Customer Reviews

The Cold Embrace and Other Ghost Stories

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Mrs. Braddon had a positive genius for writing ghost stories. This collection is a pleasure. The stories are arranged chronologically from 1860 to 1896.

There are ghosts that come to say farewell, ghosts that give warnings, a ghost in the form of a sinister shadow, ghostly hunters, a coach full of ghosts, an island of ghosts, a particularly oppressive ghost that is "a hideous indistinctness," and a ghost that turns out to be all too human.

Several stories are more horrible than ghostly, hinging upon some diabolical wickedness. Sometimes there's no hope of escape from a grim fate. But other times romance blossoms in the very face of evil, and a lover saves the day.

Above all, no one surpasses Mrs. Braddon at describing the awful sensations of an overnight guest in a haunted room.

Her characters, good and evil, are wonderfully drawn. My favorites in this collection are a young man feverishly addicted to Arctic exploration, a sun-scorched colonel just back from the Punjab who doggedly tracks down a missing friend, and a very old woman who will do almost anything to prolong her life.

I love the richly literate style of accomplished Victorian writers like Mrs. Braddon, so deeply observant of human nature. In The Cold Embrace, Mrs. Braddon is at her best. She holds the reader captive from the very first sentence of every story. Lovers of classic Victorian ghost stories will not want to miss this collection.

The introduction by Richard Dalby gives a good, concise overview of Mrs. Braddon's life and work.