The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories Illustrated

Book excerpt: A popular, classic haunted-house story, "The Empty House" can be found in many anthologies. The Empty House" is a famous ghost story by the British author Algernon Blackwood. The short story was first collected in the 1906 anthology The Empty House and Other Stories. In the story, a man accompanies his adventurous aunt to a notorious house where, a century ago, a servant was murdered by her jealous suitor. This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Certain houses, like certain persons, manage somehow to proclaim at once their character for evil. With houses it is the aroma of evil deeds committed under a particular roof, long after the actual doers have passed away, that makes the gooseflesh come and the hair rise. Something of the original passion of the evil-doer, and the horror felt by his victim, enters the heart of the innocent watcher, and he becomes suddenly conscious of tingling nerves, creeping skin, and a chilling of the blood. He is terror-stricken without apparent cause.