A rationalist Victorian visits a haunted house in order to explain the nature of its ghostly inhabitants.First published in Blackwood's, August 1859.

    It is narrated from the perspectives of multiple characters, a technique used to create suspense in many of the "sensation novels" pioneered by Wilkie Collins and others in the 1860s, as well as in many late nineteenth-century novels such as Dracula.Richard Marsh was the pseudonym of the British author, Richard Bernard Heldmann.

    Published the same year as her first novel, Adam Bede, this overlooked work displays the gifts for which George Eliot would become famous—gritty realism, psychological insight, and idealistic moralizing. It is unique from all her other writing, however, in that it represents the only time she ever used a first-person narrator, and it is the only time she wrote about the supernatural. The tale of a man who is incapacitated by visions of the future and the cacophony of overheard thoughts, and yet who can’t help trying to subvert his vividly glimpsed destiny, it is easy to read The Lifted Veil as being autobiographically revealing—of Eliot’s sensitivity to public opinion and her awareness that her days concealed behind a pseudonym were doomed to a tragic unveiling (as indeed came to pass soon after this novella’s publication). But it is easier still to read the story as the exciting and genuine precursor of a moody new form, as well as an absorbing early masterpiece of suspense.The Art of The Novella SeriesToo short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In the Art Of The Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time.

    Here you will find the secrets of eternal youth, souls that exchange bodies, and ancient Englishmen and Romans newly thawed out of ice. In addition to several stories by Mary Shelley, this volume also features a brand new story by renowned science fiction author Michael Bishop, which serves as a narrative introduction for this collection. Mary Shelley's considerable reputation rests squarely on the shoulders of her one great novel - Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, published anonymously in 1818 and revised under her own byline in 1831. Her powerful tale of blasphemous creation is perhaps more familiar to modern readers through its many film adaptations as it is from the book itself. From Boris Karloff's electrifying performance as Frankenstein to Kenneth Branaugh's latest directorial rendering, the story has received numerous interpretations which have renewed interest in the book time and time again. However, Shelley's other works have not fared as well as Frankenstein. She wrote just a handful of novels, of which only The Last Man (1826) has remained sporadically in print. A precursor to such disaster novels as George R. Stewart's Earth Abides and Richard Jeffries' After London, The Last Man follows its protagonist Lionel Verney through a distant future world which has been depopulated by plague. The shorter works of Mary Shelley have remained difficult to find. During her lifetime, she published just over two-dozen stories, only three of which were of interest to readers of science fiction and fantasy. In addition to these three supernaturally-themed stories, two additional stories were published after Shelley's death. "Roger Dodsworth: The Reanimated Englishman," was printed in a volume of reminisces by a magazine editor who had commissioned the story thirty years earlier. "Valerius: The Reanimated Roman," a story in a similar vein to "Roger Dodsworth," remained unpublished until 1976, when both stories were discovered by Charles E. Robinson, a Shelley scholar and professor of English at the University of Delaware.Contents"The Unexpected Visit of a Reanimated Englishwoman": Introduction by Michael Bishop"The Mortal Immortal: A Tale""Transformation""Roger Dodsworth: The Reanimated Englishman""The Dream""Valerius: The Reanimated Roman"

    Tilly's seance --Mrs. Amworth --In the tube --Roderick's story --Reconciliation --Face --Spinach --Bagnell terrace --A tale of an empty house --Naboth's vineyard --Expiation --Home sweet home --"And no bird sings" --Corner house --Corstophine --Temple --Step --Bed by the window --James Lamp --Dance --Hanging of Alfred Wadham --Pirates --Wishing-well --Bath-chair --Monkeys --Christopher comes back --Sanctuary --Thursday evenings --Psychical mallards --Clonmel witch burning.

    Edwards is acknowledged as one of the best Victorian ghost story writers. She was one of the select band of authors invited by Charles Dickens to contribute ghost stories to the Christmas numbers of his magazine All the Year Round, and some of her tales—such as 'The Four-fifteen Express', 'Number Three', 'My Brother's Ghost Story', and the highly influential 'The Phantom Coach'—have become staples of ghost story anthologies.There was much more to Amelia Edwards than ghost stories, however, as Richard Dalby makes clear in his introduction. She was an indefatigable traveller, and she incorporated much of what she observed into her ghost stories, many of which are set in northern and central Europe. She was also an archaeologist of world renown, who was instrumental in ensuring that the treasures and antiquities of ancient Egypt were properly excavated and preserved.The Phantom Coach is the first book to collect together all of Amelia B. Edwards's supernatural fiction. In addition to all her known ghost stories, the volume also contains three additional items, including a delightful piece by Edwards herself about 'My Home Life': a fascinating look at one of the Victorian era's most fascinating women.Contents: Introduction by Richard Dalby; 'My Brother's Ghost Story'; 'The Eleventh of March'; 'Number Three'; 'The Discovery of the Treasure Isles'; 'The Phantom Coach'; 'The Recollections of Professor Henneberg'; 'An Engineer's Story'; 'The Four-fifteen Express'; 'The Story of Salome'; 'A Service of Danger'; 'The New Pass'; 'In the Confessional'; 'Sister Johanna's Story'; 'A Night on the Borders of the Black Forest'; 'Monsieur Maurice'; 'Was it an Illusion?'; Appendixes: 'Four Ghosts'; 'A Legend of Boisguilbert'; 'My Home Life'.

    A version of the story was published in the magazine Whirlwind in 1890, and Machen revised and extended it for its book publication (together with another story, "The Inmost Light") in 1894. On publication it was widely denounced by the press as degenerate and horrific because of its decadent style and sexual content, although it has since garnered a reputation as a classic of horror. Machen’s story was only one of many at the time to focus on Pan as a useful symbol for the power of nature and paganism. The title was taken from the poem "A Musical Instrument" published in 1862 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in which the first line of every stanza ends "... the great god Pan.

    He was a man on the move, a man who traveled light: and in the end he rode, with all of his possessions, on a rented horse into the Mexican desert to join Pancho Villa -- never to return.Can Such Things Be?Once William Randolph Hearst -- Bierce's employer, who was bragging about his own endless collections of statuary, art, books, tapestries, and, of course real estate like Hearst Castle -- once William Randolph Hearst asked Bierce what he collected. Bierce responded, smugly: "I collect words. And ideas. Like you, I also store them. But in the reservoir of my mind. I can take them out and display them at a moment's notice. Eminently portable, Mr. Hearst. And I don't find it necessary to show them all at the same time." Such things can be. (jacketless library hardcover)

    It was written in 1891 and is included in Nesbit's 1893 anthology Grim Tales. The story's title character is a man who somehow always seems to get what he wants. John makes up his mind to marry May Forster, the prettiest young woman in the village. After John asks her to marry him several times, May finally agrees. John says that his love for May is so great that he would come back from the dead if that was what she wanted him to do. Two days before his wedding, John leaves to visit his seriously ill godfather. May begs him not to go because she has a feeling that something bad will happen. John reassures her that nothing will prevent him from arriving at his wedding on time.

    Half these stories never published before in U.S.

    Immersed in the history, atmosphere and rumours of hauntings, they channelled their darker imaginings into a series of extraordinary new ghost stories.Sarah Perry's intense tale of possession at the Jacobean country house Audley End is a work of psychological terror, while Andrew Michael Hurley's story brings an unforgettably shocking slant to the history of Carlisle Castle. Within the walls of these historic buildings each author has found inspiration to deliver a new interpretation of the classic ghost story.Also includes two afterwords: Andrew Martin's Within These Walls: How the Abbeys and Houses of England Inspired the Ghost Story, and Katherine Davey's A Gazetteer of English Heritage Hauntings, properties which are said to be haunted, including the eight locations which inspired the stories in this book.

    She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon one afternoon in 1945.... Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn't easy to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town.... Francis is unhappy. Francis was human once, but that was then. Now he's an eight-foot-tall locust and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing....John Finney is locked in a basement that's stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. In the cellar with him is an antique telephone, long since disconnected, but which rings at night with calls from the dead....The past isn't dead. It isn't even past...

    Unlike much of the current form, full of blood, monsters and melodrama, Aickman's stories achieve a quieter, more subtle and, in several ways, more lasting sense of disquiet. His lucid, finely tuned prose moves imperceptibly from the small crises and celebrations of ordinary life into another sphere. In these 11 stories, the occasion may be a walking tour of Northern England, a birthday present of a Victorian dollhouse or a stay at a Swedish sanatorium for insomniacs, but it simultaneously traps the characters with dread and opens them up to a new awareness of a greater, deeper and more dangerous world. A remarkable collection by an author who deserves to be better known.Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

    A treasured source used by almost all the significant writers in the American pulp tradition — H. P. Lovecraft, A. Merritt, Robert E. Howard, and many others — it endures as a work of remarkable power and one of the most chillingly original books in the genre.This collection reprints all the supernatural stories from The King in Yellow, including the grisly "Yellow Sign," the disquieting "Repairer of Reputations," the tender "Demoiselle d'Ys," and others. Robert W. Chambers' finest stories from other sources have also been added, such as the thrilling "Maker of Moons" and "The Messenger." In addition, an unusual pleasure awaits those who know Chambers only by his horror stories: three of his finest early biological science-fiction fantasies from In Search of the Unknown appear here as well.

    of whom I can affirm only one thing, that they haunted certain brains, and have haunted, among others, my own.” First published in 1890, Lee’s most famous volume of supernatural tales occupies a special place in the literature of the fantastic for its treatment of the femme fatale and the allure of the past, along with the themes of thwarted artistic creativity and psychological obsession. This collection, which includes the four stories originally published in Hauntings and three others, enables readers to consider Lee’s work anew for its subtle redefinitions of gender and sexuality during the Victorian fin-de-siècle.The appendices, which include extensive excerpts from writings by Lee’s predecessors and peers, including Algernon Charles Swinburne, Walter Pater, and Lee’s brother Eugene Lee-Hamilton, allow the reader to see how Lee takes on the themes and preoccupations of the late-Victorian period but adapts them to her own purposes.Preface to Hauntings (1890) -- Amour dure (1887, 1890) -- Dionea (1890) -- Oke of Okehurst (1886, 1890) -- A wicked voice (1887, 1890) -- Prince Alberic and the snake lady (1896) -- A wedding chest (1904) -- Preface to The virgin of the seven daggers (1927) -- The virgin of the seven daggers (1896, 1909,1927) -- Appendix A: From Algernon Charles Swinburne, "Notes on designs of the old masters at Florence" (1868, 1875) -- Appendix B: From Walter Pater, "Pico della Mirandula" (1871, 1873) -- Appendix C: From Walter Pater, "Lionardo da Vinci" (1869, 1873) -- Appendix D: Vernon Lee, "Faustus and Helena: notes on the supernatural in art" (1880, 1881) -- Appendix E: A. Mary F. Robinson, "Before a bust of Venus" (1881) -- Appendix F: Eugene Lee-Hamilton, "The mandolin" (1882) -- Appendix G: A. Mary F. Robinson, "The ladies of Milan" (1889) -- Appendix H: Eugene Lee-Hamilton, "On a surf-rolled torso of Venus" (1884, 1894) -- Appendix I: Vernon Lee, "Out of Venice at last" (1925).