This one’s out of left field: P. G. Wodehouse’s Honeysuckle Cottage. As far as I know, the only ghost story he ever wrote, and typically light-hearted, but weirdly creepier for all that: a best-selling hard-boiled mystery writer inherits the titular cottage of his late aunt, a best-selling romance novelist, and finds that her lingering influence starts to permeate first his writing, then his life… One of the best ghost stories I’ve ever read.
The Canterville Ghost, by Wilde.
Alas, my favorite Ghost Story is non-fiction–the tale of Ireland’s Leap Castle. Oliver St John Gogarty wrote the best account, unfortunately not available online. W B Yeats also had an encounter.
Here’s what a modern Ghost Hunter had to say:
www.the-atlantic-paranormal-society.com/fireside/leap.html
And a picture (of the castle; not of the many ghosts and/or elementals):
www.simonmarsden.co.uk/books-PhantomsoftheIsles-Sample.htm
Shamelessly violating your “ghosts only” request, I recommend Roger Zelazny’s A Night In the Lonesome October. In the late years of Victoria’s reign, Personages gather in London to prepare for a psychic battle on Halloween. The Narrator is Snuff, the dog of Jack–who’s good with the blade. One meets The Count, the Mad Monk & other players who (with their familiars) will fight to Open a Gate–or keep it Closed. (Of course, the Great Detective plays a part.)
Who (or What) might come through the Gate? Why, the Elder Gods–bent on destruction & chaos! Eldritch adventures abound. Plus a quite a bit of black humor.
A short book that I reread every October. Illustrations by Gahan Wilson. Out of Print, of course…
dancing My library has it!
As does mine. And I re-read it in October, too.; The chapters are based on days of the month.
Makes my bladder feel unreasonably full and my hands clammy every time I read it, which is at least once annually! LOVE this book.
–Beck
Pigeons from Hell, by Robert E. Howard
The Other, by Thomas Tryon
Great story, crummy title.
I’ve always suspected Howard gave it another title, & some editor who “knew better” :rolleyes: changed it. :mad:
Harry by Rosemary Timperley
It got that in a collection by Roald Dahl.
and of course, *A Christmas Carol * by Charles Dickens
Ooh, yeah…I used to have a copy of this story in a paperback collection of Howard’s supernatural fiction. My mother threw it away because it had the word “hell” in the title…because, you know…something…:rolleyes: It was dramatized in a 60’s/70’s late-night supernatural television series, but I don’t remember what. “Night Gallery” comes to mind, but it might have been something else.
Another really great ghost story is titled “Fengriffen” by David Case. I can’t find an online version of it, but (again, alas) I used to have a book containing it that was absconded with and never returned.
Holy cow, was this a cool story! A novella, so it has some length, but not too much; yet it has all of the cliches of the genre: the ancestral mansion, the family curse, the haunting, the innocent wife involutarily dragged into the centuries-old conflict, the scion of the family who doesn’t believe in any of it (despite all of the evidence to the contrary) and goes progressively insane as a result, the rational acquaintance who is there as a guest and is the only one who can really see what’s going on, the incessant thunderstorms, the blood, the gore, the sex, the EVERYTHING.
It sounds like it would suck rats for being so formulaic, but it is a brilliant bringing-together of all of the standard motifs in such stories, and manages to make me really want to read it again.
If you can get it, GET IT.
I always bring this one up, but damn it’s good-- Stephen King’s “You Know They Got a Hell of a Band” from <a href=“You Know They Got a Hell of a Band - Wikipedia”>Nightmares and Dreamscapes</a>. I’m a sucker for a good ‘cuple stuck in a small town’ story.
I have a soft spot for “1408”, by Stephen King. It’s in audio form on Blood and Smoke, and written in Everything’s Eventual. Pretty short story, and not a lot gets explained, but for some reason it gets under my skin. I see they’re currently filming a movie based on it, which I’m sure will suck bigtime, unfortunately.
I was tempted to mention this one, but I didn’t know whether a “lingering influence” counted as a ghost. But since you’ve brought it up, I’ll second the recommendation.
A year or two ago the Science Fiction Book Club offered this collection of ghost stories by Russell Kirk. I had never heard of the guy before, but the description and blurbs from the likes of Ray Bradbury and Madeleine L’Engle intrigued me enough to take a chance on it. Not all of the stories in the book are great, but quite a few of them are very good indeed. If I have to single one out, I’d mention “Lex Talionis,” not as the best of the bunch, but as the first that made me think, “This guy’s really good!”
Honestly, “The Vane Sisters” by Vladimir Nabokov. The first time I “got” the ending, I nearly shit myself.
“Pigeons From Hell” was on Boris Karloff’s “Thriller” http://www.thrillerguide.net/
The local PBS affiliate in Fort Lauderdale used to re-run this, but I never was able to catch this episode.
“Fengriffin” was filmed as “And Now the Screaming Starts” - And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973) - IMDb
VCNJ~
Thanks for sharing that.
That’s the one I came in to mention. We had it on record and the reading was CREEPY!! We weren’t allowed out on Halloween so we sat in our darkened house and listened to the record… :eek:
Thanks for all the spooky goodness that y’all have linked to. I especially enjoyed “Pigeons From Hell”. I’m not sure how I managed to miss that little gem, from one of my favorite authors.