Description

GREAT GHOST STORIES. EDITED BY R. CHETWYND-HAYES and STEPHEN JONES. Overview: Featuring eerily atmospheric modern tales of foreboding and unease by such contemporary authors as Garry Kilworth, Brian Lumley, Ramsey Campbell, Tony Richards, and R. Chetwynd-Hayes, as well as disquieting classic ghost stories by literary giants like Ambrose Bierce, Washington Irving, Sir Walter Scott, F. Marion Crawford, and J. Sheridan Le Fanu, this anthology of highly original and often long-obscure works by twenty-five noteworthy masters of the macabre is guaranteed to raise more than a shiver. Gleaned from the renowned Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories series, which was edited from 1972 to 1984 by prolific horror fiction writer and erudite anthologist R. Chetwynd-Hayes, these tales reflect the enduring fascination in our literary tradition with phantoms, specters, ghouls, and wraiths. Theres a Fetch, too-in Tina Raths intricately plotted tale of a violent husband, a shrinking wife, a scheming woman, and a Doppleganger. Behind Guy de Maupassants simply titled An Apparition lurks a tale that Chetwynd-Hayes places among the top ten ghost stories ever written. From Daniel Defoes entertaining eighteenth-century period piece to the subtle slice of contemporary ghostly life from Stephen King (The Reapers Image), solace in these remarkable, chilling fictions comes only at the feet of very dark angels. 327 pp. Carroll & Graf, First TP, 2004, F/F.