Other Ghost Stories Online

M.R.James, by his own confession,devoured tales of the supernatural. He certainly read some of the classic tales which follow, (his comments on them appear in quotes) if not all of them.For their presence on the Web we must, in many cases, thank Gaslight, a discussion group based at Mount Royal College, Canada, which posts selected writings as subjects for debate by its members. It now has a marvellous collection of (mostly nineteenth-century) texts. Another treasure house of texts is The Literary Gothic which I recommend to every visitor of this site.

Louisa Baldwin
"How he left the hotel"

E.F. Benson
"Among the collections of short stories, E.F. Benson's three volumes rank high, though to my mind he sins occasionally by stepping over the line of legitimate horridness."
The Room in the Tower

Algernon Blackwood
The Man Whom the Trees Loved
The Willows

Mrs Braddon
The Cold Embrace

Mary Cholmondeley
Let Loose

F.Marion Crawford
"...his horrid story 'The Upper Berth', which (with 'The Screaming Skull' some distance behind) is the best in his collection Uncanny Tales,and stands high among ghost stories in general"
The Upper Berth
The Screaming Skull

Charles Dickens
The Signal-Man

William Hope Hodgson
Carnacki the Ghostfinder
This is a selection of several tales from the title collection. All of them present a bizarre mix of science and the supernatural. Carnacki is a kind of psychic sleuth; his quasi-materialistic view of the supernatural may have influenced H.P.Lovecraft, and definitely influenced Dennis Wheatley, who adapted his pentacle-lore bag and baggage.

W.W. Jacobs
The Monkey's Paw

Sheridan Le Fanu
"Upon mature consideration, I do not think that there are better ghost stories anywhere than the best of Le Fanu's"
James never swerved from his high opinion of this Irish writer's work, and in many ways Le Fanu's carefully understated style was the model for his own. The fact that collections of Le Fanu's stories (In a Glass Darkly, Madame Crowle's Ghost) are still in print is due largely to the efforts of James, who edited the latter in 1923, leading to the current revival.
Mr Justice Harbottle
An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street
Carmilla,
Green Tea.

Rudyard Kipling
They

Perceval Landon
Thurnley Abbey

Lord Bulwer Lytton
The Haunted and the Haunters

Arthur Machen
The Great God Pan
The White People

E. Nesbit
Man-size in Marble

Oliver Onions
The Beckoning Fair One

Sir Walter Scott
The Tapestried Chamber
Wandering Willie's Tale

Bram Stoker
The Judge's House
This tale from the creator of Dracula seems to have been inspired by LeFanu's 'Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street'.

Edith Wharton
Tales of Men and Ghosts
An anthology of ten stories.

This page was last updated on the 1st April 2002.