Peter Haining - Nightcaps and Nightmares

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Peter Haining [ed.] - Nightcaps and Nightmares (William Kimber, 1983)

Ionicus

Peter Haining - Introduction

Richard Harris Barham - The Spectre of Tappington
Charles Dickens - The Lawyer and the Ghost
F. Anstey - The Wraith of Barnjum
Oscar Wilde - The Canterville Ghost
Kenneth Grahame - The Ghost Aristocracy
Jerome K. Jerome - The Haunted Mill
John Kendrick Bangs - Ghosts That Have Haunted Me
H. G. Wells - The Inexperienced Ghost
Ambrose Bierce - The Clothing of Ghosts
O. Henry - A Ghost of a Chance
Richard Middleton - The Ghost Ship
Stephen Leacock - Buggam Grange
Robert Benchley - A Trip to Spirit Land
James Thurber - The Night the Ghost Got In
Robert Graves - The White Horse; or, the Great Southern Ghost Story
John Collier - Half-Way to Hell
Robert Bloch - The Indian Spirit Guide

Blurb:
In this entertaining collection Peter Haining takes us into the realms where the ghostly is often blended with humour. Here are seventeen master authors who have shown how these elements can be combined

One day Peter Haining realised that, among his several thousand books of ghost stories, "nary a one [is] dedicated specifically to humorous, witty, satirical, even sardonic ghost stories by various authors." So; "Make yourself comfortable - in bed, preferably -puff up your pillow, prepare to don your nightcap and begin. The best collection of nightmares I could find now awaits you ..."

Stephen Leacock - Buggam Grange: A Good Old Ghost Story: (Winsome Winnie and Other New Nonsense Novels, 1920). Digby, a sceptic, accepts friend Sir Jeremy Buggam's challenge to spend the night of 15th November at his family's haunted property on the Fens. The Grange has stood empty for fifty years save for Horrod, the ancient, deaf mute family butler, who Sir Jeremy retains to tend the occasional ghost-hunter. Digby puts up in the tower room, where sure enough, the spectre of Buggan Duggam, wrongfully executed for the murder of his cousin, walks at midnight .....

Robert Benchley - A Trip to Spirit Land: (? 1924). Confessions of a phony medium. Dr. Rariborous famous "flying leg" manifestation exposed.

Ambrose Bierce - The Clothing of Ghosts: (? 1902; Tangential Views, 1911). Reasonably asks why ghosts invariably dress for haunting. How and where do they procure phantom fabrics? Also, why aren't they bald?

Kenneth Graham - The Ghost Aristocracy: (National Observer, Nov. 1892). essay in defense of ghosts who, for all that they have some unattractive habits, are no more annoying than one's fellow man.

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Richard Harris Barham - The Spectre of Tappington: (Bentley's Miscellany, 2. February 1837). Christmas at Tappinton Everard Manor House, Kent. Night after night, someone - or something - steals into young Lieutenant Charles Seaforth's bedroom and makes away with his breeches. What is the spirit world coming to? Suspicion falls on the spectre of the Bad Sir Giles - or could it be that Seaforth's fiancée, Caroline, has turned terrifying trouser thief? Suspecting a human agency at work, Thomas Ingoldsby conceals himself in Seaforth's room, await's the culprit's next move.

Charles Dickens - The Lawyer and the Ghost: Why, with all the beauty spots on earth to choose from, do ghosts persist in returning to the places that brought them misery?

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Peter Newell

John Kendrick Bangs - Ghosts That Have Haunted Me: (Harper's Weekly Magazine, 19 Dec., 1896). As a rule, the author gets on well with visitors from beyond the veil, though there are occasional exceptions. Cases in point, the xenophobic ghost in the haunted chamber at Brokedale Hall - "Race of low-class animals, those Americans - only fit for gentlemen's stables, you know" - and the loquacious not-so-phantom phantom who visited Bangs at home on Christmas Eve - and made away with the family silver.

Robert Bloch - The Indian Spirit Guide: (Weird Tales, Nov. 1948). Meet Orlando Crown, famous ghost hunter and self-styled scourge of fraudulent mediums. After publicly exposing "Mrs. Hubbard" for the phoney he is, Crown is invited by a Mrs. Brewster - one of Hubbard's swizzed clients - to attend the incredible Mrs. Prinn's next seance. It's Crown's misfortune that this particular medium is the real deal, while her spirit guide, 'Little Hatchet," has a very low tolerance of sceptics.

John Collier - Halfway to Hell: (The Devil and All, 1934). Thrown over by the lovely Celia, Louis Thurlow retires to his seedy London hotel room to overdose on pills. It is all very civilised - until a fiend shows up with instructions to escort him to the fiery pit. Louis's only hope is to detain the Devil's messenger in the Rat Trap Club and get him smashed on the fearsome house brandy. An insanely jolly tale of temporarily unrequited love and bodged suicide.

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Of course I was disgusted by this exhibition of petty revenge and low malice on the part of Barnjum, which might be tolerated perhaps in a Christmas annual, with a full-page illustration, but which, in real life and the height of summer, was a glaring anachronism.

F. Anstey - The Wraith of Barnjum: (Temple Bar, March 1879). London lawyer Philiburt Bunting and hated pretend friend Barnjum share a hiking holiday in Wales. When the latter becomes insufferable, Bunting pushes him over a precipice on Cader Idris. He is subsequently driven to ruin by a spectral one-man fancy dress party.

Its choice of garments struck me even then as decidedly unusual. I am not narrow; I cheerfully allow that, assuming the necessity for apparitions at all, it is well that they should be clothed in robes of some kind; but Barnjum's ghost delighted in a combination of costume which set the fitness of things at defiance.

It wore that evening, for instance, to the best of my recollection, striped pantaloons, a surplice, and an immense cocked hat; but on subsequent occasions its changes of costume were so rapid and eccentric, that I ceased to pay much attention to them, and could only explain them on the supposition that somewhere in space there exists a supernatural store in the nature of a theatrical wardrobe, and that Barnjum's ghost had the run of it.

Financially embarrassed and driven from his chambers, Bunting believes he's hit rock bottom, only for a second Barnjum - this one a rather more substantial proposition - to put in an appearance.

O. Henry - The Ghost of a Chance: (Sixes and Sevens, 1911). Mrs. Kinsolving is distraught when Mrs. Fischer-Suympkins maliciously informs all and sundry that the guest room at Clifftop is haunted by the ghost of a common pipe-smoking hod-carrier! The shame of it! Never again will she dare show her face in polite circles! If only the resident spook were that of the illustrious Captain Kinsolving who fought in General Greene’s army during the War of Independence. Young Terence, who dotes on his mother, and a family friend, Mrs. Bellmore, conspire to resurrect the war hero and thereby restore her social standing.