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Post by dem bones on Jun 13, 2016 13:00:59 GMT
Louise Welsh [ed.] - Ghost: 100 Stories To Read With The Lights On (Head of Zeus, 2015) Introduction
Pliny the Younger - The Haunted House Anon - Daniel Crowley And The Ghosts Robert Burns - Tam O'Shanter Brothers Grimm - The Singing Bone Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - Captain Walton's Final Letter Sir Walter Scott - Wandering Willie's Tale James Hogg - The Mysterious Bride Charlotte Bronté - Napoleon And The Spectre Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Minister's Black Veil Edgar Allan Poe - The Tell-Tale Heart Charles Dickens - Christmas Ghosts Wilkie Collins - A Terribly Strange Bed Elizabeth Gaskell - The Old Nurses Story Mark Twain - Cannibalism In The Cars Sheridan le Fanu - Madam Crowl's Ghost Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Bobok: From Somebody's Diary Auguste Villiers de L.’lsle-Adam - The Very Image Bram Stoker - Dracula's Guest Henry James - The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes Anton Chekhov - A Bad Business Oscar Wilde - The Canterville Ghost Thomas Hardy - The Withered Arm Rudyard Kipling - My Own True Ghost Story E. Nesbit - John Charrington's Wedding Robert Louis Stevenson - Thrawn Janet Charlotte Perkins Gilman - The Yellow Wall-Paper Jerome K. Jerome - The Dancing Partner Robert W. Chambers - The Yellow Sign W. W. Jacobs - The Monkey's Paw Jonas Lie - Elias And The Draug Emile Zola - Angeline, Or The Haunted House H. G. Wells - The Inexperienced Ghost Mary Wilkins Freeman - The Wind In The Rose-Bush Guy de Maupassant - A Tress Of Hair M. R. James - 'Oh Whistle And I'll Come To You, My Lad' Mary Austin - The Readjustment Ambrose Bierce - The Stranger Oliver Onions - The Rocker F. Marion Crawford - The Doll's Ghost E. F. Benson - The Room In The Tower Richard Middleton - On The Brighton Road Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - How It Happened Arthur Machen - The Bowmen Saki - The Open Window Edith Wharton - The Lady's Maid's Bell H. P. Lovecraft - The Terrible Old Man Richard Crompton - The Ghost May Sinclair - The Nature Of The Evidence D. H. Lawrence - The Rocking-Horse Winner Virginia Woolf - A Haunted House P. G. Wodehouse - Honeysuckle Cottage Graham Greene - The Second Death William Faulkner - A Rose For Emily Franz Kafka - The Hunter Graccus Zora Neale Hurston - High Walker And Bloody Bones Dylan Thomas - The Vest W. Somerset Maugham - A Man From Glasgow Elizabeth Bowen - The Demon Lover Sir Alex Guinness - Money For Jam Stevie Smith - Is There Life Beyond The Gravy? Ray Bradbury - Mars Is Heaven! Shirley Jackson - The Tooth Flann O'Brien - Two In One Yukio Mishima - Swaddling Clothes Rosemary Timperley - Harry Muriel Spark - The Girl I Left Behind Elizabeth Taylor - Poor Girl Richard Brautigan - Memory Of A Girl Tove Jansson - Black-White Stephen King - The Mangler J. G. Ballard - The Dead Astronaut Robert Nye - Randal Ruth Rendell - The Vinegar Mother Jean Rhys - I Used To Live Here Once William Trevor - The Death Of Peggy Meehan Truman Capote - A Beautiful Child Louise Erdrich - Fleur Tim O'Brien - The Lives Of The Dead Jewelle Gomez - Off-Broadway: 1971 Margaret Atwood - Death By Landscape Angela Carter - Ashputtle Or The Mother's Ghost Kazuo Ishiguro - The Gourmet Tananarive Due - Prologue, 1963 Joyce Carol Oates - Nobody Knows My Name Hilary Mantel - Terminus Kelly Link - The Specialist's Hat Phyllis Alesia Perry - Stigmata Ali Smith - The Hanging Girl Kate Atkinson - Temporal Anomaly Haruki Murakami - The Mirror Lydia Davis - The Strangers Annie Proulx - The Sagebrush Kid Jackie Kay - The White Cot Ben Okri - Belonging Adam Marek - Dinner Of The Dead Alumni Michael Marshall Smith - Sad, Dark Thing Joanne Rush - Guests Helen Simpson - The Festival Of The Immortals Fay Weldon - Grandpa's Ghost James Robertson - Ghost
Extended CopyrightBlurb: Haunted houses, mysterious Counts, weeping widows and restless souls, here is the definitive anthology of all that goes bump in the night. Hand-picked by award-winning author Louise Welsh, this beautiful collection of 1OO ghost stories will delight, unnerve, and entertain any fiction lover brave enough...
Here are gothic classics, modern masters, Booker Prize—winners, ancient folk tales and stylish noirs, proving that every writer has a skeleton or two in their closet.Loaned from library, 790+ pages, needed a skip to get it home. Selection suggests a cross between Roald Dahl's Book Of Ghost Stories and Robert Phillips' Omnibus Of 20th Century Ghost Stories by way of Richard Dalby. RRP is £20 should you be interested.
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Post by mattofthespurs on Jun 14, 2016 6:37:30 GMT
Based on this thread I have just purchased this book from Wordery (via Amazon) for £12. Thanks for the heads up Dem
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Post by dem bones on Jun 14, 2016 7:21:30 GMT
Interesting line-up for sure.
Have been very curmudgeonly about local libraries mutating into 'idea stores,' but fair dos, both the Whitechapel IS and it's tiny Watney Market counterpart have designated "Horror" sections. Incredibly, the former is currently showcasing 'Gothic literature' - pretty modest display, no real surprises among the selections, but highly commendable all the same. And the staff are lovely.
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Post by ripper on Jul 7, 2016 9:39:35 GMT
Out of curiosity I checked our county's library stock online and lo and behold--and to my surprise--there are copies available so I may well give this one a go. There are lots of familiar tales but just as many that I have not read. One thing that continually surprises and mildly annoys me is the inclusion of stories like "A Terribly Strange Bed" and "The Dancing Partner" in anthologies of ghost stories. I am really not sure why this is done. I remember reading "A Terribly Strange Bed" for the first time in a volume of ghost stories and being perplexed as to why it had been included.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 7, 2016 10:40:00 GMT
One thing that continually surprises and mildly annoys me is the inclusion of stories like "A Terribly Strange Bed" and "The Dancing Partner" in anthologies of ghost stories. I am really not sure why this is done. I remember reading "A Terribly Strange Bed" for the first time in a volume of ghost stories and being perplexed as to why it had been included. Time is against me right now so I've been restricted to a mere cursory dip into this monumental volume, but have read enough of the unfamiliar [to me] material to warn you'll find more examples of same in Ghosts: 100 Stories. In her introduction, the editor explains why she's included the likes of Mark Twain's railway horror, Cannibalism In The Cars which, as title suggests, has nothing to do with ghosts. Jewelle Gomez's Off-Broadway: 1971 concerns the adventures of a black lesbian vampire. Emile Zola's Angeline, Or The Haunted House is a very cute anti-ghost story in that several people offer ghastly theories as to why Orgeval should be "haunted." Great story, but the pay-off comes as a rotten anti-climax.
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Post by ripper on Jul 8, 2016 7:34:38 GMT
I will probably loan this one. I am interested to see why the editor included non-ghost stories in her collection. I agree about Zola's story. I have seen it included in several ghost story anthologies over the years.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 21, 2016 7:26:47 GMT
P. G. Woodhouse - Honeysuckle Cottage: ( Saturday Evening Post, January 24, 1925). James Rodman, author of tough, manly detective thrillers with Chinese villains and no love interest, inherits the cottage and £5000 in cash from his late aunt, Leila J. Pickney (author of hugely popular "squashy sentimental" romantic novels) on condition he resides there for six months every year. Not to do so means he forfeits all.
James moves in and sets to completing The Secret Nine, his greatest work to date, but something dreadful happens. A soppy GIRL appears on the scene, a very beautiful girl at that. Rose Maynard is the type a fellow might fall for, and there-in lies the danger. Even James's hard-nosed agent - a man without a sentimental sinew in his body - is smitten with the baggage. Rose is a huge fan of Leila J. Pickney and tells James he increasingly reminds her of a romantic hero straight from the pages of his benefactor's risible Heather O' The Hills. The way he scooped her up in his arms and carried her indoors when she was knocked down outside the cottage .... His gallant rescue of her adorable little doggie, Toto, when he fell in the lake ...
It seems that Aunt Leila is still bent on manipulating James away from the righteous masculine path. To run now would be to lose his inheritance, but if he doesn't escape soon he might do something foolish like propose to the adorable creature!
Charming. Utterly charming.
Virginia Woolf - A Haunted House: A spectral pair return to their own home to check on their treasure. What is it (you'll never guess)? Will it still be there?
All of two pages duration, I struggle to finish this prose poem (?) every time. Proper literature. You're welcome to it.
Mark Twain - Cannibalism In The Cars: Blackly comic variation on events depicted in Théodore Géricault's painting, The Raft of the Medusa. A gaga former congressman recalls his macabre adventure aboard a snowbound train during the winter of 1853. A week stranded on the line somewhere between St. Louis and Chicago, the starving passengers form a committee to debate which of them should be eaten. No ghost.
Émile Zola - Angeline, or The Haunted House: Zola resolves to establish the truth behind an alleged haunting at Orgeval. Depending on which version you believe, the ghost in question, twelve year old Angeline de G ----- , was either murdered by her wicked stepmother, buried under the floorboards by her father, or took her own life in a fit of despair.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 23, 2016 9:22:30 GMT
Anton Chekhov - A Bad Business: Timofey the cemetery warden is lured from his post by a old self-styled pilgrim seeking his way out in the dark. Timofey initially suspects the old fool is one of the native drunks who wander the night, but his kind nature gets the better of him. We think the pilgrim is the ghost of a local locksmith who hung himself during carnival week. A light flickers in the church. Turns out we were both wrong.
Jean Rhys - I Used To Live Here Once: The woman makes her way to her old home. Some things have changed, and there's a car parked outside, but it is still recognisably the place she used to live. She tries to engage two children in conversation ....
Muriel Spark - The Girl I Left Behind: The commute home. Manic Mr. Letter of Screw & Nails Ltd, has been behaving more oddly than usual today, twiddling his tie and carrying on so much that our narrator is all a fret that she left something important behind at the office. It's no good. She won't be able to sleep tonight unless she goes back and checks, which she does.
Oh, that's what it was!
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gilmore
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 27
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Post by gilmore on Nov 20, 2018 13:58:45 GMT
I have also lugged this spine wrecker home from the library. For me, the main interest of the collection was the chance to read Kazuo Ishiguro's screenplay for The Gourmet. This tells the story of a world-class gourmand who, having sampled every conceivable meal this world has to offer, sets his sights on the spirit world in pursuit of the next dish with which to thrill his jaded palate. I saw the play, which features Charles Grey in imperious form, when it was first broadcast in the mid-80s and have been after a copy of it for years, but it continues to elude me.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Nov 20, 2018 14:45:33 GMT
I have also lugged this spine wrecker home from the library. For me, the main interest of the collection was the chance to read Kazuo Ishiguro's screenplay for The Gourmet. This tells the story of a world-class gourmand who, having sampled every conceivable meal this world has to offer, sets his sights on the spirit world in pursuit of the next dish with which to thrill his jaded palate. I saw the play, which features Charles Grey in imperious form, when it was first broadcast in the mid-80s and have been after a copy of it for years, but it continues to elude me. I never bothered with this anthology. There are too many familiar stories and others by "literary" authors for me.
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gilmore
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 27
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Post by gilmore on Nov 20, 2018 21:42:37 GMT
I never bothered with this anthology. There are too many familiar stories and others by "literary" authors for me. I wouldn't have risked a hernia in this case had it not been for the surprising inclusion of 'The Gourmet'. I've noticed several recent ghostly anthologies in Waterstone's with disappointingly familiar contents that it makes me wonder who they're all intended for.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Nov 21, 2018 13:38:14 GMT
I never bothered with this anthology. There are too many familiar stories and others by "literary" authors for me. I wouldn't have risked a hernia in this case had it not been for the surprising inclusion of 'The Gourmet'. I've noticed several recent ghostly anthologies in Waterstone's with disappointingly familiar contents that it makes me wonder who they're all intended for. New (i.e., young) readers?
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Post by ripper on Nov 21, 2018 17:43:53 GMT
I wouldn't have risked a hernia in this case had it not been for the surprising inclusion of 'The Gourmet'. I've noticed several recent ghostly anthologies in Waterstone's with disappointingly familiar contents that it makes me wonder who they're all intended for. New (i.e., young) readers? There do seem to be a fair few aimed at casual readers who may not be at all familiar with ghost stories. After reading and collecting a reasonably large number of ghost stories down the years, I now find myself weighing up whether to purchase a volume based on how many stories I do not already have. I feel very reluctant to pay out for a book for which I already have most of the stories elsewhere. Consequently, I have found that I don't buy nearly so many books as I did a few years ago.
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gilmore
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 27
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Post by gilmore on Nov 22, 2018 12:53:56 GMT
It's a shame that the casual reader and the collector seem to be mutually exclusive more often than not. These days, I'm more inclined to buy an anthology of this type if the book is a nice thing to have in its own right. I quite like what the British Library is doing with its Tales of the Weird line. The books are very nicely packaged, I think, and the editors seem to get the contents right more often than not.
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Post by mattofthespurs on Nov 22, 2018 15:52:03 GMT
Clicked on this thread and saw the book and thought; 'Oooo must get that'.
Then looked at the next post down...
Now where the f*ck did I put that!?
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