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Post by andydecker on Nov 8, 2012 13:21:30 GMT
The Ghost Story Megapack - 25 Classic Tales by Masters
Ebook - 2011 by Wildside press
Content:
AT CHRIGHTON ABBEY, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
THE HAUNTED MILL, by Jerome K. Jerome
THE GHOST CLUB, by John Kendrick Bangs
THE SHADOWS OF THE DEAD, by Louis Becke
THE ROOM IN THE TOWER, by E. F. Benson
THE HAUNTED AND THE HAUNTERS, by Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton
THE MIDDLE BEDROOM, by H. de Vere Stacpoole
THE DRUMMER GHOST, by John William DeForest
MISS JÉROMETTE AND THE CLERGYMAN, by Wilkie Collins
THE SPECTRE BRIDE, by William Harrison Ainsworth
THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER; or, The Lady in the Square, by Sir Walter Scott
THE OLD NURSE’S STORY, by Elizabeth Gaskell
THE JUDGE’S HOUSE, by Bram Stoker
AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE, by Rudyard Kipling
THE WITHERED ARM, by Thomas Hardy
JOHN CHARRINGTON’S WEDDING, by Edith Nesbit
THE MAN OF SCIENCE, by Jerome K. Jerome
WHAT DID MISS DARRINGTON SEE? by Emma B. Cobb
A GHOST STORY, by Mark Twain
THE SOUL OF ROSE DÉDÉ, by M.E.M. Davis
THE HOUSE OF THE NIGHTMARE, by Edward Lucas White
REALITY OR DELUSION? by Mrs Henry Wood
FISHER’S GHOST, by John Lang
THROUGH THE IVORY GATE, by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
THE COLD EMBRACE, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon"
As I know next to nothing about classic ghost tales, how would the experts rate this collection? Compared to the Lovecraft edition this seems to be public domain stories only.
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Post by Dr Strange on Nov 8, 2012 15:29:46 GMT
I'm no expert, but there are some good, faithful, old standards (Benson, Bulwer-Lytton, Nesbit, etc.) and some I don't recognize straightaway (Becke, Stacpoole, Davis, Lang, Andrews). Nice to see Hardy's The Withered Arm in there, which I read at a very young age - not strictly a ghost story, but full of old British folk-horror.
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Post by dem on Nov 8, 2012 22:43:23 GMT
While we await that elusive *xp*rt, will go along with Dr. Strange. This looks a solid Victorian-Edwardian starter pack for sure, infuriating for long-time fans in that they already have the stories by Braddon, Scott, Nesbit, Stoker (to name but four) over and over, but will still want to read the less familiar titles (in my case it's Becke, DeForest, Stacpoole, Davis, Andrews. i'm sure James will set me straight if i'm wrong, but Fisher's Ghost is regarded as the first Aus supernatural story in print?). Couldn't resist adding the cover which, by e-book standards, isn't the worst. Dr. Strange. Have you read Hardy's Barbara Of The House Of Glebe? |
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Post by jamesdoig on Nov 8, 2012 22:58:18 GMT
i'm sure James will set me straight if i'm wrong, but Fisher's Ghost is regarded as the first Aus supernatural story in print?). Dead right! Though the guy who wrote it tried to pass it off as fact. |
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Post by Dr Strange on Nov 9, 2012 10:53:33 GMT
Dr. Strange. Have you read Hardy's Barbara Of The House Of Glebe? I hadn't read it, but found it online and finished it just now. Hardy certainly seems to have had a strong morbid side to his personality. |
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Post by dem on Nov 9, 2012 11:49:00 GMT
I hadn't read it, but found it online and finished it just now. Hardy certainly seems to have had a strong morbid side to his personality. We were force-fed Far From The Madding Crowd at school, and after spectacularly blowing my Eng. Lit 'O' level - and with it, any faint hope of college - all I could think was "at least I'll never have to read that boring bastard again in my life." Years later, Chris Baldick includes Barbara Of The House Of Glebe in The Oxford Book Of Gothic Tales, and damned if I didn't love every word. Not seen a copy, but Peter Haining edited a 20 story volume The Supernatural Tales Of Thomas Hardy for Foulsham in 1988). Knowing Mr. Haining, that 'supernatural' might be stretching it a bit in some instances, but The Grave By The Handpost qualifies as macabre lit (I put two blue asterisks against it signifying 'good'), though it hasn't left as strong an impression as Barbara .. (little has: bestowed it a rare two reds) or The Withered Arm (one red). |
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Post by Dr Strange on Nov 9, 2012 14:18:15 GMT
Here's a listing for Haining's collection of Hardy - have to say none of the others ring any bells with me except (possibly) The Grave By The Handpost, which I think I also may have read once somewhere. And I doubt whether any story called The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid or What The Shepherd Saw could ever live up to my expectations...
The Supernatural Tales of Thomas Hardy (Foulsham 0-572-01489-9, Dec ’88, £9.95, 288pp) edited and introduced by Peter Haining.
5 · Introduction · Peter Haining
9 · What the Shepherd Saw
25 · The Three Strangers
41 · The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid
103 · Ancient Earthworks and What Two Enthusiastic Scientists Found There [aka “Ancient Earthworks at Casterbridge”]
112 · Maumbury Ring
116 · The Mock Wife
118 · A Mere Interlude
142 · The Withered Arm
163 · Barbara of the House of Grebe
186 · The Doctor’s Legend
194 · The Superstitious Man’s Story
198 · Netty Sargent’s Copyhold
203 · The Fiddler of the Reels
216 · An Imaginative Woman
234 · The Spectre of the Real
253 · A Committee-Man of ‘The Terror’
263 · The Grave by the Handpost
272 · A Changed Man
286 · A Christmas Ghost-Story
287 · A Christmas Ghost-Story (To the Editor of the Daily Chronicle)
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Post by jayaprakash on Nov 10, 2012 11:50:49 GMT
Thomas Hardy wrote supernatural tales too? Of course I should have realised he would as most writers of his era tried their hand at the genre, will be looking these up.
ETA: It's very likely I've read 'The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid'.
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Post by ramseycampbell on Nov 15, 2012 10:08:58 GMT
"The Three Strangers" certainly isn't supernatural! Indeed, when I read it in my teens - in Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural - I didn't think it was a tale of terror either. Good story, though.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Aug 27, 2015 12:32:08 GMT
As mentioned elsewhere, I picked up The Penguin Book Of English Short Stories at the hospital recently, partly because I was surprised to see a couple of horror-related tales included. First story was The Signalman which I'm sure you all know, but second was The Withered Arm. Quite fascinating. I didn't see the bleedin' obvious until later in the tale, but was engrossed in Rhoda's dream, the effect on the arm, the elderly magician, and the unfortunate ending.
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Post by Dr Strange on Aug 27, 2015 18:48:40 GMT
The Withered Arm is one of my favourite short stories ever, I just love that whole folk-horror thing - I think I am going to have to read it again soon.
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Post by ripper on Aug 29, 2015 12:15:12 GMT
Back in 1973, the BBC produced a very creditable dramatisation of 'The Withered Arm' in their anthology of Hardy stories, 'Wessex Tales', with Edward Hardwicke and Billie Whitelaw. I seem to remember that schools sometimes screened it to pupils studying the story when video recorders became available later on.
There are now, I think, around half a dozen of those Ghost Story Megapacks. They tend to be a mixture of the familiar and the more obscure. For those wanting to build up a collection of ghost stories at a reasonable price, I think they are not a bad buy.
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