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... and of course it's not just an English thing. I'm thinking of those German tales of the possible-supernatural which linger in the brain long after reading - writers such as Theodor Storm - Der Schimmelreiter ('The White Horse Rider', or 'The Dykemaster'), Aquis Submersis...
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Hello there. What an enticing thread!
Whilst not nocturnal - Jean Rhys' "I used to live here once" is a lovely take on a theme later explored in films such as Ghost, Truly Madly Deeply and perhaps even the 6th Sense.
For twilight shivers and things that go bump in the night or the very least come knocking at your door ;-) - W.W. Jacobs' The Monkey's Paw I find hard to beat. It certainly has stayed in my mind since childhood.
Best Wishes,
Tevot
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... info on other Kipling supernatural tales to be found at :Originally Posted by vinteuil
www.litgothic.com/Authors/kipling.html
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vinteuil: yes, Meade Falkner (and perhaps The Nebuly Coat which has throughout an air of mystery - unusual though to have ghost stories of such length as they tended to become more commonly novellas or short stories). Le Fanu was a strong influence on M R James - I like his Green Tea as well as Silas - and also on Dickens, a fair amount of whose work contains 'ghostly' themes such as the resurrection of those thought to be dead, and doppelgängers (though I think The Signalman is better as a ghost story than the earlier Christmas Carol and The Haunted Man)
Further afield, what about lawyer, bureaucrat, composer and music critic E T A Hoffmann's stories, e.g. The Mines of Falun and The Sandman? And Poe's William Wilson, picking up on the doppelgänger theme. From the C20, I like one or two of de la Mare's stories: All Hallows in particular generates a powerful tension.
I'm not sure why the ghost story is so predominantly an Anglo-Saxon genre (plus some Irish) - are there any notable ones from southern and central Europe?
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... I seem to remember some Maupassant stories with a decidedly eerie feel - I'll have to go and check! And also Balzac (la Peau de Chagrin, for example?)
But an interesting question - I'll do some further thinking.
But certainly the Arabian Nights - and there are Chinese ghost stories too...
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Notable - I don't know. But here's one which is very much in the tradition: Maupassant's Apparition of 1883.
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E F Benson's output is large and uneven but a few stand out - The Room in the Tower, The Face and The Bus Conductor (the latter made famous by being adapted and included in the Ealing film Dead of Night).
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- and indeed Henry James's other fine ghosty stories - The Altar of the Dead, The Jolly Corner, Owen Wingrave, and more
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Yes, not so long ago I read Benson's The Confession of Charles Linkworth about a hanged murderer who returns to confess his crime - a weak plot but strong on atmosphere.
Maupassant has some good stories, and also among the non-Anglo Saxons Pushkin's Queen of Spades must be mentioned. Slightly earlier than Theodor Storm was Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, whose Die Judenbuche, though not perhaps strictly a ghost story, has a distinctly Teutonic quality of Unheimlichkeit.
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- and indeed Henry James's other fine ghosty stories - The Altar of the Dead, The Jolly Corner, Owen Wingrave, and more
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