He finds the place infested with rats, but it suits his purposes... until one of the rats grows too bold, and the scholar realizes the horror he's stumbled into.

    These tales are richly populated by spirits and ghosts seeking revenge; by grief-stricken women and haunted men coming to terms with their destiny - all rooted deep in the elemental landscapes of Sussex, Brittany and the Languedoc.The collection will include The Mistletoe Bride, La Fille de Melisande, Red Letter Day, The Lending Library, The House on the Hill...

    Short story by Virginia Woolf.

    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'.

    The five other chilling stories in this collection echo a sense of dislocation and mock man's dominance over the natural world. The mountain paradise of 'Monte Verità' promises immortality, but at a terrible price; a neglected wife haunts her husband in the form of an apple tree; a professional photographer steps out from behind the camera and into his subject's life; a date with a cinema usherette leads to a walk in the cemetery; and a jealous father finds a remedy when three's a crowd . . .

    Fine line-drawings by Laszlo Kubinyi enhance the mysterious and sometimes chilling mood.The lady's maid's bell (1904)The eyes (1910)Afterward (1910)Kerfol (1916)The triumph of night (1914)Miss Mary Pask (1925)Bewitched (1925)Mr Jones (1928)Pomegranate seed (1931)The looking glass (1935)All souls' (1937)

    Newly designed and typeset in a modern 5.5-by-8.5-inch format by Waking Lion Press.

    Set on the obligatory English moor, on an isolated causeway, the story has as its hero Arthur Kipps, an up-and-coming young solicitor who has come north from London to attend the funeral and settle the affairs of Mrs. Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House. The routine formalities he anticipates give way to a tumble of events and secrets more sinister and terrifying than any nightmare: the rocking chair in the deserted nursery, the eerie sound of a pony and trap, a child's scream in the fog, and most dreadfully--and for Kipps most tragically--The Woman In Black.The Woman In Black is both a brilliant exercise in atmosphere and controlled horror and a delicious spine-tingler--proof positive that this neglected genre, the ghost story, isn't dead after all.

    Now for the first time thirteen of these tales are collected here, including a wide range of stories from a diverse group of authors, some well-known, others anonymous or forgotten. Readers whose only previous experience with Victorian Christmas ghost stories has been Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol will be surprised and delighted at the astonishing variety of ghostly tales in this volume. “In the sickly light I saw it lying on the bed, with its grim head on the pillow. A man? Or a corpse arisen from its unhallowed grave, and awaiting the demon that animated it?” - John Berwick Harwood, Horror: A True Tale“Suddenly I aroused with a start and as ghostly a thrill of horror as ever I remember to have felt in my life. Something—what, I knew not—seemed near, something nameless, but unutterably awful.” - Ada Buisson, The Ghost’s Summons“There was no longer any question what she was, or any thought of her being a living being. Upon a face which wore the fixed features of a corpse were imprinted the traces of the vilest and most hideous passions which had animated her while she lived.” - Walter Scott, The Tapestried Chamber

    This collection of classic and newly reprinted stories provides readers with more of her unsettling, dark tales, including the "The Possibility of Evil" and "The Summer People." In these deliciously dark stories, the daily commute turns into a nightmarish game of hide and seek, the loving wife hides homicidal thoughts and the concerned citizen might just be an infamous serial killer. In the haunting world of Shirley Jackson, nothing is as it seems and nowhere is safe, from the city streets to the crumbling country pile, and from the small-town apartment to the dark, dark woods. There's something sinister in suburbia.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

    Are their malefactions at the root of the haunting -- or is there something darker, something much more unknowable at work? (Jacketless library hardcover.)

    Still recovering from a serious illness herself, making enough money to support her elderly mother and her orphaned nephew Cedric has never been easy, but then one of her clients is murdered shortly after sitting for Agnes, and then another, and another... Why is the killer seemingly targeting her business?Desperately seeking an answer, Agnes approaches Pearl, a child spirit medium lodging in Bath with her older half-sister and her ailing father, hoping that if Pearl can make contact with those who died, they might reveal who killed them.But Agnes and Pearl quickly discover that instead they may have opened the door to something that they can never put back...

    At Gip's urging, the two go in — and things grow more and more curious by the minute. Counters, store fixtures, and mirrors seem to move around the room, and the shopkeeper is most mysterious of all. Gip is thrilled by all he sees, and his father is at first amused, but when things become stranger and sinister father is no longer sure where reality ends and illusion begins. Fantastical illustrations underscore the macabre atmosphere of the tale, make this a perfect book read aloud together again and again.

    The porthole opens repeatedly in the night with no conceivable reason. And the last few passengers who have slept in the upper berth have run through the ship like men possessed to throw themselves into the ocean. Mr. Brisbane, resident of the lower berth, and the ship's captain wait up all night to get to the bottom of the mystery... and neither will ever sail on that boat again.

    This chilling account of postpartum depression and a husband's controlling behavior in the guise of treatment will leave you breathless.