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There's nothing like a good ghost story. And in Victorian Ghost Stories, Michael Cox and R.A. Gilbert bring together thirty-five well wrought tales of haunted houses, vengeful spirits, spectral warnings, invisible antagonists, and motiveless malignity from beyond the grave. The Victorians excelled at the ghost story, it was as much a part of their literary culture as the realistic novel, and it was practiced by almost all the great writers of the age. Cox and Gilbert here provide samples from Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry James, and Wilkie Collins, as well as such classic ghost-story specialists as M.R. James and J.S. Le Fanu (whose "Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street," considered one of the best haunted-house story ever written, is excerpted above), plus one or two genuine rarities for the supernatural fiction enthusiast to savor. The editors also reveal the key role played by women in the growth of the genre, including stories by Elizabeth Gaskell, Mrs. Craik, Mrs. Henry Wood, Amelia B. Edwards, Charlotte Riddell, and many others. Finally, they offer an informative introduction, detailed source notes, and an extensive survey of ghost-story collections from 1850 to 1910.
Traditional in its forms, but energetically inventive and infused with a relish of the supernatural, these classic ghost stories still retain their original power to unsettle and surprise. Every one is guaranteed to satisfy what Virginia Woolf called "that strange human craving for the pleasure of feeling afraid."
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1
Victorian Ghost Stories: An Oxford Anthology
October 10, 1991, Oxford University Press, USA
Hardcover
in English
- First edition
019214202X 9780192142023
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2
Victorian Ghost Stories: An Oxford Anthology
1991, Oxford University Press
in English
019214202X 9780192142023
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Ghost stories were something at which the Victorians excelled. In an age of rapid material and scientific progress the idea of a vindictive past able to reach out and violate the present held an especial potential for terror, and throughout the nineteenth century fictional ghost stories developed in parallel with the more general Victorian fascination for death and what lay beyond it. Though they were as much a part of the cultural and literary fabric of the age as imperial confidence, the best of them still retain their original power to unsettle and surprise.
In this anthology, the editors of the highly successful Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories map out the development of the ghost story from 1850 to the early years of the twentieth century and demonstrate the importance of this form of short fiction in Victorian popular culture. As well as reprinting stories by supernatural specialists such as J. S. Le Fanu, M. R. James, and Algernon Blackwood, this selection also emphasizes the key role played by women writers Elizabeth Gaskell, Mrs Craik, Rhoda Broughton, Mrs Henry Wood, M. E. Braddon, Amelia B. Edwards, Charlotte Riddell, B. M. Croker, and E. Nesbit, among many others, and offers one or two genuine rarities for the supernatural fiction enthusiast to savour. Other writers represented include Charles Dickens, Henry James, George MacDonald, Wilkie Collins, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, R. L. Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Jerome K. Jerome, Bernard Capes, R. H. Benson, and W. W. Jacobs. The editors also provide an informative introduction, detailed source notes, and an extensive survey of ghost-story collections from 1850 to 1910.
This collection will delight all lovers of traditional ghost stories: here are 35 well-wrought tales of haunted houses, vengeful spirits, spectral warnings, invisible antagonists, and motiveless malignity from beyond the grave, every one guaranteed to generate 'the pleasurable shudder.'
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[from Rhoda Broughton, "The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth" (1868)]
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June 12, 2022 | Edited by SFJuggler | Edited without comment. |
June 12, 2022 | Edited by SFJuggler | The real last fix of the TOC. |
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June 12, 2022 | Edited by SFJuggler | Description, another try at the TOC. |
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