The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories Read Online Free
Author: Michael Cox, R.A. Gilbert
'Mrs Zant and the Ghost' (1885) or M. R. James's 'The Treasure of Abbot Thomas' (1904), in which the unravelling of clues in true Holmesian style leads the curious
Mr Somerton to the hidden treasure and its terrifying guardian. Such fusion produced another sub-genre, the story of psychic detection, with sleuths such as E. and H. Heron's Flaxman Low, Algernon Blackwood's John Silence, and W. Hope Hodgson's Carnacki pitting their wits against a variety of supernatural opponents. The close relationship between the ghost story and tales of mystery and detection is emphasized by the satisfying fact that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the most famous detective of them all, also wrote supernatural stories (we reprint one of his earliest, and best, 'The Captain of the "Pole-star"', 1883).
Le Fanu's first book, the extremely rare Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery, with four illustrations by Dickens's illustrator 'Phiz' (Hablot Knight Browne), appeared in 1851. Though now recognized as a landmark collection, it had far less impact on popular taste for the supernatural than two celebrated volumes by Mrs. Catherine Crowe: The Night-side of Nature (1848) and Ghosts and Family Legends (1859 for 1858), which presented highly embellished versions of what were claimed to be veridical experiences. But the resulting hybrid has not worn well, and Mrs Crowe's writings, despite their considerable contemporary popularity, had negligible influence on the way supernatural fiction developed over the course of the century. In terms of influence, and in the quality of his best work, Le Fanu stands head and shoulders above his contemporaries. One reason for this is that he hardly ever strayed beyond the boundaries of supernatural and mystery fiction: he was a supreme specialist. He appeared to recognize his limitations, but at the same time there was clearly a deep inner compulsion to write the kind of fiction that could accommodate the themes that engaged him so obsessively—the implacability of evil, the demoniacal potential of sexual desire, and, above all, the consequences of guilt. The stark conviction of Captain Barton in 'The Watcher' (1851) is surely Le Fanu's own, and stands as a motto to the darker aspects of the Victorian ghost story:
“There does exist beyond this a spiritual world—a system whose workings are generally in mercy hidden from us—a system which may be, and which is sometimes, partially and terribly revealed. I am sure—I know ... that there is a God—a dreadful God—and that retribution follows guilt, in ways the most mysterious and stupendous—by agencies the most inexplicable and terrible.”
Few Victorian writers of ghost stories wrote with this degree of personal conviction. The majority of stories were written in direct response to popular taste: but the best are none the worse for this, and for those who like a tale well told there are pleasures aplenty to be savoured.
As the century drew to a close the ghost story proved to be remarkably resistant to mainstream literary influences. In the wider sphere of supernatural fantasy, the Decadence produced a strain of lyrical, atavistic horror in the work of Arthur Machen; but Machen's stories belong to a different tradition from the ghost story proper, and apart from a handful of examples—such as Vincent O'Sullivan's 'The Business of Madame Jahn', Ella d'Arcy's 'The Villa Lucienne', or the highly wrought tales of Vernon Lee—there is no discernible fin de siecle mood in the stories that continued to be turned out for popular consumption. Nor was the taste for spooks of the old-fashioned kind confined to Britain. A literary tradition independent of, but clearly part of, the British root-stock flourished in New England. The chief figure was Henry James (represented here by an early story, 'The Romance of Certain Old Clothes', 1868), who produced ghost stories, increasingly oblique in style, throughout his career; his friend and admirer
Mr Somerton to the hidden treasure and its terrifying guardian. Such fusion produced another sub-genre, the story of psychic detection, with sleuths such as E. and H. Heron's Flaxman Low, Algernon Blackwood's John Silence, and W. Hope Hodgson's Carnacki pitting their wits against a variety of supernatural opponents. The close relationship between the ghost story and tales of mystery and detection is emphasized by the satisfying fact that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the most famous detective of them all, also wrote supernatural stories (we reprint one of his earliest, and best, 'The Captain of the "Pole-star"', 1883).
Le Fanu's first book, the extremely rare Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery, with four illustrations by Dickens's illustrator 'Phiz' (Hablot Knight Browne), appeared in 1851. Though now recognized as a landmark collection, it had far less impact on popular taste for the supernatural than two celebrated volumes by Mrs. Catherine Crowe: The Night-side of Nature (1848) and Ghosts and Family Legends (1859 for 1858), which presented highly embellished versions of what were claimed to be veridical experiences. But the resulting hybrid has not worn well, and Mrs Crowe's writings, despite their considerable contemporary popularity, had negligible influence on the way supernatural fiction developed over the course of the century. In terms of influence, and in the quality of his best work, Le Fanu stands head and shoulders above his contemporaries. One reason for this is that he hardly ever strayed beyond the boundaries of supernatural and mystery fiction: he was a supreme specialist. He appeared to recognize his limitations, but at the same time there was clearly a deep inner compulsion to write the kind of fiction that could accommodate the themes that engaged him so obsessively—the implacability of evil, the demoniacal potential of sexual desire, and, above all, the consequences of guilt. The stark conviction of Captain Barton in 'The Watcher' (1851) is surely Le Fanu's own, and stands as a motto to the darker aspects of the Victorian ghost story:
“There does exist beyond this a spiritual world—a system whose workings are generally in mercy hidden from us—a system which may be, and which is sometimes, partially and terribly revealed. I am sure—I know ... that there is a God—a dreadful God—and that retribution follows guilt, in ways the most mysterious and stupendous—by agencies the most inexplicable and terrible.”
Few Victorian writers of ghost stories wrote with this degree of personal conviction. The majority of stories were written in direct response to popular taste: but the best are none the worse for this, and for those who like a tale well told there are pleasures aplenty to be savoured.
As the century drew to a close the ghost story proved to be remarkably resistant to mainstream literary influences. In the wider sphere of supernatural fantasy, the Decadence produced a strain of lyrical, atavistic horror in the work of Arthur Machen; but Machen's stories belong to a different tradition from the ghost story proper, and apart from a handful of examples—such as Vincent O'Sullivan's 'The Business of Madame Jahn', Ella d'Arcy's 'The Villa Lucienne', or the highly wrought tales of Vernon Lee—there is no discernible fin de siecle mood in the stories that continued to be turned out for popular consumption. Nor was the taste for spooks of the old-fashioned kind confined to Britain. A literary tradition independent of, but clearly part of, the British root-stock flourished in New England. The chief figure was Henry James (represented here by an early story, 'The Romance of Certain Old Clothes', 1868), who produced ghost stories, increasingly oblique in style, throughout his career; his friend and admirer
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