"Ghosts are the true immortals, and the dead grow more alive all the time. Wraiths have a greater vitality today than ever before. They are far more numerous than at any time in the past, and people are more interested in them. There are persons that claim to be acquainted with specific spirits, to speak with them, to carry on correspondence with them, and even some who insist that they are private secretaries to the dead. Others of us mortals, more reserved, are content to keep such distance as we may from even the shadow of a shade. . . ." Dorothy Scarborough said in her introduction to this volume, setting the books tone quite nicely.

Scarborough was a lecturer in English for Columbia University who also worked as an author and anthologist. Her works included The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction, Fugitive Verses, From a Southern Porch, all of which she authored; she also compiled volumes of stories, including this one and Humorous Ghost Stories.

Among the authors anthologized here are Algernon Blackwood, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Robert W. Chambers, Anatole France, Fitz-James O'Brien, Ambrose Bierce, Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Machen, and Guy de Maupassant.