The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FOREWORD

1. RAISING SPECTRES: The Modern Tradition

“OH WHISTLE, AND I’LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD”

M. R. James

THE HOUSE AT TREHEALE

A. C. Benson

THE RICHPINS

E. G. Swain

THE EVERLASTING CLUB

Arthur Gray

NUMBER SEVENTY-NINE

A. N. L. Munby

2. GHOST WRITERS: The “Golden Era”

PLAYING WITH FIRE

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

THE HOUSE SURGEON

Rudyard Kipling

THE GROVE OF ASHTAROTH

John Buchan

A MAN FROM GLASGOW

Somerset Maugham

THE LAST LAUGH

D. H. Lawrence

THE VISIT TO THE MUSEUM

Vladimir Nabokov

3. PHANTOM RANKS: Supernatural at War

THE BOWMEN

Arthur Machen

THE GHOST OF U65

George Minto

“VENGEANCE IS MINE”

Algernon Blackwood

THE PUNISHMENT

Lord Dunsany

THE HAUNTED CHATEAU

Dennis Wheatley

PINK MAY

Elizabeth Bowen

A GREMLIN IN THE BEER

Derek Barnes

MONEY FOR JAM

Sir Alec Guinness

4. THE GHOST-FEELERS: Modern Gothic Tales

THE LADY’S MAID’S BELL

Edith Wharton

THE DUENNA

Marie Belloc Lowndes

CLYTIE

Eudora Welty

THE POOL

Daphne du Maurier

A SPOT OF GOTHIC

Jane Gardam

5. ENTERTAINING SPOOKS: Supernatural High Jinks

THE INEXPERIENCED GHOST

H G. Wells

FULL FATHOM FIVE

Alexander Woollcott

THE NIGHT THE GHOST GOT IN

James Thurber

SIR TRISTRAM GOES WEST

Eric Keown

WHO OR WHAT WAS IT?

Kingsley Amis

ANOTHER FINE MESS

Ray Bradbury

6. CHRISTMAS SPIRITS: Festive Season Chillers

ONLY A DREAM . . .

Rider Haggard

THE HAUNTED HOUSE

Edith Nesbit

THE LIGHT IN THE GARDEN

E. F. Benson

THE PRESCRIPTION

Marjorie Bowen

CHRISTMAS HONEYMOON

Howard Spring

SOUTH SEA BUBBLE

Hammond Innes

RINGING IN THE GOOD NEWS

Peter Ackroyd

7. HAUNTING TIMES: Tales of Unease

SMOKE GHOST

Fritz Leiber

THE GHOST

A. E. Van Vogt

THE PARTY

William F. Nolan

UNDERGROUND

J. B. Priestley

HAUNTED

Joyce Carol Oates

VIDEO NASTY

Philip Pullman

MY BEAUTIFUL HOUSE

Louis de Bernières

APPENDIX: A Century of Ghost Novels 1900–2000