Gothic Short Stories
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Product Description
Product Description
This superb new collection brings together stories from the earliest decades of Gothic writing with later 19th and early 20th century tales from the period in which Gothic diversified into the familiar forms of the ghost-and horror-story. Some of these stories, like the haunting The Lame Priest are lost masterpieces and several have never been anthologised before.
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Part of Wordsworth's Mystery & Supernatural series, featuring classic spine chilling tales, some previously unavailable for many years.
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I must say that it is becoming harder to scare an audience nowadays, and horror is very subjective, however, I found some of these "vintage" stories very frightening indeed! This volume collects -
Anna Letitia Aiken - Sir Bertrand: A Fragment
Nathan Drake and Anonymous - Captive of the Banditti
Anonymous - Extracts from Gosschen's Diary: No. 1
Charles Robert Maturin - The Parricide's Tale
Anonymous - The Spectre Bride
Sir Walter Scott - The Tapestried Chamber
Edgar Allan Poe - Berenice
Charles Dickens - A Madman's Manuscript
J.S. le Fanu - Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter
Nathaniel Hawthorne - Ethan Brand
Elizabeth Gaskell - The Old Nurse's Story
Robert Louis Stevenson - The Body-Snatcher
Charlotte Perkins Gilman - The Yellow Wallpaper
Ambrose Bierce - The Death of Halpin Frayser
M.R. James - Canon Alberic's Scrapbook
Ralph Adams Cram - No. 252 Rue M. le Prince
S. Carleton - The Lame Priest
Mary Wilkins Freeman - Luella Miller
Richard Middleton - The Bird in the Garden
E.F. Benson - The Room in the Tower
The stories follow, I believe, a chronology and become more frightening along the way - particularly from "The Lame Priest" onwards. I think the one which is particularly stand-out is "The Yellow Wallpaper" which is subtle yet terrifying.
Overall, I think this is a tough read a times, as the styles can vary between stories but stick with the sometimes slow, descriptive yet captivating plots they will surprise you along the way!
Anna Letitia Aiken - Sir Bertrand: A Fragment
Nathan Drake and Anonymous - Captive of the Banditti
Anonymous - Extracts from Gosschen's Diary: No. 1
Charles Robert Maturin - The Parricide's Tale
Anonymous - The Spectre Bride
Sir Walter Scott - The Tapestried Chamber
Edgar Allan Poe - Berenice
Charles Dickens - A Madman's Manuscript
J.S. le Fanu - Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter
Nathaniel Hawthorne - Ethan Brand
Elizabeth Gaskell - The Old Nurse's Story
Robert Louis Stevenson - The Body-Snatcher
Charlotte Perkins Gilman - The Yellow Wallpaper
Ambrose Bierce - The Death of Halpin Frayser
M.R. James - Canon Alberic's Scrapbook
Ralph Adams Cram - No. 252 Rue M. le Prince
S. Carleton - The Lame Priest
Mary Wilkins Freeman - Luella Miller
Richard Middleton - The Bird in the Garden
E.F. Benson - The Room in the Tower
The stories follow, I believe, a chronology and become more frightening along the way - particularly from "The Lame Priest" onwards. I think the one which is particularly stand-out is "The Yellow Wallpaper" which is subtle yet terrifying.
Overall, I think this is a tough read a times, as the styles can vary between stories but stick with the sometimes slow, descriptive yet captivating plots they will surprise you along the way!
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The earliest story is from 1773 but I was, frankly, gob-smacked by how modern the language was to a long-time horror reader. In common with all the stories in this book, there is nothing to make you stumble in the reading. For this alone, I have bought a bucket load of Wordsworth titles. While most of these texts are available at Project Gutenberg, the convenience of a paperback for a couple of quid is hard to beat.
The first few stories, our 18th century example included, are mundane to modern eyes. They may well be the first examples of suddenly slamming doors and strange spirits glimpsed from the corner of your eyes, but that doesn't mean they were good. They're not bad but a typical story progresses from "We saw something strange" to "We mostly escaped by the skin of our teeth" with much rapidity.
By Poe's "Berenice" (1835) things pick up considerably. This was the first time I every actually read this story in its entirety, despite writing a pastiche a while back. It's an extraordinary tale, and very well told. Still creepy as.
In short order, and directly after we have Dickens (fair), Le Fanu (gorgeous), Nathaniel Hawthorne (excellent) and Elizabeth Gaskell's "The Old Nurse's Tale" which is an archetypal ghost story, familiar to anyone who has read any such in the past fifty years, but it was written in 1852.
It's a bit of a conceit that the the stories are presented in date order. I think they could have fared better if listed differently. The middle era is loaded with epic writers whose words are beautiful on the eye.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the classic work that should have show-cased this collection. It is an astounding study in post-natal madness.
On top of that are stories by Robert Louis Stevenson, M.R. James, E.F. Benson and Ambrose Bierce.
Aside from the first couple of clunkers this is a captivating collection. If you are, as I am, an aspiring writer, you will find a bounty of rich language in these stories.
The first few stories, our 18th century example included, are mundane to modern eyes. They may well be the first examples of suddenly slamming doors and strange spirits glimpsed from the corner of your eyes, but that doesn't mean they were good. They're not bad but a typical story progresses from "We saw something strange" to "We mostly escaped by the skin of our teeth" with much rapidity.
By Poe's "Berenice" (1835) things pick up considerably. This was the first time I every actually read this story in its entirety, despite writing a pastiche a while back. It's an extraordinary tale, and very well told. Still creepy as.
In short order, and directly after we have Dickens (fair), Le Fanu (gorgeous), Nathaniel Hawthorne (excellent) and Elizabeth Gaskell's "The Old Nurse's Tale" which is an archetypal ghost story, familiar to anyone who has read any such in the past fifty years, but it was written in 1852.
It's a bit of a conceit that the the stories are presented in date order. I think they could have fared better if listed differently. The middle era is loaded with epic writers whose words are beautiful on the eye.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" is the classic work that should have show-cased this collection. It is an astounding study in post-natal madness.
On top of that are stories by Robert Louis Stevenson, M.R. James, E.F. Benson and Ambrose Bierce.
Aside from the first couple of clunkers this is a captivating collection. If you are, as I am, an aspiring writer, you will find a bounty of rich language in these stories.
35 of 41 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
My goodness....horror at its finest!! some of the best horror writing is found in this book....ever.....trust me on this! 30 kids in a year 5 class can't be wrong when they ask me to read this over and over again! i recommend reading this in a big armchair, a single light source, windows open and the phone off the hook! you will want to keep reading this over and over again!
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