When autumn rolls around, it is always good to pull out a scary story or two. I am generally not a fan of visceral horror writing, where the horizon is strewn with blood and body parts at the end of the tale. I prefer a more mannered, genteel approach to my horror; I look for stories that can raise some goosebumps without raising my gorge. So this week, we will look at some of the masters of the uncanny, writers whose stories of occult knowledge, dark books, rooms that should stay locked, and weird characters take us to the borderlands between reality and the supernatural.
A collection of ghost stories is an excellent place to begin, and The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories collects tales of the eerie from some of the masters of the genre. What is compelling about these sorts of stories is that, as the introduction to the collection notes, they are “just, just out of the true.” Horror is most effective and most frightening when it takes place at that old house right around the corner or in the woods out back. The sense of unease that proximity to reality creates is much more frightening, to me at least, than some 40-foot tall monster popping up to ravage a city.
The stories in this anthology were published between the early 19th century (Sir Walter Scott’s “The Tapestried Chamber,” 1829) and the late 20th century (T.H. White’s “Soft Voices at Passenham,” 1981). They all share the editors’ feeling that to be truly successful, a ghost story must have an element of fear or terror. There are no cute, winsome ghosts here and no real humor. The purpose of these stories is to create a sense of discomfort in the reader.
In addition to Walter Scott and T. H. White, here the reader will find stories of the supernatural from such well-known authors as Bram Stoker, H. G. Wells, Somerset Maugham, Henry James and Edith Wharton. There are also a host of tales from once popular writers who are now less-remembered such as Algernon Blackwood, Sheridan LeFanu, Charles Williams and others. While you will not find too much to curdle the blood, these stories, with their elegant language, elegiac sensibility, and eerie doings are just the things for a cool October night. Here you will find a hanged murderer seeking forgiveness, a manor house haunted by a revenant from its early days, and the awful tale of Mr. Jones.
Check the WRL catalog for The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories
[…] The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories […]
For those less squeamish readers interested in more gory horror, take a look at Greg Fisher’s delightful compendium of things horrific at With Intent to Commit Horror. There’s lots to terrify you there.
[…] time. I have covered the Jameses, Henry and M.R., LeFanu, as well as all the anthologies (here, here, and here), or so I thought. But one dark, rainy, October afternoon, while prowling the quiet […]