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The Collected Ghost Stories of E.F. Benson

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A reader serious about his/her love of the ghost story may have already encountered such greats as M.R. James, Algernon Blackwood, or the wonderful Oliver Onions. You should immediately add E. F. Benson to your list of "absolute musts" to read and collect. His ghost stories, collected in a handsome volume published by Carroll & Graf, are wonderfully readable. In fact, there are more frights per page then in most modern horror stories. I will not single any story out, because one and all is worth your time and energy. I am confident that you will find many, many hours of entertainment and chills here. This is book that I was proud to buy and proud to share with my friends. You will not go wrong here! Happy reading!

E.F. Benson, perhaps best known for his amusing 'Mapp & Lucia' comedy-of-manners stories also wrote a respectable body of ghost stories which are gathered together in this excellent omnibus anthology. All make for quality reading as examples of the English supernatural genre but a few stand out as darkly-luminous masterpieces, unforgettable in their haunting hold upon the reader and written with real verve. 'The Room In The Tower' is an undeniably chilling narrative of vampirism featuring a truly terrifying female revenant - the words spoken recurrently by Mrs Stone to the protaganist: "Jack will show you to your room: i have given you the room in the tower" are enough to instil a frisson of pervasive dread every time one reads this story. 'The Sanctuary' is a delectably macabre tale of damned souls and secret diabolism at an English country house complete with a hidden Satanic chapel for nocturnal celebrations of Le Messe Noir. 'The Man Who Went Too Far' unfolds by awful degrees the seductive but injudicious immersion of an artist in the deeps of nature mysticism which can only culminate in the most hideous revelation of truth and the sign of the cloven hoof - it is marvellously written, exquisite prose and descriptive passages and has a most beguiling undercurrent. 'The Cat' likewise is utterly engrossing and 'Mrs Amworth' stands as a unusual classsic of the vampire tale. But these are just a few of the delights this packed volume offers to the curious reader, there are many other marvellous tales to cause one to look over one's shoulder as the clock strikes twelve and a sighing midnight wind scrapes the twigs of an overhanging bough against the window. Quintessentially English, wrought with a delicious lightness of touch and a hint of a stylish insouciance but nevertheless conveying a genuinely disturbing charge of the uncanny these tales will be read again and again. E.F.Benson's contribution to the field of supernatural terror is of a very high standard. This anthology is well-worth obtaining.

E.F. Besnson, the son of an Archibishop of Canterbury, is a master of the ghost story. This collection contains stories of troubled spirits, both good and evil; séances; vampires; the occult; curses; ancient gods; etc. All of them show off his remarkable talent for creating an eerie atmosphere and realistic characters, as well as his knowledge of the spirit world, especially with the last entry "The Recent 'Witch-Burning' at Clonmel," an article he wrote for a magazine which describes primitive exorcism practices.

One thing I most enjoyed about his stories is that even though the subject matter can become tiresome, Benson interjects enough new twists and types of spirits and other creature to make them feel new and unique. With "Caterpillars," for example, involving an empty bedroom in which someone passed away from cancer, Besnon creates a materialization of the disease in such a creepingly disgusting way that you are repulsed and entranced at the same time. Fortunately, all the stories are classics that are sure to enthrall any ready and to keep them up until the early hours, wanting to read just one more story.

e.f.benson could twist and turn the ghost story as nobody else. his stories are the most original and inventive you can find. as montague rhodes james he had great descriptions and wrote very well. however, efb was more macabre in the way he let the story build, not to mention: end. investing in the plot, creating unease by keeping the treath's strength and how it would work unclear, his stories are truly horrible. in some stories you must realize there may not really be a "point"(mysterious strangers or treaths not being revealed) or a straight-forward climax (like "and the dead spake"). efb had his reasons, and the reason is this: if you are treathened by the supernatural: do you think it will explain to you why it may harm you. efb's starting point is somewhere in someone's LIFE, and how the treath enters this. would that really always be that straightforward. but don't misunderstand, it is easy to get into the stories and get your own ideas about what's going on. itęs not obscure, just some uneasy unclearity at times (which is enjoyable). there are some horror stories here too, more along the pulpish line. great collection. some are too traditional for my taste (though not to people who like lefanu, nesbit and that crowd) but there are some truly morbid tales carried out extremely well, like The face. this is a great collection for us who like the morbid, AND for people liking the old victorian ghost story, having enough stories and excellence to satisfy both parties

I had read E.F. Benson's "The Horror Horn" to start with (a collection of 13 of his best ghost stories), after seeing that it was considered one of the Top 100 Horror Books of all time in Newman & Jones' excellent overview volume. Each of those 13 stories was so good that I just had to have more, and so picked up this collection of every single one of Benson's spooky tales, 54 in all. This collection certainly did not disappoint; I loved every single one of these ghost stories, and was riveted for the full 640-page length of this generous book.
The tales in this volume are extremely varied. Most deal with ghosts of the conventional kind: the spirits of the deceased with grudges against the living or unfinished business here on the material plane. Unlike the ghosts of Oliver Onions--another great English supernatural writer of the early 20th century, whose ghosts can often be seen more as the mental aberrations of the protagonist--the ghosts of E.F. Benson are decidedly and objectively REAL. There's no question that these occult manifestations are really happening, and not just in the mind of the main character. This--for me, anyway--makes for a more chilling experience. Other tales in this volume deal with vampires, cancer-inducing caterpillars, devil worship, elementals, ghostly slugs, witches and seances. The fact that a character is sympathetic is no guarantee of his or her survival in these Benson stories; anyone is capable of being offed! Indeed, in "The Face," one of the scarier stories of the bunch, a kindly woman, a mother of two and a good wife, meets a pretty horrible end for no particular reason. Benson never married, and may have been something of a misogynist; the women in his stories, anyway, are usually given a rough time, or are presented as rather repellent creatures. Take the levitating lead character in "Mrs. Amworth," a nice English biddy who just happens to be a blood-sucking vampire; or the bloated and horrible husband killer of "The Corner House"; or the female, yetilike creature of "The Horror Horn"; or the sadistic Sybil Rorke of "Inscrutable Decrees"; or Bertha Acres of "The Outcast," a woman so vile that the very earth spits out her coffin. Then there are the dueling witches of "The Wishing-Well" and the vampire witch of "The Room in the Tower." Yes, Mr. Benson surely didn't have too much use for the ladies. However, in the bulk of these stories, the main characters are single, unattached, scholarly, middle-aged men--like Benson himself--who go on long summer holidays to Cornwall, Norfolk or Sussex, rent homes and get involved with all sorts of ghostly mishegas. (Modern-day readers will no doubt feel twinges of envy at the extended summer vacations that all these characters seem able to take!) Of course, space doesn't permit me to rave about each of the wonderful 54 tales in this volume, but I would like to single out for special mention a few of my favorites. "Pirates," for example, is an incredibly beautifully written tale of a man who is haunted by the spirits of his youth when he revisits his old home. "Mr. Tilly's Seance" is a very unique story, in that it is a seance tale told from the point of view of the spirit. I've never read another one like it. "The Man Who Went Too Far" tells of a man who gets just a wee bit too close to Mother Nature; fans of Algernon Blackwood should especially like this one. "And the Dead Spake--" deals with a scientist who invents a device that enables him to play the brain cells of a corpse like a phonograph! It's a story that H. G. Wells himself might have written. And then there's "How Fear Departed From the Long Gallery," Benson's favorite tale of the bunch, and one of mine, too. In this one, a house is haunted by the spirits of three-year-old twins; just to see these ghostly children spells sickness and death for the viewer. It is a lovely story, actually, well told and suspenseful. But then again, all the tales herein are well told and suspenseful, and elegantly written. Benson certainly deserves his place in that pantheon of great English supernaturalists that includes M.R. James, Sheridan LeFanu, Oliver Onions and Algernon Blackwood. Read this book, and you'll see that he was indeed one of the greats.

I personally find it difficult to reconcile the fear of ghosts with the technology of the twentieth century. Perhaps technology makes us feel too secure, too powerful, too material to fear the supernatural. The mechanical seems to have replaced the spiritual in our lives, and when I read the second story in this anthology, about a ghostly car, I was surprised that I went on to enjoy the anthology as much as I did.

Benson has a way of bringing out the dramatic, as in "The Room in the Tower," or unmentionable horror, as in "How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery" or "Caterpillars," or fear of what powers the mind can unleash, as in "The Man who Went Too Far," or just humor, as in "Mr. Tilly's Seance." That's quite a range of experiences to be evoked, and I was able to eke out a good half-year's enjoyment from this voluminous collection.

I have only two complaints about these stories, and they are common to quite a bit of weird tales produced between the 1890's and the 1930's: a prediliction towards unnecessary explanation of the supernatural at the end, and an obsession with spiritualism (or mesmerism, or psychics, or ESP, etc.). The rationalism of the day no doubt demanded the former, but the latter unbearably dates literature that fawns over spiritualism. Very few writers can use it as a plot device without it appearing to be a very rotten crutch, and Benson is not one of those writers. Much like radiation in the 50's and biotechnology in the 90's, it's the deus ex machina and all the worse when debunked.

In any case, I was happy to take the good with the bad and look forward to reading this anthology again.

I have been soaking up horror anthologies like a sponge for well over two years now. I would have thought I would tire of them, but I just can't get enough of the atmosphere and the gloom these types of tales relate.

My current favorite is this dense book compiling the supernatural tales of E.F. Benson. At the moment I am only about of a third of the way through. Perhaps I should wait until I finish, but judging by the variety of stories here, I feel safe to say that I highly recommend this hefty volume.

Many may find some of these tales a little dated, for science may have disspelled a few of the subjects covered. But for the most part these are timeless tales, rich in description, drenched in dark moods and never failing to surprise with the seemingly endless ways Benson appears to construct a solid ghost story cleverly and elegantly.

I'm not given to superlatives, but I find it hard to express anything to say about this book where superlatives or comarisons to the greatest writers of this genre without seeming trite. There ARE a few contemporary authors of the Victorian-Edwardian Era, which the Benson Brothers bridged, who have a story or even several better than many in this collection, but just mentioning these names says more about how great E.F Benson is- I'm talking about J.S Le Fanu, M.R James, Villiers D'Isle Adam and in the modern era, the list is even more impressive: Flannery O'Conner, Thomas Liggoti, Clive Barker, Issac Bashevis Singer and Peter Straub(who has quietly taken over the crown as America's Horror Short Story king with two masterpieces "Houses Without Doors", "Magic Terror" and several novellas masquerading as novels). I urge you to read E.F Benson's Book of Ghost Tales, then demand that some publisher do a public serviced and re-publish Benson's two nearly(?)as talented brothers R.H and A.C Benson who, from the few tales I've read in anthologies and old magazines may well be as good or,dare I say it?...even better.

A number of reviewers of this book have compared Benson's ghost stories to Montague Rhodes James - justifiably, since they were probably the two greatest Victorian authors of supernatural short stories after Sheridan LeFanu and Algernon Blackwood. But there are also differences, some subtle and some less so. For instance, James's stories, drawing heavily from his own experience, frequently have a whiff of the ecclesiastical or academic about them, while Benson's tend to center on a middle-class, often somewhat smug Englishman going about his daily routine with no greater concerns than what to have for dinner and what seaside resort to spend the summer in. James's supernatural creatures are almost always malignant and frequently solid, as in "Canon Alberic's Scrapbook" or "Mr. Poynter's Diary", while Benson's, while they can be heard, felt and occasionally smelt, tend to be more traditionally misty and sometimes more anguished than malevolent. As the useful introduction by Richard Dalby points out, the trademarks of Benson's stories (overbearing fathers, malice-filled women, men whose closest friendships seem to be with other men and for whom love of the opposite sex has disastrous consequences) tell us a great deal about him as a person, whereas about all one gets about James from his stories is that he had a great love of ancient manuscripts, was religious and was a profound scholar.

Another difference is that while James occasionally shows a bit of dry irony, Benson more clearly has a sense of humor. As other reviewers mentioned, he frequently inserts psychic interludes dealing with mediums, seances, and somewhat exasperated spirits, but he also points out that the mediums and seances depend on fraudulent tricks (especially in "Mr. Tilly's Seance," where the disembodied spirit itself gets irritated at the medium's chicanery). His attitude seems to be that mediums and spiritualists are less to blame than those who swallow their bait - if you want to believe that Aunt Martha has nothing better to do with her afterlife than answer your impertinent questions, he seems to say, don't ask me for sympathy! In stories like "Spinach," he betrays a clear affection for the likable young sibling mediums, even if they are clearly at least partly frauds. And in one of the book's most hair-raising stories, "How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery," centering on an ancient murder that will make any parent's skin crawl, he argues that the attitude of the other-worldly apparition may depend on how you approach it, not the other way around.

Having said that, the one thing James and Benson have in common that separates them from lesser hack writers is that in both cases, the persons who tell the story are likely to be pottering along in their daily lives, totally oblivious to signs of trouble, when something sudden and terrible comes out of the darkness and either almost overwhelms them and carries them off, or actually does so, never more terribly than in "The Face." For those whose acquaintance with Benson may be restricted to "Mrs. Amworth" and "The Man Who Went Too Far," both frequently reprinted in anthologies, this book will open up a whole new, and somewhat frightening, world.

Benson was a good friend of classic ghost-story writer M.R. James, and was among those present that Christmas Eve when James read aloud his first ghost stories.

Benson didn't have the genius or the highly literate background of James, but he did know how to write a good ghost tale, and he did just that. His stories, as has been mentioned elsewhere, deal largely with a man or two men going on holiday and finding horror instead. Women often get the worst of it in his stories, either being innocent victims or horrifyingly evil antagonists; it doesn't often happen that a woman in one of his stories is a regular person who helps to solve whatever mystery is entangling the characters.

One classic in the misogynist vein is "The Room in the Tower", in which a young man experiences a recurring nightmare of visiting a school friend, whose frightening mother always speaks the same words: "Jack will show you to your room; I've given you the room in the tower." Our protagonist knows that he must, at all costs, avoid that room, but he always awakes before the evil inside can overcome him.

"The Step" is one of the finest ghost stories ever written, about a heartless English businessman in Egypt who begins to hear someone following him down the street, at night... and what happens when he confronts his pursuer.

For those who, like me, love the ghost stories of the Victorian and Edwardian era, this is a must.