VICTORIAN GHOST STORIES: AN OXFORD ANTHOLOGY. [Hardcover]

Michael and R. A. Gilbert (editors). Cox (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1991

There's nothing like a good ghost story. And in Victorian Ghost Stories, Michael Cox and R.A. Gilbert bring together thirty-five well wrought tales of haunted houses, vengeful spirits, spectral warnings, invisible antagonists, and motiveless malignity from beyond the grave. The Victorians excelled at the ghost story, it was as much a part of their literary culture as the realistic novel, and it was practiced by almost all the great writers of the age. Cox and Gilbert here provide samples from Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry James, and Wilkie Collins, as well as such classic ghost-story specialists as M.R. James and J.S. Le Fanu (whose "Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street," considered one of the best haunted-house story ever written, is excerpted above), plus one or two genuine rarities for the supernatural fiction enthusiast to savor. The editors also reveal the key role played by women in the growth of the genre, including stories by Elizabeth Gaskell, Mrs. Craik, Mrs. Henry Wood, Amelia B. Edwards, Charlotte Riddell, and many others. Finally, they offer an informative introduction, detailed source notes, and an extensive survey of ghost-story collections from 1850 to 1910. Traditional in its forms, but energetically inventive and infused with a relish of the supernatural, these classic ghost stories still retain their original power to unsettle and surprise. Every one is guaranteed to satisfy what Virginia Woolf called "that strange human craving for the pleasure of feeling afraid."

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press,; First Edition edition (1991)
• ISBN-10: 019214202X
• ISBN-13: 978-0192142023
• ASIN: B002KAWF7Y
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.3 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,393,969 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent choices, July 7, 2000

By 

Zac Kerns (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Victorian Ghost Stories: An Oxford Anthology (Oxford Paperbacks) (Paperback)

Victorian Ghost Stories: An Oxford Anthology has some of the best constructed and most chilling stories I have ever laid my eyes on. The characters, the settings, the plots and the dialogue from each of the stories all seem well thought out and written. I never lost my interest and always wanted to "read just one more page", from the simple to the complex, each story was wonderful in it's own way. I am sure, that if you are interested in ghosts, or just enjoy a good story now and then, this is for you. This is not a bunch of kiddy stories either, the pages are full of real talent and are portrayed with disturbing grace. I cannot say enough for this book and I am saddened that I am the only one who has written a review on such an extraordinary anthology. Please look into this one, it's worth anyone's money...this is the stuff that needs to be taught in schools.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oh, you've discovered my weakness for fine horror stories, January 9, 2003

By 

"jenniferbraun" (Santa Rosa, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Victorian Ghost Stories: An Oxford Anthology (Oxford Paperbacks) (Paperback)

I cannot get enough of James, Gaskell, Le Fanu, Dickens...I have discovered I'm an Anglophile. I adore all that fog, gloom, polite horror and ghosts with lovely elocution. These stories are like a box of your favorite candy. You'll love them!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stories to be read by candle light, May 13, 2001

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Victorian Ghost Stories: An Oxford Anthology (Oxford Paperbacks) (Paperback)

For the sake of atmosphere, read "Victorian Ghost Stories" with a candle to light your way through its mysterious passages.

A very large candle.

There are thirty-five stories within its four-hundred-and-eighty-nine pages, and you must read them all before dawn.

Actually, you should savor this supernatural feast one story at a time. Its editors, who are both scholars of occult literature, collected the best of the best from the Golden Age of ghost story writing. If you are already a reader of the phantasmagoric, some of the anthology will be familiar, e.g. "An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street," "The Romance of Certain Old Clothes," or "John Charrington's Wedding."

There are also lesser-known tales of vengeful ghosts, haunted houses, and "things in a dead man's eye," the latter courtesy of Rudyard Kipling's "At the End of the Passage."

According to the editors' introduction, one of their aims for this anthology was to "map out the development of the Victorian ghost story from circa 1850...it is in the 1850s that the distinct, anti-Gothic character of the Victorian ghost story begins to emerge." Which is not to say that the Gothic emphasis on moldering sepulchres is altogether missing. Try "The Tomb of Sarah" by F. G. Loring, whose story begins with the memorial inscription:

"SARAH. 1630. FOR THE SAKE OF THE DEAD AND THE WELFARE OF THE LIVING, LET THIS SEPULCHRE REMAIN UNTOUCHED AND ITS OCCUPANT UNDISTURBED TILL THE COMING OF CHRIST."

Of course, the story's protagonist believes he has an excellent reason for disturbing the dead. Or in Sarah's case, the Undead.

Make certain your candle is not burning low before you start "The Tomb of Sarah," or any of the other tales in this haunting collection.