Ghosts and Shadows

by Dorothy Edwards, Jane Walmsley

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

For the Welsh novelist see Dorothy Edwards

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Born as Dorothy Violet Ellen Brown into a working-class family, her father taught her to read at an early age, enabling her to write her first story at four years of age. Her stories, poems and articles were published throughout her twenties, and at this time she married her husband Frank Edwards and had two children, Jane and Frank.

Edwards' most famous stories are of My Naughty Little Sister, which she conceived to keep her daughter, Jane, quiet whilst on a family holiday in 1950. She wrote five books of these stories.

She also published several anthologies of short stories, folklore and poetry for children, chiefly on the subjects of magic, witchcraft and ghosts. Two of these are Ghosts and Shadows 1980 and Mists and Magic 1983.

She was shortlisted for the Whitbread Award for children's literature for The Witches and the Grinnygog 1981, a novel for children about the survival of benign pagan witchcraft in modern Britain. This novel was later adapted for television.

Edwards was part of the 1950s radio show Listen with Mother, and she also wrote for Playschool and Jackanory.

Reviews

[Rosa]

"The Ghost Who Couldn't Frighten Anyone" is a sad, mean story! I'm sorry, but it upset me! Poor little ghost.
Other than that, it's an okay book.

[Capn · Rating 2 out of 5]

'Who is it?' Bill asked. No one answered, but there was a grating, metallic sound, like the rattle of rusty chains being dragged along the ground. The room remained quite black. Bill stretched out his hand to the table by his bed. His fingers closed over the torch. Almost the bravest thing he had ever done in his life was when he pressed the switch . . .
Ghosts at midnight and ghosts at noon. Ghosts in the bedroom and ghosts in the street. Ghosts in every guise - friendly and scary, gentle and grim, funny and sad: this book is full of their secrets.

Really bad. Just a random assortment of not at all scary stories and poems. All over the place. And the only Thurber content is a single opening sentence.

Herne the Hunter and also The Wild Hunt both appear, but I'd far sooner recommend a Ruth L Tongue anthology for those of hers anyway. Chime Children are mentioned (just mentioned), and there's a Twelfth Night to Candlemas demon in the house situation that I'm sure I read elsewhere in a Christmas anthology. The last tale is about a ghost story on the Gold Rush trail in British Columbia (near Fort Nelson), of all things. There's a Maori-content one as well (Taniwha and a stone carving). Honestly, none of the stories were memorable or good, and it just felt thrown together. 2 stars is just right for this - don't pay money for it!