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Ghost: 100 Stories to Read with the Lights On
A special edition of an anthology of the 100 best ghost stories ever written, selected by award-winning author Louise Welsh.
A special reissue from Head of Zeus's bestselling anthology collection of 100 scary stories to read with the lights on, selected and introduced by award-winning author Louise Welsh.
Haunted houses, mysterious counts, weeping widows and restless souls, here is the definitive anthology of all that goes bump in the night. Hand-picked by award-winning author Louise Welsh, this beautiful collection of 100 ghost stories will delight, unnerve, and entertain any fiction lover brave enough...
Here are gothic classics, modern masters, Booker Prize-winners, ancient folk tales and stylish noirs, proving that every writer has a skeleton or two in their closet.
The all-star cast of authors Hilary Mantel, William Faulkner, Kate Atkinson, Henry James, Kazuo Ishiguro, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Franz Kafka, Ruth Rendell, Edgar Allan Poe, William Trevor, Helen Simpson, Haruki Murakami, Dylan Thomas, Bram Stoker, H.P. Lovecraft, Lydia Davis, Sir Walter Scott, Annie Proulx, Bram Stoker, Angela Carter and Stephen King.
816 pages, Paperback
First published October 22, 2015
70 people are currently reading
557 people want to read
About the author
Louise Welsh
53 books333 followersAfter studying history at Glasgow University, Louise Welsh established a second-hand bookshop, where she worked for many years. Her first novel, The Cutting Room, won several awards, including the 2002 Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey Memorial Dagger, and was jointly awarded the 2002 Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award. Louise was granted a Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Award in 2003, a Scotland on Sunday/Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award in 2004, and a Hawthornden Fellowship in 2005.
She is a regular radio broadcaster, has published many short stories, and has contributed articles and reviews to most of the British broadsheets. She has also written for the stage. The Guardian chose her as a 'woman to watch' in 2003.
Her second book, Tamburlaine Must Die, a novelette written around the final three days of the poet Christopher Marlowe's life, was published in 2004. Her third novel, The Bullet Trick (2006), is a present-day murder mystery set in Berlin.
The Cutting Room 2002
Tamburlaine Must Die 2004
The Bullet Trick 2006
Naming The Bones 2010
Prizes and awards
2002 Crime Writers' Association John Creasey Memorial Dagger The Cutting Room
2002 Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award (joint winner) The Cutting Room
2003 BBC Underground Award (writer category) The Cutting Room
2003 Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Award
2004 Corine Internationaler Buchpreis: Rolf Heyne Debutpreis (Germany) The Cutting Room
2004 Scotland on Sunday/Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award
2004 Stonewall Book Award (US) (honor in literature)
She is a regular radio broadcaster, has published many short stories, and has contributed articles and reviews to most of the British broadsheets. She has also written for the stage. The Guardian chose her as a 'woman to watch' in 2003.
Her second book, Tamburlaine Must Die, a novelette written around the final three days of the poet Christopher Marlowe's life, was published in 2004. Her third novel, The Bullet Trick (2006), is a present-day murder mystery set in Berlin.
The Cutting Room 2002
Tamburlaine Must Die 2004
The Bullet Trick 2006
Naming The Bones 2010
Prizes and awards
2002 Crime Writers' Association John Creasey Memorial Dagger The Cutting Room
2002 Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award (joint winner) The Cutting Room
2003 BBC Underground Award (writer category) The Cutting Room
2003 Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Award
2004 Corine Internationaler Buchpreis: Rolf Heyne Debutpreis (Germany) The Cutting Room
2004 Scotland on Sunday/Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award
2004 Stonewall Book Award (US) (honor in literature)
Ratings & Reviews
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 6, 2018
I did not want to rush through Louise Welsh's edited collection of ghostly short stories too quickly (if such a thing is possible when reading an 800 page tome!), and so spread it out over January and February, sometimes reading several stories per day, and other times forgetting to pick it up entirely. There were lots of rereads for me within Ghost; it features a sweeping collection of stories from the Ancient to the modern. Many of the stories were new to me, and will certainly hold appeal for different readers. Surprisingly, very few of these tales were chilling, and quite a few left me underwhelmed. I would not have personally termed some of them 'ghost stories', as they do not feature anything akin to ghosts or ghostly happenings, but Ghost is certainly a varied book. The chronological organisation of the stories worked so well, and I found the Victorian and contemporary stories particularly strong.
dipped-in
November 13, 2017PART 2: STORIES 51–100 (Part 1)
Note: I'm dipping in and out of this book and have been reading the stories in no particular order. bold = read.
51. 'Honeysuckle Cottage' by P.G. Wodehouse
52. 'The Second Death' by Graham Greene
53. 'A Rose for Emily' by William Faulkner
Scanning other reviews suggested this was a highlight of the collection, so I had a stab at it, but wasn't terribly impressed. It's about the mystery surrounding an elderly and wealthy woman who, having been rejected by a suitor much earlier in life, has isolated herself from the local community. Though the bones (no pun intended) of the plot are interesting, I didn't find the execution compelling at all, and the racism doesn't help.
54. 'The Hunter Gracchus' by Franz Kafka
55. 'High Walker and Bloody Bones' by Zora Neale Hurston
56. 'The Vest' by Dylan Thomas
57. 'A Man from Glasgow' by W. Somerset Maugham
58. 'The Demon Lover' by Elizabeth Bowen
The title of this kept bothering me because I felt sure I'd read it, but have no record of doing so, nor any memory of the story. I think I must've been thinking of something else – but I'm glad I read it, as it's fantastic! A middle-aged woman returns to her family home – empty during the Blitz – and finds a letter reminding her of an appointment she made with her former fiancé... but he died many years before. Tension builds as the story approaches a Creepshow-worthy climax. It's a bit silly and schlocky, but sometimes that is exactly what you want from a ghost story.
59. 'Money for Jam' by Sir Alec Guinness
60. 'Is There a Life Beyond the Gravy?' by Stevie Smith
This starts off as one of those interminable stories about posh people called things like 'Tiny' flouncing around doing nothing, then it becomes kind of nonsensical and you get the feeling it might be a dream... I did like the ending, but wading through the rest of it wasn't really worth the payoff.
61. 'Mars is Heaven' by Ray Bradbury
The crew of a spaceship land on Mars and find it appears to be... well, heaven. OR IS IT? More sci-fi than ghostly, but a good time all the same.
62. 'The Tooth' by Shirley Jackson
A sense of existential dread pervades this tale, and only partly because a lot of it is about dentists. It is a clever portrait of protagonist Clara's mental decline, with Clara's persistent tiredness and the blue-suit-clad figure of 'Jim' giving it even more of a surreal, druggy ambience.
63. 'Two in One' by Flann O'Brien
Not what I expected at all! I really enjoyed this macabre little tale in which a taxidermist comes up with an ingenious plan to dispose of his hateful boss's body.
64. 'Swaddling Clothes' by Yukio Mishima
A family's nanny unexpectedly gives birth to a baby in their home, and it is wrapped in newspaper until the woman's employer, Toshiko, brings out a spare blanket. Afterwards, Toshiko fixates on how the baby's life will turn out, leading to a tragic climax. While I really liked how this was told, the details didn't stick in my head afterwards, and I expect it won't prove very memorable.
65. 'Harry' by Rosemary Timperley
A superbly executed 'creepy child' story with a scary ending and a proper backstory. After finishing this I wondered why I hadn't heard of/read Timperley before, but a quick search told me why: none of her books are in print any more, and older copies of her collections are scarce. Perhaps it's time for a revival?
66. 'The Girl I Left Behind Me' by Muriel Spark
Witty and very human; I thoroughly believed in the narrator. It's a pity the title completely gives away what happens!
67. 'Poor Girl' by Elizabeth Taylor
Very odd indeed. Which is not to say I didn't like it; I've been meaning to read something by Taylor for a while, and this did give me a favourable impression of her writing – it's the subject matter I wasn't sure about. A governess with a precocious charge is disturbed by what seems to be the presence of a ghost; meanwhile, the boy's father is convinced she has designs on him. The characters are incredibly well-drawn, but the resolution leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
68. 'Memory of a Girl' by Richard Brautigan
No comment.
69. 'Black-White' by Tove Jansson
I find it difficult to believe this was first published in 1971. If it'd been presented to me as a story written this year, I wouldn't have questioned it; in particular, Jansson's descriptions of the open, light-filled house at the centre of the tale are incredibly effective. I wish more stories in the anthology – indeed, more stories in general – were as original and striking as this.
70. 'The Mangler' by Stephen King
Feels like typical King fare: gruesome, all-American, with a haunted/possessed (and anthropomorphised) object at its centre. More horror than ghost story, and a bit too gory for me.
71. 'The Dead Astronaut' by J.G. Ballard
This is one of those stories with such an enigmatic setting and background that it keeps you guessing and wanting to know more from the beginning. A couple await the return of an astronaut's remains, which have been in orbit since his death (soon after takeoff) 20 years ago. While the ending doesn't quite live up to the rest, this is one of the most original entries I've come across in the anthology so far.
72. 'Randal' by Robert Nye
Two elderly sisters bicker while their brother 'sleeps'. An instantly forgettable story.
73. 'The Vinegar Mother' by Ruth Rendell
Fantastic. A ghost story about ghost stories: two 11-year-old girls, Margaret and Alicia (nicknamed 'Mop'), are introduced to the concept of a 'vinegar mother' – a live culture that turns wine into vinegar – by a friend of Mop's mother. Mop, who is an avid reader of ghostly tales, becomes obsessed with the thing, acting as though it's some diabolical creature. The whole story is told by Margaret, who has a rather condescending attitude towards Mop; as tension mounts, it becomes increasingly clear to the reader that what's going on in the background is distinctly less supernatural than the girls assume. Rendell's portrayal of setting, characters and context is so perfect that the story is riveting.
74. 'I Used to Live Here Once' by Jean Rhys
Very short and offers no real surprises – still, as it's Rhys, the language is elegant and the imagery potent.
75. 'The Death of Peggy Meehan' by William Trevor
A boy is convinced he's inadvertently caused the death of a girl he fancies after dreaming about her. The setup is quite good and the boy's Catholic guilt effectively portrayed. However, the ending is just... I don't even know what to say. And this makes two (so far) stories in this anthology that seem to be about an adult lusting after a child.
76. 'A Beautiful Child' by Truman Capote
77. 'Fleur' by Louise Erdrich
Fleur Pillager is rumoured to have died several times and to consort with the water-devil Misshepeshu; people stay away from her, but our narrator, a young, introverted girl, is fascinated by Fleur. This is a very involving, gripping story – I could picture everything vividly and I was rooting for Fleur from the start.
78. 'The Lives of the Dead' by Tim O'Brien
At first, I wasn't sure whether this was memoir or fiction; the answer seems to be both. It's a Vietnam war story which segues into the narrator's memories of a childhood crush. Perhaps it's more effective in context (it's from The Things They Carried), but I didn't really think there was anything special about this story.
79. 'Off-Broadway: 1971' by Jewelle Gomez
I'd never even heard of Jewelle Gomez before, but I fell so completely under the spell of this story so quickly that I read it standing up in my kitchen and then immediately ordered The Gilda Stories, from which this is taken. It follows Gilda, a black actress in a predominantly white theatre company. It soon becomes clear that there is something distinctive about Gilda (she describes others as 'mortals' and alludes to a personal past stretching back centuries) and that her attraction to a colleague, Julius, is far more complex than it seems. It's vivid, intriguing, and I instantly wanted to know more about Gilda.
80. 'Death by Landscape' by Margaret Atwood
This was superb. The plot – about a woman haunted by her friend's disappearance at summer camp many years earlier – is nothing special, but the way Atwood builds her characters and setting is just wonderful.
81. 'Ashputtle or The Mother's Ghost' by Angela Carter
Fairytale retold as critical essay. Enjoyable, but not one of Carter's best.
82. 'The Gourmet' by Kazuo Ishiguro
Written as if it's a screenplay. The premise is absolutely fascinating, I could have read much more, and I was sorry when it was over. However, I found the format very distracting, and I couldn't help thinking it could have been just as effective without this gimmick.
83. 'Prologue, 1963' by Tananarive Due
'Hilton was seven when his grandmother died, and it was a bad time. But it was worse when she died again.' How could you not want to read on? Involving and moving rather than creepy.
84. 'Nobody Knows My Name' by Joyce Carol Oates
I enjoyed this – a slow-burning tale about a little girl who's violently jealous of her baby sister, and may or may not be a conduit for the evil intentions of a grey cat.
85. 'Terminus' by Hilary Mantel
Read as part of The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher and Other Stories
86. 'The Specialist's Hat' by Kelly Link
I've never really got on with Link's writing, and this hasn't changed that. It's a combination of monotone style and nonsensical stuff that I guess is meant to be unnerving? Not for me.
87. 'Stigmata' by Phyllis Alesia Perry
An extract from a novel, and (as with the Frankenstein one) it shows. I've only just read this and I still couldn't tell you what it was about.
88. 'The Hanging Girl' by Ali Smith
I'd read the first page of this a couple of times before, and couldn't see myself enjoying it. I should have known better than to suppose an Ali Smith story would continue to have the same tone all the way through; of course it runs through a variety of voices and viewpoints, and there's a lot of irreverent humour in its portrayal of a woman haunted by the spectre of a hanged girl (who, by the way, has come to rather enjoy hanging). I had the same feeling about this that I do when I read anything by Smith – a thrill at the way she plays with language that diminishes a little every time I'm reminded that all her stuff has much the same vibe.
89. 'Temporal Anomaly' by Kate Atkinson
A woman is killed in a car crash and returns home as a ghost. Her family can't see her, but she eats, sleeps and watches TV; she even seems to be ageing. For the most part I really enjoyed this and found it charming, but the ending is abrupt and doesn't make sense. Nevertheless, I'm interested in checking out more of Atkinson's short stories. Something I particularly liked about this one: the story opens by telling you Marianne is about to die, then so effectively sketches her thoughts and draws you in that you forget about her impending demise.
90. 'The Mirror' by Haruki Murakami
This is the best thing I've read by Murakami, which sounds like a huge compliment unless you happen to know that I've read two of his novels and didn't like either of them. This, on the other hand, is a decent little story. It gets extra points from me for focusing on a mirror – I have a long-standing fear of my reflection doing something it shouldn't.
91. 'The Strangers' by Lydia Davis
Typically brief, but arresting and clever.
92. 'The Sagebrush Kid' by Annie Proulx
For a short story, this takes its time to get going. I found the first two-thirds of it dull; the remaining part is good – I liked that we see the effects of the 'Kid' on various people and communities across several generations. An unusual, intriguing concept, but not the most impressive in terms of storytelling.
93. 'The White Cot' by Jackie Kay
A couple, Sam and Dionne, stay in an oddly decorated cottage on holiday. In a red room there's an incongruous white cot. As Dionne struggles to deal with the onset of menopause, the cot's presence stirs up her long-buried wish for a baby. An interesting premise, and I appreciated the use of an approach not usually taken in this sort of story; all the same there was something about it that felt amateurish to me, with the dialogue seeming particularly inauthentic.
94. 'Belonging' by Ben Okri
A very short story with a dreamlike flavour. Could've been a good one, but the brevity makes it too inconsequential.
95. 'Dinner of the Dead Alumni' by Adam Marek
Absolutely hated this. The plot and the writing. Thankfully I've never read anything by this author before and now I'll make sure I never do again.
96. 'Sad, Dark Thing' by Michael Marshall Smith
A solitary man is intrigued by some signs in the woods, and finds himself driving down a neglected track to a run-down house. A masterful story, with atmosphere and character rendered perfectly. Having also loved 'The Man Who Drew Cats', I really need to get round to reading more of Michael Marshall Smith's short stories.
97. 'Guests' by Joanne Rush
I went on quite a journey with this: started off disliking the style, which felt dry and stilted at first; then was so drawn in by the protagonists' relationship that I actually resented it when ghosts started appearing. Altogether, it's a thoughtful and perceptive tale of how our personal lives interact with history, using ghosts as mundane as they are frightening to illuminate the suppressed (and very recent) horrors of the Bosnian War.
98. 'The Festival of the Immortals' by Helen Simpson
Two women queue for events at the festival of the title, which involves appearances by writers who should by rights be dead, from Shakespeare to Virginia Woolf. Nobody considers this to be anything out of the ordinary – the result is an amusing tale, but one that doesn't feel like it makes the most of its premise.
99. 'Grandpa's Ghost' by Fay Weldon
I wasn't especially keen on this – the 'family party' scenario feels really dated, much more like something written 40 years ago than in 2013, and the resolution of the ghostly aspect is too pat. A Google search suggests it was originally published in the Daily Express, which explains a lot.
100. 'Ghost' by James Robertson
This is just a page long, but it manages to capture the universal experience of sensing something seemingly ghostly yet unaccountable. You could almost believe it'd happened to you. Given the title, I wondered if this had been written specifically as a concluding scene for this book, but it seems not – either way, it works very well as an epilogue to the anthology.
Last updated 13 November 2017
Note: I'm dipping in and out of this book and have been reading the stories in no particular order. bold = read.
51. 'Honeysuckle Cottage' by P.G. Wodehouse
52. 'The Second Death' by Graham Greene
53. 'A Rose for Emily' by William Faulkner
Scanning other reviews suggested this was a highlight of the collection, so I had a stab at it, but wasn't terribly impressed. It's about the mystery surrounding an elderly and wealthy woman who, having been rejected by a suitor much earlier in life, has isolated herself from the local community. Though the bones (no pun intended) of the plot are interesting, I didn't find the execution compelling at all, and the racism doesn't help.
54. 'The Hunter Gracchus' by Franz Kafka
55. 'High Walker and Bloody Bones' by Zora Neale Hurston
56. 'The Vest' by Dylan Thomas
57. 'A Man from Glasgow' by W. Somerset Maugham
58. 'The Demon Lover' by Elizabeth Bowen
The title of this kept bothering me because I felt sure I'd read it, but have no record of doing so, nor any memory of the story. I think I must've been thinking of something else – but I'm glad I read it, as it's fantastic! A middle-aged woman returns to her family home – empty during the Blitz – and finds a letter reminding her of an appointment she made with her former fiancé... but he died many years before. Tension builds as the story approaches a Creepshow-worthy climax. It's a bit silly and schlocky, but sometimes that is exactly what you want from a ghost story.
59. 'Money for Jam' by Sir Alec Guinness
60. 'Is There a Life Beyond the Gravy?' by Stevie Smith
This starts off as one of those interminable stories about posh people called things like 'Tiny' flouncing around doing nothing, then it becomes kind of nonsensical and you get the feeling it might be a dream... I did like the ending, but wading through the rest of it wasn't really worth the payoff.
61. 'Mars is Heaven' by Ray Bradbury
The crew of a spaceship land on Mars and find it appears to be... well, heaven. OR IS IT? More sci-fi than ghostly, but a good time all the same.
62. 'The Tooth' by Shirley Jackson
A sense of existential dread pervades this tale, and only partly because a lot of it is about dentists. It is a clever portrait of protagonist Clara's mental decline, with Clara's persistent tiredness and the blue-suit-clad figure of 'Jim' giving it even more of a surreal, druggy ambience.
63. 'Two in One' by Flann O'Brien
Not what I expected at all! I really enjoyed this macabre little tale in which a taxidermist comes up with an ingenious plan to dispose of his hateful boss's body.
64. 'Swaddling Clothes' by Yukio Mishima
A family's nanny unexpectedly gives birth to a baby in their home, and it is wrapped in newspaper until the woman's employer, Toshiko, brings out a spare blanket. Afterwards, Toshiko fixates on how the baby's life will turn out, leading to a tragic climax. While I really liked how this was told, the details didn't stick in my head afterwards, and I expect it won't prove very memorable.
65. 'Harry' by Rosemary Timperley
A superbly executed 'creepy child' story with a scary ending and a proper backstory. After finishing this I wondered why I hadn't heard of/read Timperley before, but a quick search told me why: none of her books are in print any more, and older copies of her collections are scarce. Perhaps it's time for a revival?
66. 'The Girl I Left Behind Me' by Muriel Spark
Witty and very human; I thoroughly believed in the narrator. It's a pity the title completely gives away what happens!
67. 'Poor Girl' by Elizabeth Taylor
Very odd indeed. Which is not to say I didn't like it; I've been meaning to read something by Taylor for a while, and this did give me a favourable impression of her writing – it's the subject matter I wasn't sure about. A governess with a precocious charge is disturbed by what seems to be the presence of a ghost; meanwhile, the boy's father is convinced she has designs on him. The characters are incredibly well-drawn, but the resolution leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
68. 'Memory of a Girl' by Richard Brautigan
No comment.
69. 'Black-White' by Tove Jansson
I find it difficult to believe this was first published in 1971. If it'd been presented to me as a story written this year, I wouldn't have questioned it; in particular, Jansson's descriptions of the open, light-filled house at the centre of the tale are incredibly effective. I wish more stories in the anthology – indeed, more stories in general – were as original and striking as this.
70. 'The Mangler' by Stephen King
Feels like typical King fare: gruesome, all-American, with a haunted/possessed (and anthropomorphised) object at its centre. More horror than ghost story, and a bit too gory for me.
71. 'The Dead Astronaut' by J.G. Ballard
This is one of those stories with such an enigmatic setting and background that it keeps you guessing and wanting to know more from the beginning. A couple await the return of an astronaut's remains, which have been in orbit since his death (soon after takeoff) 20 years ago. While the ending doesn't quite live up to the rest, this is one of the most original entries I've come across in the anthology so far.
72. 'Randal' by Robert Nye
Two elderly sisters bicker while their brother 'sleeps'. An instantly forgettable story.
73. 'The Vinegar Mother' by Ruth Rendell
Fantastic. A ghost story about ghost stories: two 11-year-old girls, Margaret and Alicia (nicknamed 'Mop'), are introduced to the concept of a 'vinegar mother' – a live culture that turns wine into vinegar – by a friend of Mop's mother. Mop, who is an avid reader of ghostly tales, becomes obsessed with the thing, acting as though it's some diabolical creature. The whole story is told by Margaret, who has a rather condescending attitude towards Mop; as tension mounts, it becomes increasingly clear to the reader that what's going on in the background is distinctly less supernatural than the girls assume. Rendell's portrayal of setting, characters and context is so perfect that the story is riveting.
74. 'I Used to Live Here Once' by Jean Rhys
Very short and offers no real surprises – still, as it's Rhys, the language is elegant and the imagery potent.
75. 'The Death of Peggy Meehan' by William Trevor
A boy is convinced he's inadvertently caused the death of a girl he fancies after dreaming about her. The setup is quite good and the boy's Catholic guilt effectively portrayed. However, the ending is just... I don't even know what to say. And this makes two (so far) stories in this anthology that seem to be about an adult lusting after a child.
76. 'A Beautiful Child' by Truman Capote
77. 'Fleur' by Louise Erdrich
Fleur Pillager is rumoured to have died several times and to consort with the water-devil Misshepeshu; people stay away from her, but our narrator, a young, introverted girl, is fascinated by Fleur. This is a very involving, gripping story – I could picture everything vividly and I was rooting for Fleur from the start.
78. 'The Lives of the Dead' by Tim O'Brien
At first, I wasn't sure whether this was memoir or fiction; the answer seems to be both. It's a Vietnam war story which segues into the narrator's memories of a childhood crush. Perhaps it's more effective in context (it's from The Things They Carried), but I didn't really think there was anything special about this story.
79. 'Off-Broadway: 1971' by Jewelle Gomez
I'd never even heard of Jewelle Gomez before, but I fell so completely under the spell of this story so quickly that I read it standing up in my kitchen and then immediately ordered The Gilda Stories, from which this is taken. It follows Gilda, a black actress in a predominantly white theatre company. It soon becomes clear that there is something distinctive about Gilda (she describes others as 'mortals' and alludes to a personal past stretching back centuries) and that her attraction to a colleague, Julius, is far more complex than it seems. It's vivid, intriguing, and I instantly wanted to know more about Gilda.
80. 'Death by Landscape' by Margaret Atwood
This was superb. The plot – about a woman haunted by her friend's disappearance at summer camp many years earlier – is nothing special, but the way Atwood builds her characters and setting is just wonderful.
81. 'Ashputtle or The Mother's Ghost' by Angela Carter
Fairytale retold as critical essay. Enjoyable, but not one of Carter's best.
82. 'The Gourmet' by Kazuo Ishiguro
Written as if it's a screenplay. The premise is absolutely fascinating, I could have read much more, and I was sorry when it was over. However, I found the format very distracting, and I couldn't help thinking it could have been just as effective without this gimmick.
83. 'Prologue, 1963' by Tananarive Due
'Hilton was seven when his grandmother died, and it was a bad time. But it was worse when she died again.' How could you not want to read on? Involving and moving rather than creepy.
84. 'Nobody Knows My Name' by Joyce Carol Oates
I enjoyed this – a slow-burning tale about a little girl who's violently jealous of her baby sister, and may or may not be a conduit for the evil intentions of a grey cat.
85. 'Terminus' by Hilary Mantel
Read as part of The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher and Other Stories
86. 'The Specialist's Hat' by Kelly Link
I've never really got on with Link's writing, and this hasn't changed that. It's a combination of monotone style and nonsensical stuff that I guess is meant to be unnerving? Not for me.
87. 'Stigmata' by Phyllis Alesia Perry
An extract from a novel, and (as with the Frankenstein one) it shows. I've only just read this and I still couldn't tell you what it was about.
88. 'The Hanging Girl' by Ali Smith
I'd read the first page of this a couple of times before, and couldn't see myself enjoying it. I should have known better than to suppose an Ali Smith story would continue to have the same tone all the way through; of course it runs through a variety of voices and viewpoints, and there's a lot of irreverent humour in its portrayal of a woman haunted by the spectre of a hanged girl (who, by the way, has come to rather enjoy hanging). I had the same feeling about this that I do when I read anything by Smith – a thrill at the way she plays with language that diminishes a little every time I'm reminded that all her stuff has much the same vibe.
89. 'Temporal Anomaly' by Kate Atkinson
A woman is killed in a car crash and returns home as a ghost. Her family can't see her, but she eats, sleeps and watches TV; she even seems to be ageing. For the most part I really enjoyed this and found it charming, but the ending is abrupt and doesn't make sense. Nevertheless, I'm interested in checking out more of Atkinson's short stories. Something I particularly liked about this one: the story opens by telling you Marianne is about to die, then so effectively sketches her thoughts and draws you in that you forget about her impending demise.
90. 'The Mirror' by Haruki Murakami
This is the best thing I've read by Murakami, which sounds like a huge compliment unless you happen to know that I've read two of his novels and didn't like either of them. This, on the other hand, is a decent little story. It gets extra points from me for focusing on a mirror – I have a long-standing fear of my reflection doing something it shouldn't.
91. 'The Strangers' by Lydia Davis
Typically brief, but arresting and clever.
92. 'The Sagebrush Kid' by Annie Proulx
For a short story, this takes its time to get going. I found the first two-thirds of it dull; the remaining part is good – I liked that we see the effects of the 'Kid' on various people and communities across several generations. An unusual, intriguing concept, but not the most impressive in terms of storytelling.
93. 'The White Cot' by Jackie Kay
A couple, Sam and Dionne, stay in an oddly decorated cottage on holiday. In a red room there's an incongruous white cot. As Dionne struggles to deal with the onset of menopause, the cot's presence stirs up her long-buried wish for a baby. An interesting premise, and I appreciated the use of an approach not usually taken in this sort of story; all the same there was something about it that felt amateurish to me, with the dialogue seeming particularly inauthentic.
94. 'Belonging' by Ben Okri
A very short story with a dreamlike flavour. Could've been a good one, but the brevity makes it too inconsequential.
95. 'Dinner of the Dead Alumni' by Adam Marek
Absolutely hated this. The plot and the writing. Thankfully I've never read anything by this author before and now I'll make sure I never do again.
96. 'Sad, Dark Thing' by Michael Marshall Smith
A solitary man is intrigued by some signs in the woods, and finds himself driving down a neglected track to a run-down house. A masterful story, with atmosphere and character rendered perfectly. Having also loved 'The Man Who Drew Cats', I really need to get round to reading more of Michael Marshall Smith's short stories.
97. 'Guests' by Joanne Rush
I went on quite a journey with this: started off disliking the style, which felt dry and stilted at first; then was so drawn in by the protagonists' relationship that I actually resented it when ghosts started appearing. Altogether, it's a thoughtful and perceptive tale of how our personal lives interact with history, using ghosts as mundane as they are frightening to illuminate the suppressed (and very recent) horrors of the Bosnian War.
98. 'The Festival of the Immortals' by Helen Simpson
Two women queue for events at the festival of the title, which involves appearances by writers who should by rights be dead, from Shakespeare to Virginia Woolf. Nobody considers this to be anything out of the ordinary – the result is an amusing tale, but one that doesn't feel like it makes the most of its premise.
99. 'Grandpa's Ghost' by Fay Weldon
I wasn't especially keen on this – the 'family party' scenario feels really dated, much more like something written 40 years ago than in 2013, and the resolution of the ghostly aspect is too pat. A Google search suggests it was originally published in the Daily Express, which explains a lot.
100. 'Ghost' by James Robertson
This is just a page long, but it manages to capture the universal experience of sensing something seemingly ghostly yet unaccountable. You could almost believe it'd happened to you. Given the title, I wondered if this had been written specifically as a concluding scene for this book, but it seems not – either way, it works very well as an epilogue to the anthology.
Last updated 13 November 2017
dipped-in
November 13, 2017PART 1: STORIES 1–50 (Part 2)
Note: I'm dipping in and out of this book and have been reading the stories in no particular order. bold = read.
1. 'The Haunted House' by Pliny the Younger
Remarkable to think there's a haunted-house story written in 113 AD. With its clanking chains, the ghost in this tale brought to mind A Christmas Carol.
2. 'Daniel Crowley and the Ghosts' by Anonymous
What starts as a simple folktale turns into something really quite macabre and alarming. A reminder that some of the oldest stories can seem the most innovative when held up against well-worn conventions of their genre.
3. 'Tam o'Shanter' by Robert Burns
I'm not a poetry person, but I really liked this. I can imagine it creating a fantastic atmosphere if read aloud... especially by candlelight. (Poor Meg!)
4. 'The Singing Bone' by the Brothers Grimm
A very typical Grimm tale, which I enjoyed but perhaps wouldn't categorise as a ghost story.
5. 'Captain Walton's Last Letter' by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
An extract from Frankenstein. I wasn't convinced that this worked either as a standalone story (i.e. without existing knowledge of its context within the original novel), or as a ghost story.
6. 'Wandering Willie's Tale' by Sir Walter Scott
7. 'The Mysterious Bride' by James Hogg
8. 'Napoleon and the Spectre' by Charlotte Brontë
9. 'The Minister's Black Veil' by Nathaniel Hawthorne
10. 'The Tell-Tale Heart' by Edgar Allan Poe
Read as part of Selected Tales
11. 'Christmas Ghosts' by Charles Dickens
12. 'A Terribly Strange Bed' by Wilkie Collins
13. 'The Old Nurse's Story' by Elizabeth Gaskell
Read as part of Curious, If True: Strange Tales
14. 'Cannibalism in the Cars' by Mark Twain
15. 'Madam Crowl's Ghost' by Sheridan Le Fanu
16. 'Bobok: From Somebody's Diary' by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
17. 'The Very Image' by Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam
18. 'Dracula's Guest' by Bram Stoker
19. 'The Romance of Certain Old Clothes' by Henry James
20. 'A Bad Business' by Anton Chekhov
21. 'The Canterville Ghost' by Oscar Wilde
22. 'The Withered Arm' by Thomas Hardy
23. 'My Own True Ghost Story' by Rudyard Kipling
24. 'John Charrington's Wedding' by E. Nesbit
Read as part of Horror Stories
25. 'Thrawn Janet' by Robert Louis Stevenson
26. 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Read as a separate book
27. 'The Dancing Partner' by Jerome K. Jerome
28. 'The Yellow Sign' by Robert W. Chambers
29. 'The Monkey's Paw' by W.W. Jacobs
I remember reading this at school, though I think I'd expanded it in my memory – it seemed slighter than I recall. Still incredibly effective, though.
30. 'Elias and the Draug' by Jonas Lie
31. 'Angeline or the Haunted House' by Émile Zola
32. 'The Inexperienced Ghost' by H.G. Wells
33. 'The Wind in the Rose-Bush' by Mary Wilkins Freeman
34. 'A Tress of Hair' by Guy de Maupassant
35. 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad' by M.R. James
Read as part of Nineteen Ghost Stories of M.R. James to Keep You Up at Night
36. 'The Readjustment' by Mary Austin
37. 'The Stranger' by Ambrose Bierce
A very simple (yet reasonably effective) tale that would no doubt have seemed far more terrifying in its day than it does now. That can be the problem with older ghost stories: to a modern reader they're sometimes a bit 'so what?'
38. 'The Rocker' by Oliver Onions
I don't know if it was partly down to having a terrible headache while reading it, but I found this really hard to follow. And the many ellipses just irritated me.
39. 'The Doll's Ghost' by F. Marion Crawford
40. 'The Room in the Tower' by E.F. Benson
Read as part of Ghost Stories: Selected and Introduced by Mark Gatiss
41. 'On the Brighton Road' by Richard Middleton
42. 'How It Happened' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
43. 'The Bowmen' by Arthur Machen
44. 'The Open Window' by Saki
Read as part of Improper Stories
45. 'The Lady's Maid's Bell' by Edith Wharton
Read as part of The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton
46. 'The Terrible Old Man' by H.P. Lovecraft
The first thing I've read by Lovecraft – I can only assume it's not one of his best. A gang of thieves conspire to rob the titular old man, but find him a more formidable foe than they supposed. Nothing surprising here, and it's too short to allow for any character development or interesting description.
47. 'The Ghost' by Richmal Crompton
This is a 'Just William' story, in which William Brown spins various spooky stories to his elderly cousin; she's so taken by them that he ends up staging a haunting. I've never read any of these books and, while I can appreciate the humour in the characters, the style didn't appeal to me at all – and I had no idea William was such a little shit.
48. 'The Nature of the Evidence' by May Sinclair
A widower remarries, but finds the spectre of his late wife disapproves of her replacement. Beautifully written; reminded me a little of Vernon Lee's 'A Phantom Lover' in terms of style. I definitely want to read more by Sinclair.
49. 'The Rocking-Horse Winner' by D.H. Lawrence
50. 'A Haunted House' by Virginia Woolf
Last updated 13 November 2017
Note: I'm dipping in and out of this book and have been reading the stories in no particular order. bold = read.
1. 'The Haunted House' by Pliny the Younger
Remarkable to think there's a haunted-house story written in 113 AD. With its clanking chains, the ghost in this tale brought to mind A Christmas Carol.
2. 'Daniel Crowley and the Ghosts' by Anonymous
What starts as a simple folktale turns into something really quite macabre and alarming. A reminder that some of the oldest stories can seem the most innovative when held up against well-worn conventions of their genre.
3. 'Tam o'Shanter' by Robert Burns
I'm not a poetry person, but I really liked this. I can imagine it creating a fantastic atmosphere if read aloud... especially by candlelight. (Poor Meg!)
4. 'The Singing Bone' by the Brothers Grimm
A very typical Grimm tale, which I enjoyed but perhaps wouldn't categorise as a ghost story.
5. 'Captain Walton's Last Letter' by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
An extract from Frankenstein. I wasn't convinced that this worked either as a standalone story (i.e. without existing knowledge of its context within the original novel), or as a ghost story.
6. 'Wandering Willie's Tale' by Sir Walter Scott
7. 'The Mysterious Bride' by James Hogg
8. 'Napoleon and the Spectre' by Charlotte Brontë
9. 'The Minister's Black Veil' by Nathaniel Hawthorne
10. 'The Tell-Tale Heart' by Edgar Allan Poe
Read as part of Selected Tales
11. 'Christmas Ghosts' by Charles Dickens
12. 'A Terribly Strange Bed' by Wilkie Collins
13. 'The Old Nurse's Story' by Elizabeth Gaskell
Read as part of Curious, If True: Strange Tales
14. 'Cannibalism in the Cars' by Mark Twain
15. 'Madam Crowl's Ghost' by Sheridan Le Fanu
16. 'Bobok: From Somebody's Diary' by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
17. 'The Very Image' by Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam
18. 'Dracula's Guest' by Bram Stoker
19. 'The Romance of Certain Old Clothes' by Henry James
20. 'A Bad Business' by Anton Chekhov
21. 'The Canterville Ghost' by Oscar Wilde
22. 'The Withered Arm' by Thomas Hardy
23. 'My Own True Ghost Story' by Rudyard Kipling
24. 'John Charrington's Wedding' by E. Nesbit
Read as part of Horror Stories
25. 'Thrawn Janet' by Robert Louis Stevenson
26. 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Read as a separate book
27. 'The Dancing Partner' by Jerome K. Jerome
28. 'The Yellow Sign' by Robert W. Chambers
29. 'The Monkey's Paw' by W.W. Jacobs
I remember reading this at school, though I think I'd expanded it in my memory – it seemed slighter than I recall. Still incredibly effective, though.
30. 'Elias and the Draug' by Jonas Lie
31. 'Angeline or the Haunted House' by Émile Zola
32. 'The Inexperienced Ghost' by H.G. Wells
33. 'The Wind in the Rose-Bush' by Mary Wilkins Freeman
34. 'A Tress of Hair' by Guy de Maupassant
35. 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad' by M.R. James
Read as part of Nineteen Ghost Stories of M.R. James to Keep You Up at Night
36. 'The Readjustment' by Mary Austin
37. 'The Stranger' by Ambrose Bierce
A very simple (yet reasonably effective) tale that would no doubt have seemed far more terrifying in its day than it does now. That can be the problem with older ghost stories: to a modern reader they're sometimes a bit 'so what?'
38. 'The Rocker' by Oliver Onions
I don't know if it was partly down to having a terrible headache while reading it, but I found this really hard to follow. And the many ellipses just irritated me.
39. 'The Doll's Ghost' by F. Marion Crawford
40. 'The Room in the Tower' by E.F. Benson
Read as part of Ghost Stories: Selected and Introduced by Mark Gatiss
41. 'On the Brighton Road' by Richard Middleton
42. 'How It Happened' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
43. 'The Bowmen' by Arthur Machen
44. 'The Open Window' by Saki
Read as part of Improper Stories
45. 'The Lady's Maid's Bell' by Edith Wharton
Read as part of The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton
46. 'The Terrible Old Man' by H.P. Lovecraft
The first thing I've read by Lovecraft – I can only assume it's not one of his best. A gang of thieves conspire to rob the titular old man, but find him a more formidable foe than they supposed. Nothing surprising here, and it's too short to allow for any character development or interesting description.
47. 'The Ghost' by Richmal Crompton
This is a 'Just William' story, in which William Brown spins various spooky stories to his elderly cousin; she's so taken by them that he ends up staging a haunting. I've never read any of these books and, while I can appreciate the humour in the characters, the style didn't appeal to me at all – and I had no idea William was such a little shit.
48. 'The Nature of the Evidence' by May Sinclair
A widower remarries, but finds the spectre of his late wife disapproves of her replacement. Beautifully written; reminded me a little of Vernon Lee's 'A Phantom Lover' in terms of style. I definitely want to read more by Sinclair.
49. 'The Rocking-Horse Winner' by D.H. Lawrence
50. 'A Haunted House' by Virginia Woolf
Last updated 13 November 2017
February 19, 2022
For a few years now, around Christmas time, it has become a bit of a tradition for publisher Head of Zeus to release a thumping great anthology. Whether it has been Otto Penzler’s Zombies!, or his crime detective collections, the Vandermeer’s
The Weird,
and their SF & Fantasy Anthologies or the wonderful We, Robots edited by Simon Ings (and reviewed here), they’ve become one of my regular favourite (and heftiest!) reads of the year.
With that in mind, this was a bit of a late arrival this year but a very welcome one. It is a reprint, with the tome-like hardback first published in 2015, but this new edition, as part of the Anthologies collection, is a lovely quality, large paperback version.
The title says what is in the book. There are 100 stories arranged in chronological order, from Pliny the Younger’s The Haunted House, written sometime between AD 99 and 109, to James Robertson’s appropriately titled Ghost, first published in 2014.
With such a huge range to choose from, it is unlikely that every story will suit every reader. But there’s a whole roster of well-known names and unknown (to me) authors that make a generally engaging, if eclectic, mix.
For those who are regular readers of the genre there are the expected names – Sheridan le Fanu (Madam Crowl’s Ghost), Edgar Allan Poe (Tell-tale Heart), Bram Stoker (Dracula’s Guest), H.P. Lovecraft (The Terrible Old Man), H.G. Wells (The Inexperienced Ghost), M.R. James (Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad), Ray Bradbury (Mars is Heaven) and Stephen King (The Mangler), for example.
As expected, I enjoyed re-reading the classic favourites – I still regard M. R. James’ Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad one of the finest ever ghost stories of all time, Sheridan le Fanu’s Madam Crowl’s Ghost still deserves its well-regarded status, Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s Guest is still surprisingly effective considering its brevity and W.W. Jacob’s The Monkey’s Paw are all worth admission here. Ray Bradbury’s Mars is Heaven gives us science-fictional ghosts of a sort. H.G. Wells’s The Inexperienced Ghost is one of his lesser known stories, a fireside-told, shaggy dog story. At the other extreme, it may not surprise you that J.G. Ballard unsettles with The Dead Astronaut, a typically dark story about what happens to astronauts who die in space and then return to Earth.
I also enjoyed many of the stories written by well-known literary authors who are less known for their ghostly stories such as Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, P. G. Wodehouse, Dylan Thomas, Frank Kafka, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, and Dylan Thomas, for example. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley reminds us that there is more to her writing than just Frankenstein with Captain Walton’s Final Letter, as does Charlotte Bronte with Napoleon and the Spectre. Charles Dickens gives us Christmas Stories which combines Christmas tropes with ghostly happenings, whilst Sir Alec Guinness’s Money for Jam is a WW2-based oddity. Richmal Crompton’s The Ghost returns us to childhood with a story using the author’s famous Just William character.
For those who like their writing more modern, there’s quite a lot to choose from here as well - Angela Carter, Kazuo Ishiguro, Hilary Mantel, William Faulkner, Kate Atkinson, Ruth Rendell, William Trevor, Helen Simpson, Haruki Murakami, Lydia Davis and Annie Proulx are all here to show that ghosts literal, imaginative and speculative, all exist in the modern world too.
The only downside to this collection was perhaps the chronological order of the stories. I suspect some readers may find some of the older stories hard work, simply because they are not of this time. I quite like the sense of ancient history created by this and the chronological order does give the reader an idea of how the genre has evolved, but I for one struggled with the Scottish dialect in Sir Walter Scott’s Wandering Willie’s Tale (a title that doesn’t work well for a modern audience!) for example. This may mean that less hardy readers of the supernatural may give up before they get to the modern form.
Nevertheless, this is a great collection that is worth buying for your next ghostly read, or perhaps for next Halloween. Like those volumes before it, Ghost is not a book to be consumed in long reads or binges but worked for me best when sampled and savoured, reading one or two stories a night, often at random – one of the reasons why it has taken so long to read! However, Head of Zeus have published another cracker.
I’m now wondering what they will do for next Christmas’s tome!
With that in mind, this was a bit of a late arrival this year but a very welcome one. It is a reprint, with the tome-like hardback first published in 2015, but this new edition, as part of the Anthologies collection, is a lovely quality, large paperback version.
The title says what is in the book. There are 100 stories arranged in chronological order, from Pliny the Younger’s The Haunted House, written sometime between AD 99 and 109, to James Robertson’s appropriately titled Ghost, first published in 2014.
With such a huge range to choose from, it is unlikely that every story will suit every reader. But there’s a whole roster of well-known names and unknown (to me) authors that make a generally engaging, if eclectic, mix.
For those who are regular readers of the genre there are the expected names – Sheridan le Fanu (Madam Crowl’s Ghost), Edgar Allan Poe (Tell-tale Heart), Bram Stoker (Dracula’s Guest), H.P. Lovecraft (The Terrible Old Man), H.G. Wells (The Inexperienced Ghost), M.R. James (Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad), Ray Bradbury (Mars is Heaven) and Stephen King (The Mangler), for example.
As expected, I enjoyed re-reading the classic favourites – I still regard M. R. James’ Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad one of the finest ever ghost stories of all time, Sheridan le Fanu’s Madam Crowl’s Ghost still deserves its well-regarded status, Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s Guest is still surprisingly effective considering its brevity and W.W. Jacob’s The Monkey’s Paw are all worth admission here. Ray Bradbury’s Mars is Heaven gives us science-fictional ghosts of a sort. H.G. Wells’s The Inexperienced Ghost is one of his lesser known stories, a fireside-told, shaggy dog story. At the other extreme, it may not surprise you that J.G. Ballard unsettles with The Dead Astronaut, a typically dark story about what happens to astronauts who die in space and then return to Earth.
I also enjoyed many of the stories written by well-known literary authors who are less known for their ghostly stories such as Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, P. G. Wodehouse, Dylan Thomas, Frank Kafka, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, and Dylan Thomas, for example. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley reminds us that there is more to her writing than just Frankenstein with Captain Walton’s Final Letter, as does Charlotte Bronte with Napoleon and the Spectre. Charles Dickens gives us Christmas Stories which combines Christmas tropes with ghostly happenings, whilst Sir Alec Guinness’s Money for Jam is a WW2-based oddity. Richmal Crompton’s The Ghost returns us to childhood with a story using the author’s famous Just William character.
For those who like their writing more modern, there’s quite a lot to choose from here as well - Angela Carter, Kazuo Ishiguro, Hilary Mantel, William Faulkner, Kate Atkinson, Ruth Rendell, William Trevor, Helen Simpson, Haruki Murakami, Lydia Davis and Annie Proulx are all here to show that ghosts literal, imaginative and speculative, all exist in the modern world too.
The only downside to this collection was perhaps the chronological order of the stories. I suspect some readers may find some of the older stories hard work, simply because they are not of this time. I quite like the sense of ancient history created by this and the chronological order does give the reader an idea of how the genre has evolved, but I for one struggled with the Scottish dialect in Sir Walter Scott’s Wandering Willie’s Tale (a title that doesn’t work well for a modern audience!) for example. This may mean that less hardy readers of the supernatural may give up before they get to the modern form.
Nevertheless, this is a great collection that is worth buying for your next ghostly read, or perhaps for next Halloween. Like those volumes before it, Ghost is not a book to be consumed in long reads or binges but worked for me best when sampled and savoured, reading one or two stories a night, often at random – one of the reasons why it has taken so long to read! However, Head of Zeus have published another cracker.
I’m now wondering what they will do for next Christmas’s tome!
January 5, 2023
A great coffee table book to dip into for a quick fix of a ghost story.
August 17, 2017
As with any anthology there are things that a reader might like, things s/he might not. It was the same with this: "Oh Whistle" by M R James was there, satisfying as ever, but the Virginia Woolf and P G Woodhouse, while interesting, weren't really my cup of tea.
What I hadn't expected were the modern ghost stories, which I got to and saw the Cambridge skyline, the Cambridge authors. My heart sank, imagining we would meet M R James stories in modern guise. Not at all: the satirical "Dinner of the Dead Alumni" was funny, well-paced, achingly accurate about how to take toddlers round a busy town; Joanne Rush's interplay between ghostly migrants and loneliness was genuinely moving. Two last surprises: the short, brilliant coda, "Ghost," was as close as I've ever come to thinking ghosts were real, and I had to finish the collection last night because of the seriously disturbing "Sad Dark Thing" by Michael Marshall Smith, which made me not want to go to sleep.
What I hadn't expected were the modern ghost stories, which I got to and saw the Cambridge skyline, the Cambridge authors. My heart sank, imagining we would meet M R James stories in modern guise. Not at all: the satirical "Dinner of the Dead Alumni" was funny, well-paced, achingly accurate about how to take toddlers round a busy town; Joanne Rush's interplay between ghostly migrants and loneliness was genuinely moving. Two last surprises: the short, brilliant coda, "Ghost," was as close as I've ever come to thinking ghosts were real, and I had to finish the collection last night because of the seriously disturbing "Sad Dark Thing" by Michael Marshall Smith, which made me not want to go to sleep.
November 1, 2016
Perfect reading for blustery nights in winter. Some classics here, but also some fantastic oddballs. I didn't find myself actually scared by many at all, which surprised me, rather I found myself moved more often than not. The Kate Atkinson story in particular. I would have perhaps liked a bit more analysis from the editor, and the year the stories were published, in the intro to each story. But a beautiful collection!
August 31, 2018
Beautifully produced and a really interesting collection; not a great collection in terms of scares and quality, BUT really interesting. A lot of these were snippets from books by well-known writers and I've never seen them in any other collection. The blurbs about the author at the head of each story are a really nice feature.
It's the kind of book you keep on your shelves for the 'huh' value, not necessarily for the re-read.
It's the kind of book you keep on your shelves for the 'huh' value, not necessarily for the re-read.
January 28, 2023
Few stories were to my liking, fewer terrified me. However I must acknowledge the time and effort it must have taken Louise Welsh to put it all together and I was especially excited for every author's paragraph.
Stories I enjoyed:
A terribly strange bed
The romance of certain old clothes
The yellow wallpaper
The room in the tower
The mangler*
Ashputtle or the mother's ghost
Sad, dark thing
Guests*
Grandpa's ghost*
Ghost
Stories I enjoyed:
A terribly strange bed
The romance of certain old clothes
The yellow wallpaper
The room in the tower
The mangler*
Ashputtle or the mother's ghost
Sad, dark thing
Guests*
Grandpa's ghost*
Ghost
April 25, 2016
Ghost stories by 97 different authors. A good read, skipped a few.
August 6, 2022
Don't talk to strangers
never go on holiday
plants, far too hungry.
never go on holiday
plants, far too hungry.
July 27, 2020
During quarantine I read this book one story every day - 100 ghost stories in 100 days. Lots of variety here and a wide range of how I'd rate the stories individually, but it's a great collection.
September 21, 2019
As with any collection of short stories (especially one featuring multiple writers) there's a great deal of variation in the stories. Some I really liked, and would easily give five stars. Others I had to force myself to finish, and would be lucky to scrape two. Most of the stories in this collection were somewhere in the middle - the truly fantastic, standout stories were few, but the majority of the collection was at least solid. My only problem with the collection itself was that some of the stories really weren't ghost stories at all. I'm quite happy for a ghost story to not be a horror story, or to not be about an actual ghost, but there were a few stories that didn't feature anything like a ghost at all and I wondered what they were doing in there. Something else that struck me was the difference between a lot of the more modern pieces, and the older ones. Though there were a few exceptions to this rule, in general there was something much less self-reflective about the older stories. They appeared to have been written for the sake of telling the story, and what ever other interest they might provoke seemed secondary. A lot of the more modern stories - particularly the ones that came of as being more 'literary' seemed to be making a point of being about more than just the events of the story. I found this especially odd, given that some of the older stories were taken from the work of extremely famous and well regarded writers, whose works have been studded as literature with great success. It makes some of the modern work seem insecure by comparison - as though there are all these old masters from history, who just knew how to tell a good tale and let readers read whatever they wanted into it at their leisure, and now there are all these new writers who want their work to be worthy of the same kind of scrutiny, and have gone to great pains to suggest to readers that there might be something worth studying and talking about in this story. The result is that a lot of the newer stories were less entertaining and more depressing, and in many cases, no better in terms of quality. The stories that stood out in a positive light to me were Oscar Wilde's (for being one of the only funny ones), 'The Yellow Sign', by Robert W. Chambers (it was a good story in itself, but also liked with a longer story of his that I'm yet to read - The King in Yellow), 'The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (though this stretched the definition of a ghost story somewhat, but not featuring anything remotely ghostly), Mars is Heaven by Ray Bradbury, Temporal Anomaly by Kate Atkinson. There were other really good stories in there. I won't single out the ones I felt were particularly bad, mainly because I think I have gotten some of them confused with the ones that left little impression on me either way.
November 5, 2022
Ghost is a tome of ghost stories, from recent and ancient sources. While the stories varied in quality and to my taste, it was certainly enjoyable.
One of the most interesting aspects of this book was the sheer variety of the stories within. I was a little skeptical when I picked up this book, as while I enjoy horror the archetypical ghost story doesn't always appeal to me. But while this was true for some of the stories, others very much did engage me, and others still weren't engaging but were interesting. This was especially true for some of the older pieces – the book is arranged going from old to new, so while it's no means comprehensive it does offer some impression of how ghost stories have changed over the years.
The topics and styles of the stories are very varied as well. Some are more scary, others tragic, others still a little comedic. I will note, however, that most of the stories are from the UK or Europe at large, and a number are from Scotland specifically. But other than that, there was enough variety in the stories for them to feel fairly fresh. Some of the pieces I liked more than others, and my personal favourite in the collection was Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost.
I would recommend this to any fans of horror fiction looking for shorter reads. The majority of the stories are short enough to read in one sitting, and there are enough of them that even if you don't like all of them, you're sure to find at least one to your tastes.
One of the most interesting aspects of this book was the sheer variety of the stories within. I was a little skeptical when I picked up this book, as while I enjoy horror the archetypical ghost story doesn't always appeal to me. But while this was true for some of the stories, others very much did engage me, and others still weren't engaging but were interesting. This was especially true for some of the older pieces – the book is arranged going from old to new, so while it's no means comprehensive it does offer some impression of how ghost stories have changed over the years.
The topics and styles of the stories are very varied as well. Some are more scary, others tragic, others still a little comedic. I will note, however, that most of the stories are from the UK or Europe at large, and a number are from Scotland specifically. But other than that, there was enough variety in the stories for them to feel fairly fresh. Some of the pieces I liked more than others, and my personal favourite in the collection was Oscar Wilde's The Canterville Ghost.
I would recommend this to any fans of horror fiction looking for shorter reads. The majority of the stories are short enough to read in one sitting, and there are enough of them that even if you don't like all of them, you're sure to find at least one to your tastes.
Read
December 5, 2025An excellent selection of stories but I will need to come back next year to read more of them. Some absolute classics here.
Read
February 20, 2016I haven't finished the whole book, because this is not the kind to read from cover to cover, but it seems like a good collection of classic ghost stories. I look forward to working my way through history and seeing the development of the ghost story over time. The introductions to each story could have been more analytical of the development of the genre for my taste, but this isn't literary criticism and the introductions are probably fine if you don't know who these authors are beforehand.
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