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Mammoth Book of Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories
 
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Mammoth Book of Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories (Paperback)

by Richard Dalby (Editor)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 544 pages
  • Publisher: Robinson Publishing (3 Oct 1995)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1854873385
  • ISBN-13: 978-1854873385
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 243,967 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #3 in  Books > Horror > Authors > Authors, A-Z > D > Dalby, Richard
    #6 in  Books > Horror > Genres & Characters > Victorian Ghost Stories

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Product Description

Product Description

Charles Dickens, Bram Stoker, Henry James, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ambrose Bierce, M. R. James - just some of the great authors in this superb new collection of nearly 40 stories from the golden age of the ghost story, spanning the entire Victorian era from 1839 right up to the end of the Edwardian decade in 1910. Many of literature's greatest names are in this collection, including Charles Dickens, Bram Stoker, Sheridan Le Fanu, Rhoda Broughton, M. R. James, Edith Nesbit and William Hope Hodgson. Among the American contingent are Henry James, Fitz-James O'Brien, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Adams Cram, W. C. Morrow and Ambrose Bierce. SALES POINTS: A new Mammoth on a highly popular subject; The only anthology of its kind you'll need; These masters of the macabre promise delicious - and chilling entertainment; A natural for the Christmas season. THE EDITOR Richard Dalby is an authority on the classic chillers from the Victorian era to our own. His previous anthologies Include The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories and The Virago Book of Ghost Stories. He lives in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Stories which may show their age, but also their quality, 13 April 2009
By Budge Burgess (Kilmarnock, Scotland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   
The Victorian or Edwardian ghost story is a gentle affair - no slasher horror or technicolor gore here. They describe a darkly mysterious atmosphere, a sense of you really wouldn't want to spend a night alone in this empty house. It's cerebral, the emphasis more on doubt and intrigue than on what would be described as contemporary horror. The only special effects required are your ability to doubt reality, to imagine that the physical world might be insubstantial, might be interwoven with gateways to another dimension, might be peopled with creatures and places which are not what they seem.

The writing can be dense, even laboriously ornate, like the ornamental scrolling on Victorian wrought iron ware. At best, it adds to the atmosphere, to your sense of the ominous, of the outlandish or out-of-this-worldish. The most interesting feature is the range of authors whose works appear within this volume - 42 stories by authors like Le Fanu, Dickens, Henry James, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Bram Stoker, E.Nesbitt, M.R.James, and many more. Some of the names are ineluctably associated with the ghost story or horror genre, but others clearly are not. These ghost stories, these writings, are an insight into the psyche of another time and another world.

For anyone interested in writing 'ghost' stories, these works represent a tradition which is far removed from the modern ghost - a creature of visceral horror or of slapstick humour. It is gentle, very gentle horror by modern standards, almost bland. But understanding the history of the genre gives the writer insight into the nature of horror. It changes through time, in parallel with our changing recognition of what counts as evil. For the reader, it demands a different suspension of disbelief, an ability to step back into a different era with a different perspective on horror and evil, a different moral and social portfolio.

If your expectation is of stories which will readily translate to the 21st century, you will be disappointed by this volume. It is nevertheless an excellent anthology.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good collection of stories, 2 Jan 2009
By John Hopper (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
Overall a very good collection of stories:

Schalken the Painter - the earliest "modern" ghost story, apparently, sightly chilling in places, but only average in my view.

*M Anastasius - a tragic and creepy story that also says a lot about 19th century English attitudes towards the Catholic church.

The Lost Room - quite funny, but unremarkable.

*The Signalman - best haunting Dickens short ghost story.

Haunted - bog standard magazine fodder of a ghost seeking revenge on his murderer.

The Romance of Certain Old Clothes - jealousy of a woman for her younger sister. Really only a ghost story in the final sentence.

John Granger - another standard story of a ghost appearing to the living until his murderer is discovered.

Ghost in the Mill/Ghost in the Cap'n Brown House - unremarkable little mysteries narrated in a 19th century rural New England vernacular - bit of a chore.

Poor Pretty Bobby - predictable story where man appears to his loved one as a ghost at the moment of his death far away in a naval engagement.

The New Pass - another ghost providing a warning of impending disaster, this time the collapse of an Alpine tunnel.

The Black and the White - didn't get this at all.

*The Underground Ghost - quite creepy and suffocating, a good story.

*Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk - very good and creepy

*Dog or Demon? - horribly compulsive and tragic

A Ghost from the Sea - pretty average ghost takes revenge on its killer story

A Set of Chessmen - amusing story if you like chess as I do

*The Judge's House - a terrifying story with lots of classic ingredients - a creaky old house, a hanging judge, rats, all overlaid with a sense of creeping dread.

Pallinghurst Barrow - a reasonable ghost story, but more infamous for me in its depiction of stone age people as uniformly savage bloodthirsty brutes , reflecting the dominant Victorian view of early humankind.

The Mystery of the Semi-Detached - very short but quite shocking.

Sister Maddelena - very predictable but quite sad and moving even so

The Trainer's Ghost - run of the mill and a bit too much horse and jockey vernacular for me

An Original Revenge - interesting take on ghostly revenge.

Caulfield's Crime - slightly different type of story in an Indian setting

*The Bridal Pair - sad, bittersweet story of a lost love

The Watcher - spirit of nature haunts a man who shoots a bird for pleasure

The Spectre in the Cart - more of a story about racial crime and lynchings in late 19th century America than a ghost story really. Shocking in places to a modern reader, but not for ghostly reasons.

HP - a ridiculous story where the ghost of a prehistoric man (portrayed in typical Victorian/Edwardian style as a one dimensional bloodthirsty savage) rues not having experienced the comforts of 19th/20th century life.

Yuki-Onna - odd little Japanese tale

*The Ash-Tree - a horrible, creepy tale by the master of the genre, M R James

The Story of the Green House, Wallington - a short story, fairly unremarkable, but with a certain chilling air.

The Slype House - quite a creepy story, though I didn't understand the ending.

A Ghost-Child - sad, but rather twee.

The Bead Necklace - an average story, but with a grisly twist at the end.

A Dead Man's Bargain - slightly unusual, a fairly good atmosphere of horror built up, but too short really to get going

The House That Was Lost - a macabre murder mystery, though not really a ghost story

The Jolly Corner - longest story in the collection, but very boring so I gave up on it.

*The Doll's Ghost - very creepy and touching story.
The Moonlit Road - an interesting structure, but I'm not clear whther the father killed the mother or not.
The Forbidden Floor - an interesting theory of how ghosts originate in this powerfully emotional tale.

*The Shadow - this started off in a low key way, but was actually one of the most terrifying very short ghost stories in this collection.

*The Gateway of the Monster - a very good, creepy and horrific story
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