The Wimbourne Book of Victorian Ghost Stories

The Wimbourne Book of Victorian Ghost Stories

by Arthur Conan DoyleGrant Allen Robert Barr and others
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date: 24/08/2017

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Twenty ghostly tales from the supernatural masters of the Victorian age. Wimbourne Books presents the fifth in a series of rare or out-of-print ghost stories from Victorian authors. With an introduction by author Alastair Gunn, Volume 5 in the series spans the years 1872 to 1901 and includes stories from a wide range of male authors; British, French and American. Includes tales by Henry James, Arthur Conan Doyle and Rudyard Kipling. Readers new to this genre will discover its pleasures; the Victorian quaintness, the sometimes shocking difference in social norms, the almost comical politeness and structured etiquette, the archaic and precise language, but mostly the Victorians’ skill at stoking our fears and trepidations, our insecurities and doubts. Even if you are already an aficionado of the ghostly tale there is much within these pages to interest you. Wait until the dark of the stormy night arrives, lock the doors, shutter the windows, light the fire, sit with your back to the wall and bury yourself in the Victorian macabre. Try not to let the creaking floorboards, the distant howl of a dog, the chill breeze that caresses the candle, the shadows in the far recesses of your room, disturb your concentration.


Includes the stories; No Living Voice (1872) – Thomas Street Millington; Lady Kitty (1876) – Walter Besant & James Rice; The Ghostly Rental (1876) – Henry James; The Transferred Ghost (1882) – Frank Richard Stockton; Apparition (1883) – Guy de Maupassant; Selecting a Ghost (1883) – Arthur Conan Doyle; No. 11 Welham Square (1885) – Edward Masey; The House of Strange Stories (1886) – Andrew Lang; By Word of Mouth (1887) – Rudyard Kipling; A Set of Chessmen (1890) – Richard Marsh; The Haunted Mill (1891) – Jerome K. Jerome; The Haunted Station (1892) – Hume Nisbet; Pallinghurst Barrow (1892) – Grant Allen; The Man Who Was Not on the Passenger List (1892) – Robert Barr; The Saving of a Soul (1893) – Sir Richard Francis Burton; No 252. Rue M. le Prince (1895) – Ralph Adams Cram; The Red Room (1896) – H. G. Wells; Colonel Halifax’s Ghost Story (1897) – Sabine Baring-Gould; The Haunted Burglar (1897) – William Chambers Morrow; The Case of Vincent Pyrwhit (1901) – Barry Pain.

ISBN:
1230001817041
1230001817041
Category:
Short stories
Format:
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date:
24-08-2017
Language:
English
Publisher:
Wimbourne Books
Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859 and died in 1930. Within those years was crowded a variety of activity and creative work that made him an international figure and inspired the French to give him the epithet 'the good giant'.

He was the nephew of 'Dickie Doyle' the artist, and was educated at Stonyhurst, and later studied medicine at Edinburgh University, where the methods of diagnosis of one of the professors provided the idea for the methods of deduction used by Sherlock Holmes. He set up as a doctor at Southsea and it was while waiting for patients that he began to write.

His growing success as an author enabled him to give up his practice and turn his attention to other subjects. His greatest achievement was, of course, his creation of Sherlock Holmes, who soon attained international status and constantly distracted him from his other work; at one time Conan Doyle killed him but was obliged by public protest to restore him to life.

And in his creation of Dr Watson, Holmes's companion in adventure and chronicler, Conan Doyle produced not only a perfect foil for Holmes but also one of the most famous narrators in fiction.

Guy de Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant was born in Normandy in 1850. In addition to his six novels, which include Bel-Ami (1885) and Pierre et Jean (1888), he wrote hundreds of short stories, the most famous of which is 'Boule de suif'.

By the late 1870s, he began to develop the first signs of syphilis, and in 1891 he was committed to an asylum in Paris, having tried to commit suicide. He died there two years later.

Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling was born in India in 1865. After intermittently moving between India and England during his early life, he settled in the latter in 1889, published his novel The Light That Failed in 1891 and married Caroline (Carrie) Balestier the following year.

They returned to her home in Brattleboro, Vermont, where Kipling wrote the two Jungle Books and Captains Courageous.

He continued to write prolifically and was the first Englishman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907 but his later years were darkened by the death of his son John at the Battle of Loos in 1915. He died in 1936.

Jerome K. Jerome

An English writer and humorist, Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) wrote a range of plays, essays and novels during his lifetime and is best known for the classic comic work Three Men in a Boat

Henry James

Henry James was born in New York in 1843 and was educated in Europe and America. He left Harvard Law School in 1863, after a year's attendance, to concentrate on writing, and from 1869 he began to make prolonged visits to Europe, eventually settling in England in 1876.

His literary output was prodigious and of the highest quality: more than ten outstanding novels, including The Portrait of a Lady and The American; countless novellas and short stories; as well as innumerable essays, letters, and other pieces of critical prose. Known by contemporary fellow novelists as 'the Master', James died in Kensington, London, in 1916.

Andrew Lang

Andrew Lang was a Scots poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology.

He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales.

The Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews are named after him.

H. G. Wells

Herbert George "H. G." Wells (September 21, 1866-August 13, 1946) was an English author, best known for his work in the "speculative fiction" genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics, and social commentary.

Wells is sometimes called "The Father of Science Fiction," along with Jules Verne. The War of the Worlds was written in the age of British colonialism, and Wells came up with the idea for the story while he and his brother were imagining what might happen if someone came to colonize England the way England had other countries.

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