The Wimbourne Book of Victorian Ghost Stories: Volume 11

Wimbourne Books presents the eleventh in a series of rare or out-of-print ghost stories from Victorian authors. With an introduction by author Alastair Gunn, Volume 11 in the series spans the years 1846 to 1901 and includes stories from solely American female authors. Includes tales by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Rose Terry Cooke and Willa Sibert Cather. Readers new to this genre will discover its pleasures; the Victorian quaintness, the sometimes shocking difference in social norms, the almost comical politeness and structured etiquette, the archaic and precise language, but mostly the Victorians’ skill at stoking our fears and trepidations, our insecurities and doubts. Even if you are already an aficionado of the ghostly tale there is much within these pages to interest you. Wait until the dark of the stormy night arrives, lock the doors, shutter the windows, light the fire, sit with your back to the wall and bury yourself in the Victorian macabre. Try not to let the creaking floorboards, the distant howl of a dog, the chill breeze that caresses the candle, the shadows in the far recesses of your room, disturb your concentration. Includes the stories; The Haunted House in Georgia (1846) – Elizabeth Fries Lummis Ellet; The Haunted House (1854) – Nancy Thorning Munroe; My Visitation (1858) – Rose Terry Cooke; The Deserted Hut (1865) – Jane Goodwin Austin; Kentucky’s Ghost (1868) – Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward; The Strange Passengers (1868) – Harriet Prescott Spofford; Tom Toothacre’s Ghost Story (1870) – Harriet Beecher Stowe; The Story of a Shadow (1872) – Rebecca Harding Davis; The Walking Boy (1873) – Clara Florida Guernsey; The Haunted House by the Mill (1875) – Clara LeClerc; The American Ghost (1883) – Lucretia Peabody Hale; The Gray Man (1886) – Sarah Orne Jewett; On the Stroke of the Clock (1889) – Ellen Louise Chandler Moulton; The Giant Wistaria (1891) – Charlotte Perkins Gilman; The Soul of Rose Dédé (1892) – Mollie Evelyn Moore Davis; The Fear that Walks by Noonday (1895) – Willa Sibert Cather; A Transient (1898) – Annie Trumbull Slosson; The Shape of Fear (1898) – Elia Wilkinson Peattie; The Path of the Storm (1899) – Marie Van Vorst; The Ordeal of Sister Cuthbert (1901) – Elizabeth Garver Jordan.