Tales from the Dead of Night: Thirteen Classic Ghost Stories

Book excerpt: From a beautiful antique that gives its owner a show he'd rather forget, to 'ghost detective' whose exorcism goes horribly wrong and a sinister masked ball which seems to have one too many guests, these ghost stories of supernatural terror are guaranteed to make you shiver, thrill and look under the bed tonight. From rural England to colonial India, in murky haunted mansions and under modern electric lighting, these master storytellers - some of the best writers in the English language - unfold spinetinglers which pull back the veil of everyday life to reveal the nightmares which lurk just out of sight. They are lessons in ingenuity and surprise, sometimes building slowly to a chilling climax, sometimes springing horror on you from the utterly banal. And as you'd expect from these writers, the stories are more than simply frightening - they're also disquieting exposures of mortality, loneliness and the human capacity for both evil and remorse. We wish you pleasant dreams. Contains ghost stories by: Ruth Rendell, M. R. James, Rudyard Kipling, Edith Wharton, E. F. Benson, E. Nesbit, Saki, W. W. Jacobs, W. F. Harvey, Hugh Walpole, Chico Kidd and LP Hartley.