The Big Book of Ghost Stories

Zusatztext "Volumes of frightfulness. . . . No one should go through life (let alone death) without experiencing W.W. Jacobs’s 'The Monkey’s Paw!' Perceval Landon’s 'Thurnley Abbey!' Ambrose Bierce’s 'The Moonlit Road' and M.R. James’s 'Oh! Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad.' But Penzler also includes many stories that should be equally well known. This year! for instance! I read for the first time Ellen Glasgow’s 'The Shadowy Third'."     --Michael Dirda! The Washington Post "If you enjoy! as I have since childhood! a great ghost story well told! this book is required reading."     --Charles McNair! Paste Magazine "Wonderful. . . . A list on your computer is one thing. A big! fat! juicy! paperback anthology like this is something else altogether."     -- The Buffalo News (editor's choice) "Jam packed with enough classic horror and otherworldly stories to keep you having nightmares through the month of October. . . . This collection of short stories coupled with eerie vintage illustrations is a must-have for the nightstand. The only thing that can make it better is a flashlight under the covers."     -- The Long Island Press "This mountain-sized omnibus contains every wrinkle of the form you could ever want. . . . There’s enough in this volume to please both dilettantes and devotees among ghost story readers."     --Publishers Weekly "Penzler has done an excellent job of collecting interesting! unnerving! and fascinating stories as well as providing nifty tidbits in the introductions. Reading most of these stories just before trying to sleep! though! is not recommended."     --Booklist Informationen zum Autor Edited with an Introduction by Otto Penzler Klappentext A spirited Black Lizard anthology with over a thousand pages of haunted-and haunting-ghost tales. Includes eerie vintage ghost illustrations. The ghost story is perhaps the oldest of all the supernatural literary genres and has captured the imagination of almost every writer to put pen to the page. Here, Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler has followed his keen sense of the supernatural to collect the most chilling and uncanny tales in the canon. These spectral stories span more than a hundred years, from modern-day horrors by Joyce Carol Oates, Chet Williamson and Andrew Klavan, to pulp yarns from August Derleth, Greye La Spina, and M. L. Humphreys, to the atmospheric Victorian tales of Rudyard Kipling, Edith Wharton, and H. P. Lovecraft, not to mention modern works by the likes of Donald E. Westlake and Isaac Asimov that are already classics. Some of these stories have haunted the canon for a century, while others are making their first ghoulish appearance in book form. Whether you prefer possessive poltergeists, awful apparitions, or friendly phantoms, these stories are guaranteed to thrill you, tingle the spine, or tickle the funny bone, and keep you turning the pages with fearful delight. Including such classics as "The Monkey's Paw" and "The Open Window" and eerie vintage illustrations, and also featuring haunted mansions, midnight frights, lovers from beyond the grave, rapping, tapping, wailing shades, and ghosts, ghouls, and specters galore! AlsoFeaturing haunted mansions, midnight frights, lovers from beyond the grave, rapping, tapping, wailing shades, and ghosts, ghouls, and specters galore! Introduction   By Otto Penzler   Tales of the supernatural have been a fixture of the storytelling tradition since preliterate times, and the most popular form they have taken is the ghost story. This should not be at all surprising, as the fear of death and its aftermath has abided in the breasts of humans ever since they became cognizant of what it meant to no longer be alive in the manner in which it is traditionally understood. Animals, down to the most primitive invertebr...

List of contents

BUT I M NOT DEAD YET
Conrad Aiken: Mr. Arcularis
William Fryer Harvey: August Heat
 
I LL LOVE YOU FOREVER (OR MAYBE NOT)
Ellen Glasgow: The Shadowy Third
Ellen Glasgow: The Past
David Morrell: But At My Back I Always Hear
O. Henry: The Furnished Room
Paul Ernst: Death s Warm Fireside
Andrew Klavan: The Advent Reunion
R. Murray Gilchrist: The Return
Rudyard Kipling: The Phantom Rickshaw
Ambrose Bierce: The Moonlit Road
Lafcadio Hearn: The Story of Ming-Y
Lafcadio Hearn: Yuki-Onna
 
THIS OLD HOUSE
Amyas Northcote: Brickett Bottom
E. F. Benson: How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery
G. G. Pendarves: Thing of Darkness
Edward Lucas White: The House of the Nightmare
Hector Bolitho: The House on Half Moon Street
Dick Donovan: A Night of Horror
Vincent O sullivan: The Burned House
 
KIDS WILL BE KIDS
Rosemary Timperley: Harry
Michael Reaves: Make-Believe
A. M. Burrage: Playmates
Ramsey Campbell: Just Behind You
A. E. Coppard: Adam And Eve and Pinch Me
Steve Friedman: The Lost Boy of the Ozarks
 
THERE S SOMETHING FUNNY AROUND HERE
Mark Twain: A Ghost s Story
Donald E. Westlake: In At The Death
Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Ghost of Dr. Harris
Ingulphus : The Everlasting Club
Isaac Asimov and James Maccreigh: Legal Rites
Albert E. Cowdrey: Death Must Die
Frank Stockton: The Transferred Ghost
Oscar Wilde: The Canterville Ghost
 
A NEGATIVE TRAIN OF THOUGHT
August Derleth: Pacific 421
Robert Weinberg: The Midnight El
 
STOP YOU RE SCARING ME
Frederick Cowles: Punch and Judy
Henry S. Whitehead: The Fireplace
H. F. Arnold: The Night Wire 400
Fritz Leiber: Smoke Ghost 406
Wyatt Blassingame: Song of the Dead
 
I MUST BE DREAMING
Wilkie Collins: The Dream Woman 437
Washington Irving: The Adventure of the German Student
 
A SÉANCE, YOU SAY?
Joseph Shearing: They Found My Grave
Edgar Jepson: Mrs. Morrel s Last Séance
Joyce Carol Oates: Night-Side
 
CLASSICS
M. R. James: Oh, Whistle and I ll Come To You My Lad
W. W. Jacobs: The Monkey s Paw
W. W. Jacobs: The Toll-House
Edith Wharton: Afterward
Willa Cather: Consequences
Cynthia Asquith: The Follower
Cynthia Asquith: The Corner Shop
H. P. Lovecraft: The Terrible Old Man
Erckmann-Chatrian: The Murderer s Violin
Saki: The Open Window
Saki: Laura
Fitz-James O Brien: What Was It?
Alexander Woollcott: Full Fathom Five
H. R. Wakefield: He Cometh and He Passeth By
Perceval Landon: Thurnley Abbey
 
THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES
Algernon Blackwood: The Woman s Ghost Story
Victor Rousseau: The Angel of the Marne
Olivia Howard Dunbar: The Shell of Sense
Marjorie Bowen: The Avenging of Ann Leete
 
BEATEN TO A PULP
Greye La Sp

Report

"Volumes of frightfulness. . . . No one should go through life (let alone death) without experiencing W.W. Jacobs s 'The Monkey s Paw,' Perceval Landon s 'Thurnley Abbey,' Ambrose Bierce s 'The Moonlit Road' and M.R. James s 'Oh, Whistle and I ll Come to You My Lad.' But Penzler also includes many stories that should be equally well known. This year, for instance, I read for the first time Ellen Glasgow s 'The Shadowy Third'."
    The Washington Post

"If you enjoy, as I have since childhood, a great ghost story well told, this book is required reading."
    Paste Magazine

"Wonderful. . . . A list on your computer is one thing. A big, fat, juicy, paperback anthology like this is something else altogether."
     The Buffalo News (editor's choice)

"Jam packed with enough classic horror and otherworldly stories to keep you having nightmares through the month of October. . . . This collection of short stories coupled with eerie vintage illustrations is a must-have for the nightstand. The only thing that can make it better is a flashlight under the covers."
     The Long Island Press

"This mountain-sized omnibus contains every wrinkle of the form you could ever want. . . . There s enough in this volume to please both dilettantes and devotees among ghost story readers."
  Publishers Weekly

"Penzler has done an excellent job of collecting interesting, unnerving, and fascinating stories as well as providing nifty tidbits in the introductions. Reading most of these stories just before trying to sleep, though, is not recommended."
  Booklist

Product details

• Authors: Otto Penzler
• Assisted by: Otto Penzler (Editor)
• Publisher: Vintage USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.09.2012
• EAN: 9780307474490
• ISBN: 978-0-307-47449-0
• No. of pages: 848
• Dimensions: 178 mm x 233 mm x 38 mm
• Series: VINTAGE BOOKS; Vintage crime/Black Lizard; Vintage crime/Black Lizard
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature