Product Description

The Victorians excelled at telling ghost stories. In an age of rapid scientific progress the idea of a vindictive past able to reach out and violate the present held a special potential for terror. Throughout the nineteenth century fictional ghost stories developed in parallel with the more general Victorian fascination with death and what lay beyond it. Though they were as much a part of the cultural and literary fabric of the age as imperial confidence, the best of them still retain their original power to surprise and unsettle. The editors map out the development of the ghost story from 1850 to the early years of the twentieth century and demonstrate the importance of this form of short fiction in Victorian popular culture. As well as reprinting stories by supernatural specialists such as J. S. Le Fanu and M. R. James, this selection also emphasizes the key role played by women writers - Elizabeth Gaskell, Mrs Craik, Rhoda Broughton, and Charlotte Riddell, among many others - and offers one or two genuine rarities for the supernatural fiction enthusiast to savour. Other writers represented include Charles Dickens, Henry James, Wilkie Collins, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and R. L. Stevenson. The editors also provide a fascinating introduction, detailed source notes, and a chronological list of ghost stories collections from 1850 to 1910.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34892 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

About the Author
Michael Cox is Senior Commissioning Editor, Reference Books, at OUP and is currently compiling The Oxford Chronology of English Literature on a freelance basis. His previous books include A Dictionary of Writers and Their Works, The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories, and The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century Ghost Stories.
R. A. Gilbert is a well-known antiquarian bookseller and a world authority on the historiography of esoteric thought in general, and on the occult currents of the nineteenth century in particular.

Customer Reviews

A mixed bag
The best tale in this lengthy compilation of nineteenth century 'spinechillers' is probably the last one, Algernon Blackwood's 'The Kit Bag', a cracking piece of macabre atmospheric suspense that could've been written yesterday. Unfortunately it is preceded by a fair number of inferior - and sometimes poorly executed - stories that may prove interesting to academics but are likely to cause you to fall asleep prematurely rather than lie awake with the light on. The more notable names, such as Dickens, MR James, Conan-Doyle and so forth, turn in excellent work (the latter's 'Captain of the Pole Star' is unforgettable) but the less familiar authors vary with dramatic unevenness from genuinely scary to wholly indifferent and forgettable. Probably half of the thirty or so tales on offer are worth a look. You'd probably be better off checking out the best of MR James. That's my plan anyway.