What do you think?
Rate this book
The Haunted Omnibus
42 ghost stories (including the entire text of Wilkie Collins' "The Haunted Hotel," and a prose translation of the Grendel Episode from "Beowulf"), interspersed with snippets of writing on ghostly topics from folk and literary sources.
848 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1937
6 people are currently reading
103 people want to read
About the author
Alexander Laing
79 books2 followersAlexander Kinman Laing (1903 - 1976) was an American writer of non-fiction books.
He served as Educational Service Adviser at Dartmouth College, where he conducted seminars and workshops in creative writing and aided students in individual research projects.
In addition to writing and teaching, he also tried his hand at being a sailor, magazine editor, newspaper reporter, world traveler, and advertising copywriter.
Considered an outstanding authority onn sailing ships and marine history, Laing was the author of many books on men of the sea and their ships for both adults and young readers.
He lived in Norwich, Vermont before his death in 1976.
He served as Educational Service Adviser at Dartmouth College, where he conducted seminars and workshops in creative writing and aided students in individual research projects.
In addition to writing and teaching, he also tried his hand at being a sailor, magazine editor, newspaper reporter, world traveler, and advertising copywriter.
Considered an outstanding authority onn sailing ships and marine history, Laing was the author of many books on men of the sea and their ships for both adults and young readers.
He lived in Norwich, Vermont before his death in 1976.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
Read
November 5, 2025PLACEHOLDER REVIEW: Recently had cause to read some stories that appears in this volume, so I'll stick reviews here in hopes of eventually re-reading this huge book.
"The Half Pint Flask" by DuBose Heyward has a writer on the isolated Ediwander Island (off the coast of South Carolina) visited by a member of his club doing research on a series of articles on "Negroid Primates," which is his dismissive way of referring to the island's Gullah population of African Americans (this reductive attitude to fellow human beings appalls the writer). But, almost immediately on arrival, the researcher spies a grave offering in a Gullah cemetery - the titular item, which would constitute the missing piece of his personal collection of American glassworks - and takes it, despite warnings from the author about desecration of a resting place. And then, both suffer the conscious rejection by the black population, insomnia, an oppressive dread that assaults the nerves, and finally a visit from "Plat-eye," a malignant spirit of retribution in the Gullah folklore who functions something like the doppelganger of European myth... Written by the author of the material from which the play Porgy & Bess was sourced, this is surprisingly effective. Surprising, because plot-wise it's the fairly familiar "violation of native customs leads to punishment" trope but (much like a similar tale, H.G. Wells' "Pollock And The Porroh Man") the writing is quite good, broadening to embrace some effective landscape & nature descriptions (I loved "watching a buzzard carve half circles in the blue") while also embracing a fairly liberal understanding of race relations (at the time, of course - those who demand that the past somehow, inexplicably, reflect the attitudes of the future should avoid), with the writer countering the researcher's racist attitudes when he can. Even better is the slow-growing description of the psychic oppression that grows from the taboo act, with an inability to concentrate or sleep (despite increasing exhaustion) culminating in a vision of the punishing spirit - whose description is left for the end of the tale. Good stuff.
In "The Gentleman From America" by Michael Arlen two well off Britishers bet a "Gentleman From America" that, for 500 £, he cannot sleep overnight in the haunted room. He attempts it, only to eventually face-off against a terrifying apparition. Fast forward a number of years, when the 3 men are reunited and truths are told...
This is an odd and interesting little story - not perhaps the story itself (which seems to owe quite a bit to Ambrose Bierce's "A Watcher By The Dead") exactly, but the disparate parts - the set up is classic (daring to stay in a notorious haunted room - see "The Red Room" by H.G. Wells for one example), while the tone is humorous (if not fully comic) with the stiff Brits playing off the optimistic and blunt American caricature. Then, there's a story within the story ("The Phantom Footsteps") as the American settles down to read a children's book of ghost stories that has been left by the bed. The apparition is striking described (headless, with longer and longer arms!) - and then there's the flash forward, which puts everything in a frame (while not, it seems, intending to imply a humorous cast to the later events). Neat.
In "Green Thoughts" by John Collier, the author exercises his droll wit on the concept of an unknown orchid that consumes unlucky living things and converts their heads to blooms (ala the original LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS). The stresses of conversion from self to plant are conveyed, as well as the embarrassment of pollination and then having to watch as his ne'er-do-well nephew takes over his estate. Effectively, but strangely straight-line (the climax is almost a fait accompli).
"The Half Pint Flask" by DuBose Heyward has a writer on the isolated Ediwander Island (off the coast of South Carolina) visited by a member of his club doing research on a series of articles on "Negroid Primates," which is his dismissive way of referring to the island's Gullah population of African Americans (this reductive attitude to fellow human beings appalls the writer). But, almost immediately on arrival, the researcher spies a grave offering in a Gullah cemetery - the titular item, which would constitute the missing piece of his personal collection of American glassworks - and takes it, despite warnings from the author about desecration of a resting place. And then, both suffer the conscious rejection by the black population, insomnia, an oppressive dread that assaults the nerves, and finally a visit from "Plat-eye," a malignant spirit of retribution in the Gullah folklore who functions something like the doppelganger of European myth... Written by the author of the material from which the play Porgy & Bess was sourced, this is surprisingly effective. Surprising, because plot-wise it's the fairly familiar "violation of native customs leads to punishment" trope but (much like a similar tale, H.G. Wells' "Pollock And The Porroh Man") the writing is quite good, broadening to embrace some effective landscape & nature descriptions (I loved "watching a buzzard carve half circles in the blue") while also embracing a fairly liberal understanding of race relations (at the time, of course - those who demand that the past somehow, inexplicably, reflect the attitudes of the future should avoid), with the writer countering the researcher's racist attitudes when he can. Even better is the slow-growing description of the psychic oppression that grows from the taboo act, with an inability to concentrate or sleep (despite increasing exhaustion) culminating in a vision of the punishing spirit - whose description is left for the end of the tale. Good stuff.
In "The Gentleman From America" by Michael Arlen two well off Britishers bet a "Gentleman From America" that, for 500 £, he cannot sleep overnight in the haunted room. He attempts it, only to eventually face-off against a terrifying apparition. Fast forward a number of years, when the 3 men are reunited and truths are told...
This is an odd and interesting little story - not perhaps the story itself (which seems to owe quite a bit to Ambrose Bierce's "A Watcher By The Dead") exactly, but the disparate parts - the set up is classic (daring to stay in a notorious haunted room - see "The Red Room" by H.G. Wells for one example), while the tone is humorous (if not fully comic) with the stiff Brits playing off the optimistic and blunt American caricature. Then, there's a story within the story ("The Phantom Footsteps") as the American settles down to read a children's book of ghost stories that has been left by the bed. The apparition is striking described (headless, with longer and longer arms!) - and then there's the flash forward, which puts everything in a frame (while not, it seems, intending to imply a humorous cast to the later events). Neat.
In "Green Thoughts" by John Collier, the author exercises his droll wit on the concept of an unknown orchid that consumes unlucky living things and converts their heads to blooms (ala the original LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS). The stresses of conversion from self to plant are conveyed, as well as the embarrassment of pollination and then having to watch as his ne'er-do-well nephew takes over his estate. Effectively, but strangely straight-line (the climax is almost a fait accompli).
October 23, 2010
This is a truly excellent ghost story collection. Forty-Two stories, of which at least eighteen I would read again with enthusiasm, including Richard Middleton's "Ghost Ship" (said to be atypical of Middleton, and quite different from the only other Middleton I've ever encountered), John Collier's "Green Thoughts" (think "Little Shop of Horrors" in an English country house), DuBose Heyward's "The Half-Pint Flask, May Sinclair's "Where Their Fire is Not Quenched," and the complete text of Wilkie Collin's short novel The Haunted Hotel.
A concept collection, too--interspersed between the stories are snippets from Thomas Browne, John Aubrey, Henrik Ibsen, various folk sources, etc., on ghostly themes (including two absolutely splendid short-short ghost stories).
The book is illustrated with black and white woodcuts with a distinctly WPA-art feel, pleasantly creepy, and Alexander Laing's Acknowledgements, Foreword, and introductions to the individual stories are literate, a pleasure to read in themselves (not a common event in story collections, sad to say.) Definitely worth tracking down if you like ghost stories.
A concept collection, too--interspersed between the stories are snippets from Thomas Browne, John Aubrey, Henrik Ibsen, various folk sources, etc., on ghostly themes (including two absolutely splendid short-short ghost stories).
The book is illustrated with black and white woodcuts with a distinctly WPA-art feel, pleasantly creepy, and Alexander Laing's Acknowledgements, Foreword, and introductions to the individual stories are literate, a pleasure to read in themselves (not a common event in story collections, sad to say.) Definitely worth tracking down if you like ghost stories.
December 15, 2008
A very nice anthology. It covers some of the most important horror
sories in literary history.
Authors include:
W.F. Harvey
Dubose Heyward
M.R. James
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
A.E. Coppard
W.L. George
Algernon Blackwood
O. Henry
F. Marion Crawford
W.W. Jacobs
Guy de Maupassant
Saki
Arthur Machen
Pliny the Younger
Robert Louis Stevenson
Lafcadio Hearn
May Sinclair
Alexander Woollcott
Ambrose Bierce
Richard Middleton
Edgar Allan Poe
Johannes C. Anderson
Michael Arlen
Own Lattimore
Wilkie Collins
John Collier
L.P. Hartley
Gertrude Atherton
Edith Wharton
with excerpts from:
The Panchatantra
The Arabian Nights
The Grettissaga
Beowulf
sories in literary history.
Authors include:
W.F. Harvey
Dubose Heyward
M.R. James
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
A.E. Coppard
W.L. George
Algernon Blackwood
O. Henry
F. Marion Crawford
W.W. Jacobs
Guy de Maupassant
Saki
Arthur Machen
Pliny the Younger
Robert Louis Stevenson
Lafcadio Hearn
May Sinclair
Alexander Woollcott
Ambrose Bierce
Richard Middleton
Edgar Allan Poe
Johannes C. Anderson
Michael Arlen
Own Lattimore
Wilkie Collins
John Collier
L.P. Hartley
Gertrude Atherton
Edith Wharton
with excerpts from:
The Panchatantra
The Arabian Nights
The Grettissaga
Beowulf
April 21, 2025
The narrative structure of this was very confusing
July 15, 2012
This is another of those books I think I bought at Barnes & Noble for $5 or so. I love cruising those sale aisles! There are some really great stories , and I only thought one or two were absolute duds. The editors of this omnibus were pretty selective about what made the book. I recommend this if you just need a couple of short horror stories to read for an evening.
August 30, 2013
Actually closer to 2 and half stars. Some stories are moderately spooky but the vast majority would fall under the category of the Bart Simpson quote about EAP's the Raven.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews