Haunted Tales Edited by Lisa Morton and Leslie S. Klinger

 

Do you have a favorite ghost story, book, movie, or character?  I used to love Caspar the friendly ghost when I was growing up.  We are currently watching the show Ghosts on Paramount Plus.  My favorite ghost story is probably the Turn of the Screw by Henry James.

I was happy to be able to review Haunted Tales, Edited by Lisa Morton and Leslie S. Klinger.  It is a perfect book for the season.  It is a great collection of “classic stories of ghosts and the supernatural.”  The book starts with an interesting introduction by editors Lisa Morton and Leslie S. Klinger.  It discusses how the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century also brought about mass murder.  The Napoleonic wars killed more than four million people.  Those left behind were looking for new ways to communicate with their loved ones.  Ghost stories became a popular genre.  They were found in popular magazines and were especially popular at Christmas time, for example the spirits in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. They were published all year round though and not just for holidays.

I loved how this anthology included stories from well-known authors such as Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, H.G. Wells, and Virginia Woolf, but I loved even more that it included stories from authors that were popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth century but aren’t as well read now.  At the start of each story, there was a biography of the author. I like the biographies as much as the stories.  There were great footnotes throughout the stories to fill in the historical references. 

I found the stories to be fascinating and spooky.  They gave gothic vibes which would thrill Catherine Morland from Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey.  All of these stories were new to me, and I was happy to finally read “The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde”.  I have to admit, “The Canterville Ghost” was my absolute favorite story in this collection.  It was both hilarious and heartwarming.  It was also beautifully written.  The Canterville Ghost is pretty proud of all of his shenanigans through the years, but when an American Minister and his family move into the estate, he can’t seem to scare them.  Worse still, the young twin sons start to terrify the ghost.  It is the daughter of the family though who really figures out the mystery of the Canterville Ghost.  I thought “They” by Rudyard Kipling was a poignant story especially knowing from the bio at the start of the story that he had lost his own young child. 

I also enjoyed the Gothic splendor of “The Cold Embrace” by Mary Elizabeth Braddon.  “He was an artist – such things as happened to him happen sometimes to artists.  He was a German – such things as happened to him happen sometimes to Germans.  He was young, handsome, studious, enthusiastic, metaphysical, reckless, unbelieving, heartless.  And being young, handsome and eloquent, he was beloved.”  He loves his cousin Gertrude, and she loves him.  They promise to devote each other until death, but while his love strays, Gertrude’s remains even after death. 

One last story call out was “M. Anastasius” by Dinah Mulock.  Charles Dickens himself thought it was the best ghost story ever written.  I enjoyed it.  It was also Gothic and haunting about two young lovers that are haunted by the ghost of the young woman’s guardian who was lost at sea. 

I loved in the notes for “The Canterville Ghost” that it discussed that the phrase in this story “England and America are two countries divided a common language” was first seen in this story although it is commonly attributed to George Bernard Shaw.  I had just seen this elsewhere lately attributed to Shaw and I thought this was interesting information.

I highly recommend this collection for lovers of all spooky tales!

Review Copy from Pegasus Books.  Thank-you! I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.