great and I can see why they weren't in earlier volumes. That said, there were some good stories: Old Hell Shaft, That Awful Face!, Hel-ya-water, The Undying Thing (Lovecraftian), and The Mummy Hand. A nice spooky holiday read.
January 2, 2022
Not their strongest anthology, but “The Undying Thing” is worth the price of admission.
December 10, 2024
“Christmas eve in the quaint little town of Cliffside; and a good old-fashioned Christmas too. Not one of those miserable remnants of November which are, alas, too common in modern experience of an English Christmas, but a downright hard season, such as our grandfathers love to talk about when they laud the superiority of the ‘good old days’.”
I've finally read all 5 volumes of the Valancourt Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories. The accomplishment feels bittersweet. I've loved reading one volume a year and making it my own personal holiday tradition. Like all the other volumes, I had my favorite stories in this collection:
The Mistletoe Bough by Thomas Haynes Bayley
My Brother’s Ghost Story by Amelia Blandford Edwards
That Awful Face by Florence Marryat
Two Christmas Eves by Howell Davies
A Tale of Mystery by Mabel Collins
I've finally read all 5 volumes of the Valancourt Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories. The accomplishment feels bittersweet. I've loved reading one volume a year and making it my own personal holiday tradition. Like all the other volumes, I had my favorite stories in this collection:
The Mistletoe Bough by Thomas Haynes Bayley
My Brother’s Ghost Story by Amelia Blandford Edwards
That Awful Face by Florence Marryat
Two Christmas Eves by Howell Davies
A Tale of Mystery by Mabel Collins
December 25, 2021
Apparently in the 19th and early 20th century, one of the popular Christmas eve activities was to gather for parties. As the night grew late and the thought of going out into the cold seemed abysmal, people instead congregated around the fire for one more drink and told each other ghost stories. This became such a big part of the Christmas tradition that many newspapers ran contests for the best Christmas ghost stories. These were printed around Christmas so that people have stories to read aloud at these gatherings if they cannot make up a story on their own. Some of these stories have been lost for generations, but Valancourt has collected five volumes of these stories, poems, and snippets.
This collection has highs and lows. In the beginning, the stories do not do much for me. Many of them center around a character who is in love and a tragedy striking their relationship. Many are a ghost story in a sense that a person feels or sees the presence of a person while he or she is crossing over to the afterlife. The second half of the collection seems to have some of the better stories, and a few of them, like “The Dead Hand” by James Skipp Borlase and “The Undying Thing” by Barry Pain are pretty good. Many of the stories are short because they were in newspapers and were meant to be read aloud at parties so you kind of get that feeling from some of them. A few of the longer ones in the second half are much better than the first half.
One of the things that I really love about this is the short histories of the authors that precedes their stories. Some of the biographies are insane. Here is the biography for Mabel Collins, who writes “A Tale of Mystery”.
An author of more than forty books, MINNA MABEL COLLINS COOK {1851-1927} had learned of Helena Blavatsky’s occult Theosophy religion in 1881, and met Blavatsky herself in 884. The same year, Mabel Collins began writing Light on the Path, published in 1885, a book she claimed was dictated to her by some mystic source and moreover that it was “written in an astral cipher, and can therefore can only be deciphered by one who reads astrally.” It quickly became a Theosophical classic, and Collins would go on to be co-editor with Blavatsky of Lucifer: A Theosophical Magazine. One of her lovers was Robert Donston Stephenson, one of a number of men suspected of having been Jack the Ripper. She would also become an acquaintance of poet and occultist William Butler Yeats and the notorious Aleister Crowley. (pg. 97).
This is not the only biography in this collection that makes me feel like Victorian society was more interested in the occult and the devil than I ever knew, and the tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas time feels like something that needs to come back. The idea of ghost stories being a large part of Victorian Christmas culture is actually pretty alluring. If anything, this collection is more valuable as a primer for Victorian history and tradition than it is a collection of memorable stories.
This collection has highs and lows. In the beginning, the stories do not do much for me. Many of them center around a character who is in love and a tragedy striking their relationship. Many are a ghost story in a sense that a person feels or sees the presence of a person while he or she is crossing over to the afterlife. The second half of the collection seems to have some of the better stories, and a few of them, like “The Dead Hand” by James Skipp Borlase and “The Undying Thing” by Barry Pain are pretty good. Many of the stories are short because they were in newspapers and were meant to be read aloud at parties so you kind of get that feeling from some of them. A few of the longer ones in the second half are much better than the first half.
One of the things that I really love about this is the short histories of the authors that precedes their stories. Some of the biographies are insane. Here is the biography for Mabel Collins, who writes “A Tale of Mystery”.
An author of more than forty books, MINNA MABEL COLLINS COOK {1851-1927} had learned of Helena Blavatsky’s occult Theosophy religion in 1881, and met Blavatsky herself in 884. The same year, Mabel Collins began writing Light on the Path, published in 1885, a book she claimed was dictated to her by some mystic source and moreover that it was “written in an astral cipher, and can therefore can only be deciphered by one who reads astrally.” It quickly became a Theosophical classic, and Collins would go on to be co-editor with Blavatsky of Lucifer: A Theosophical Magazine. One of her lovers was Robert Donston Stephenson, one of a number of men suspected of having been Jack the Ripper. She would also become an acquaintance of poet and occultist William Butler Yeats and the notorious Aleister Crowley. (pg. 97).
This is not the only biography in this collection that makes me feel like Victorian society was more interested in the occult and the devil than I ever knew, and the tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas time feels like something that needs to come back. The idea of ghost stories being a large part of Victorian Christmas culture is actually pretty alluring. If anything, this collection is more valuable as a primer for Victorian history and tradition than it is a collection of memorable stories.
January 19, 2023
This was my first of the volumes to read, but I will definitely be picking up 1-4, because I enjoyed this so much! Aside from a couple of long ones, they were all the perfect length to read for ten minutes or so before bedtime, all snuggled up and cozy, which is, I think, exactly the best way to read a Christmas ghost story.
December 3, 2022
A hum-dinger of a way to being my creepy Yuletide reading list.
December 16, 2023
The first collection reigns supreme, but I enjoyed this.
My favorites:
Amelia Edwards, "My Brother's Ghost Story"
Mrs. S. R. Townshend Mayer, "The Netherstone Mystery"
Florence Marryat, "That Awful Face!"
Mabel Collins, "A Tale of Mystery"
Barry Pain, "The Undying Thing" (Honestly, worth it for this one alone.)
Baroness de Bertouch, "The Tryst, An Old Yule Legend"
My favorites:
Amelia Edwards, "My Brother's Ghost Story"
Mrs. S. R. Townshend Mayer, "The Netherstone Mystery"
Florence Marryat, "That Awful Face!"
Mabel Collins, "A Tale of Mystery"
Barry Pain, "The Undying Thing" (Honestly, worth it for this one alone.)
Baroness de Bertouch, "The Tryst, An Old Yule Legend"
December 28, 2021
Wow, this is the fifth volume in Valancourt's consistently excellent set of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories! Any or all of which would be a great gift, so keep that in mind for next year. One thing: sometimes I mention something negative-ish in a review, not because it's a real flaw, but just to give context for it, so other readers will know what to expect, lest their judgment be colored in certain ways. In this case, it's the fact that "Victorian Christmas ghost story" was a genre much like "summer blockbuster." A movie like Jaws is a summer blockbuster in both senses: it was a hit during the summer, and it was also set in a specific time in the summer. Many Victorian Christmas ghost stories were so in the first sense: they were written for Christmas editions of magazines, published and read at Christmas. One of the stories in this anthology was a story-within-a-story, defined therein as "well, it's Christmas, so here's a creepy tale!" But the story itself isn't set at Christmas, and has nothing to do with the holiday per se. So there are a few of these in this collection, and they did take me out a little bit, because I was settling in for Christmas-themed stories.
That's all a quibble; I just wish I'd been a little more alert to the context, because honestly, it's more of an authentic Victorian-esque reading experience to have the stories NOT all be directly related to the holiday. That's more of a modern mindset. This book certainly provides evidence for the wider variety of material that was out there, including poems and parodies, and that was all interesting.
Side note: I'd just seen someone online wondering about the weird British tradition of killing wrens on St. Stephen's Day for good luck, and lo! There's a story providing an explanation for this, although it's impossible to tell if it's based on real lore, or the author just made up a reason. Also, a YouTube ghost story channel did a Christmas episode this year that included the story from the famous poem "The Mistletoe Bough," which I'd just read here. The basic plot has been recycled in multiple tales over the years, so I was happy to see it's still out there in new mediums for new audiences!
That's all a quibble; I just wish I'd been a little more alert to the context, because honestly, it's more of an authentic Victorian-esque reading experience to have the stories NOT all be directly related to the holiday. That's more of a modern mindset. This book certainly provides evidence for the wider variety of material that was out there, including poems and parodies, and that was all interesting.
Side note: I'd just seen someone online wondering about the weird British tradition of killing wrens on St. Stephen's Day for good luck, and lo! There's a story providing an explanation for this, although it's impossible to tell if it's based on real lore, or the author just made up a reason. Also, a YouTube ghost story channel did a Christmas episode this year that included the story from the famous poem "The Mistletoe Bough," which I'd just read here. The basic plot has been recycled in multiple tales over the years, so I was happy to see it's still out there in new mediums for new audiences!
January 4, 2023
average rating of all stories: 3.57
January 3, 2023
Great collection of Christmas ghost stories. Considering the era in which the stories were written, the stories are tame compared to contemporary ghost stories, but they're still fun to read.
December 24, 2021
Ooh I love it! If you are into Victorian fiction/ low key horror and Christmas vibes this book it’s for you!
December 26, 2022
A very pleasing collection of Victorian horror stories! Some set at Christmas, and some published in Christmas collections throughout the late 19th century. Not necessarily all featuring a ghost, but plenty of hauntings or haunted vibes, and lots of dread-inducing Victoriana and spooky settings. The inclusion of the poems was also fun. This was my first volume of the Valancourt series, and I will consider picking up another for next year's reading!
December 8, 2023
Hide and seek for keeps
wolf baby is hard to kill
don't travel in storms.
wolf baby is hard to kill
don't travel in storms.
April 25, 2022
A year later & I have finished my second volume of Victorian-era ghost stores, this one where they all take place across the pond. I prefer to read in snippets rather than all at once. Amazing to have searched out these jewels in what must be mountains of archives. Each story was a favorite until I read the next one! Could I be becoming a fan of this genre?!
December 23, 2021
So, I’ve been reading these every year, ordering them as soon as they come out, ripping the package open excitedly as soon as Amazon drops it off. What can I say? I’m a fan.
However, I’m also a snob: the Victorian era lasted from 1837 to 1901. And there were several tales in this that were not Victorian.
Look, I learned like three things in my undergrad:
1. How to write a sentence (kind of).
2. An appreciation for stream of conscious narrative.
3. The Victorian era spans from 1837 to 1901.
I signed up for Victorian Christmas Ghost stories, okay?
I’m mostly jesting. Maybe I’m slightly cranky that last year’s volume was SO underwhelming. Who freaking knows. Volume five hit the spot (as expected). And, even though my interest is mainly in VICTORIAN England, I did enjoy the stories from after 1901.
3/5 —Decent Christmas Cheer
However, I’m also a snob: the Victorian era lasted from 1837 to 1901. And there were several tales in this that were not Victorian.
Look, I learned like three things in my undergrad:
1. How to write a sentence (kind of).
2. An appreciation for stream of conscious narrative.
3. The Victorian era spans from 1837 to 1901.
I signed up for Victorian Christmas Ghost stories, okay?
I’m mostly jesting. Maybe I’m slightly cranky that last year’s volume was SO underwhelming. Who freaking knows. Volume five hit the spot (as expected). And, even though my interest is mainly in VICTORIAN England, I did enjoy the stories from after 1901.
3/5 —Decent Christmas Cheer
January 8, 2024
Another enjoyable volume in Valancourt's series of Victorian Christmas ghost stories. These stories range from the darkly humorous and macabre The Dead Hand by James Skipp Borlase to the unnerving That Awful Face! by Florence Marryat. Two other especially disturbing tales I enjoyed are Barry Pain's The Undying Thing, where what we don't see is more terrifying than what we do, and John Pitman's Ejected By a Ghost, about an especially horrifying spirit who doesn't want a roommate!
December 30, 2021
This is a seriously delightful collection. If not for Night Worms, I never would have come across it, but I’ll definitely be buying the previous volumes as well because I enjoyed this one so much.
Favorite stories:
-Little Willie Bell
-The Netherstone Mystery
-The Ghosts of the Bards
-The Mummy Hand
-Woden, the Wild Huntsman
-Squire Humperdinck and the Devil
Favorite stories:
-Little Willie Bell
-The Netherstone Mystery
-The Ghosts of the Bards
-The Mummy Hand
-Woden, the Wild Huntsman
-Squire Humperdinck and the Devil
December 27, 2021
This collection of Christmas ghost stories were written in the mid-1800 through 1900 or so. From an historical perspective it's a curious and engaging read, with an opportunity to read what passed for spooky fiction way back when.
Interesting and kind of fun.
Interesting and kind of fun.
January 8, 2024
This is one of my favorite volumes of the Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories series, for sure. It's an excellent collection of stories; generally you get some hits and misses, but they were all hits this time for me. This volume feels so holiday-cozy and spooky throughout.
December 28, 2025
Un dernier tome satisfaisant. Parmi mes histoires préférées: The Ghosts of the Bards, The Siren, The Undying Thing.
The Dead Hand rappelait, vers la fin, le personnage de Thing dans The Addams Family.
The Dead Hand rappelait, vers la fin, le personnage de Thing dans The Addams Family.
December 11, 2021
I nice collection of old ghost stories from the late 1800's. If you are into that kind of thing, you'll probably dig it. It wasn't for me though.
December 28, 2021
3.5 stars
Read
February 27, 2022Hated this book. Too boring.
December 30, 2024
One of the better books of the series. It had more stories that held my attention. However some stories are just so over the top wordy that they lost my interest.
January 15, 2025
“Christmastide, the time of merriment and good cheer, always seems to associate itself with the supernatural. Perhaps it is for vivid contrast, but no Christmas party seems complete unless chairs have been drawn to the fire and some ghost story has silenced the merriment for a time.”
— from “Ghost of the Living” by Huan Mee
The last installment of The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories series! What I thought was particularly interesting & original about this collection was that it featured more than just ghosts but also sirens, vampires, & werewolves, in line with the Victorian tradition of including these monsters along with other “Fairies, Ghosts, Hobgoblins, Witches, Bull-Beggars, Rawheads and Bloody-Bones” in their dark season fireside tales.
Click here to read my full review of Volume V complete with my full thoughts, further reading suggestions, & more of my favorite quotes!
★ ★ ★ ★ .75
CW // disturbing imagery (dead bodies), mental illness, death & grief, animal death/cruelty (wrens)
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews