The Open Door - Phoenix Short Stories

[The Lurker In The Shadows]

THE OPEN DOOR and other ghost stories - Selected by Philip Gooden (Phoenix Paperbacks, 1999)

Contents -

Note on the Editor
Introduction

Margaret Oliphant - The Open Door
Ambrose Bierce - The Middle Toe of the Right Foot
Sheridan LeFanu - Schalken the Painter
Richard Middleton - The Ghost-Ship
Henry James - Owen Wingrave
John Fuller - The Smallest Ghost in the World
Kate Chopin - The Lady of Bayou St John
Perceval Landon - Thurnley Abbey
Edith Wharton - The Triumph of Night
Charles Dickens - The Hanged Man's Bride
Edith Nesbitt - Man-Size in Marble
Walter Scott - Wandering Willie's Tale
F. Marion Crawford - The Upper Berth
Saki - The Open Window

Acknowledgements

(According to the Notes, Philip Gooden teaches in the English Dept of Kingswood School, Bath, co-edited the Everyman edition of "Frankenstein" and "A Warning to the Curious and other stories" also by Phoenix Paperbacks.)

There were a couple of these Phoenix anthologies to be found in bargain outlets like The Works a few years back. Aside from this one, I picked up the H.G. Wells collection, "The Red Room and other stories", though I strangely neglected to get the M.R. James one (possibly thinking to myself I have the complete collection anyway, a thought that scarcely ever puts me off).

[dem bones]

Feb 16, 2009 20:00:37 GMT The Lurker In The Shadows said:

According to the Notes, Philip Gooden teaches in the English Dept of Kingswood School, Bath, co-edited the Everyman edition of "Frankenstein" and "A Warning to the Curious and other stories" also by Phoenix Paperbacks.

The mostly over-familiar contents ever so slightly scream Everyman editions but this would make a lovely gift for someone who wants to find out whether ghost stories are really their thing or not. Most unlike you to pass on an MRJ, lurks! Was it suffering from deadly uninspired cover illustration syndrome?

[The Lurker In The Shadows]

Feb 17, 2009 19:51:59 GMT dem bones said:

Most unlike you to pass on an MRJ, lurks! Was it suffering from deadly uninspired cover illustration syndrome?

No, it was actually quite a nice cover, an old house seen in the distance across a misty field. Here it is;

www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/c0/c605.jpg

I don't think my utter obsession with old Monty had quite kicked in then, given how many different editions I now have with identical contents. I've got quite a few of the inexpensive Penguin and Wordsworth editions so I can always shove one in a pocket if I'm travelling... something I'm not about to do with my Ash Tree Press "A Pleasing Terror"!

I think the "Open Door" collection was my first encounter with "The Upper Berth", which I thought was pretty creepy, if memory serves. This collection also seems to be the only book I could locate on my shelves with "Schalken the Painter", which I'd been looking to re-read recently.