Spectral Tales: Classic Ghost Stories

From the dawn of storytelling we have been mesmerized, entertained, and fascinated by stories of otherworldly visitations. Our earliest folklore and oral tales suggest that even before recorded time, on every continent and in every language, we created narratives to animate our fear of the unknown. The classic stories in this anthology have been selected for their literary style, psychological complexity, and enduring power to electrify both the imagination and the senses. As varied, rooted in, and intriguingly expressive of their time and place as these stories are, they all give expression to a universal hunch that we live among ghosts—whether of the past or in the form of portending presences. From Edgar Allan Poe’s timeless “The Tell-Tale Heart” to M. R. James’s “Count Magnus” to Edith Wharton’s subtly unnerving “The Eyes” these tales rise to—and in many ways define—the high water mark of the genre.Includes the full text of H. P. Lovecraft’s superb essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature, an illuminating history and exploration of the art of the weird story—along with brief author biographies.