Twenty-Five Ghost Stories

About the book

Compiled by W. Bob Holland, this collection gathers twenty-five tales of ghosts, ominous objects, strange appearances, and experiences whose meaning unsettles those who encounter them. Poe's 'The Black Cat' opens the volume with a narrator whose account makes ordinary domestic circumstances terrifying. Other pieces move through haunted inns, railway travel, old houses, photographs, and encounters with apparent visitors from beyond the grave. The variety includes different degrees of seriousness and different relationships between explanation and belief, rather than a single consistent supernatural world. Holland's preface presents the appeal as the pleasurable shiver shared by readers of many ages. Taken in that spirit, the anthology offers a sampling of the devices through which popular storytelling turns curiosity into apprehension.

• Haunting
• Fear and belief
• Supernatural storytelling

Why read it

Read it for a varied historical sampler of ghost-story settings and methods, from famous fiction to lesser known curiosities.

English anthology compiled and edited by W. Bob Holland