Ghost Stories
by Andrew Corbin, Acquisitions and Reference Librarian
This article originally appeared in the Library's October 2010 e-newsletter.
Is there a better time than now, with summer officially over and Halloween less than a month away, to succumb to the eerie pleasures of a well-crafted ghost story? What follows is a short selection of supernatural tales both old and new, from classics like Henry James's deathless The Turn of the Screw to contemporary gothic mysteries like Sarah Waters's The Little Stranger and Stephen King's truly terrifying masterpiece The Shining. Also included are two anthologies containing the finest short stories of the genre by writers like M.R. James, Elizabeth Bowen, E.F. Benson, Edith Wharton, and Somerset Maugham, and even something for the faint of heart among us, Oscar Wilde's charming and witty The Canterville Ghost. So why not celebrate the witching season by curling up with one of these spine-tingling delights?
- Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White
- Susan Hill, The Woman in Black
- Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
- Henry James,The Turn of the Screw
- Stephen King, The Shining
- The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories
- Victorian Ghost Stories: An Oxford Anthology
- Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger
- Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost