“Volumes of frightfulness. . . . No one should go through life (let alone death) without experiencing W.W. Jacobs’s ‘The Monkey’s Paw,’ Perceval Landon’s ‘Thurnley Abbey,’ Ambrose Bierce’s ‘The Moonlit Road’ and M.R. James’s ‘Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad.’ But Penzler also includes many stories that should be equally well known. This year, for instance, I read for the first time Ellen Glasgow’s ‘The Shadowy Third’.”
–Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
“If you enjoy, as I have since childhood, a great ghost story well told, this book is required reading.”
–Charles McNair, Paste Magazine
“Wonderful. . . . A list on your computer is one thing. A big, fat, juicy, paperback anthology like this is something else altogether.”
–The Buffalo News (editor’s choice)
“Jam packed with enough classic horror and otherworldly stories to keep you having nightmares through the month of October. . . . This collection of short stories coupled with eerie vintage illustrations is a must-have for the nightstand. The only thing that can make it better is a flashlight under the covers.”
–The Long Island Press
“This mountain-sized omnibus contains every wrinkle of the form you could ever want. . . . There’s enough in this volume to please both dilettantes and devotees among ghost story readers.”
–Publishers Weekly
“Penzler has done an excellent job of collecting interesting, unnerving, and fascinating stories as well as providing nifty tidbits in the introductions. Reading most of these stories just before trying to sleep, though, is not recommended.”
–Booklist
BUT I’M NOT DEAD YET
Conrad Aiken: Mr. Arcularis
William Fryer Harvey: August Heat
I’LL LOVE YOU—FOREVER (OR MAYBE NOT)
Ellen Glasgow: The Shadowy Third
Ellen Glasgow: The Past
David Morrell: But At My Back I Always Hear
O. Henry: The Furnished Room
Paul Ernst: Death’s Warm Fireside
Andrew Klavan: The Advent Reunion
R. Murray Gilchrist: The Return
Rudyard Kipling: The Phantom Rickshaw
Ambrose Bierce: The Moonlit Road
Lafcadio Hearn: The Story of Ming-Y
Lafcadio Hearn: Yuki-Onna
THIS OLD HOUSE
Amyas Northcote: Brickett Bottom
E. F. Benson: How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery
G. G. Pendarves: Thing of Darkness
Edward Lucas White: The House of the Nightmare
Hector Bolitho: The House on Half Moon Street
Dick Donovan: A Night of Horror
Vincent O’sullivan: The Burned House
KIDS WILL BE KIDS
Rosemary Timperley: Harry
Michael Reaves: Make-Believe
A. M. Burrage: Playmates
Ramsey Campbell: Just Behind You
A. E. Coppard: Adam And Eve and Pinch Me
Steve Friedman: The Lost Boy of the Ozarks
THERE’S SOMETHING FUNNY AROUND HERE
Mark Twain: A Ghost’s Story
Donald E. Westlake: In At The Death
Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Ghost of Dr. Harris
“Ingulphus”: The Everlasting Club
Isaac Asimov and James Maccreigh: Legal Rites
Albert E. Cowdrey: Death Must Die
Frank Stockton: The Transferred Ghost
Oscar Wilde: The Canterville Ghost
A NEGATIVE TRAIN OF THOUGHT
August Derleth: Pacific 421
Robert Weinberg: The Midnight El
STOP—YOU’RE SCARING ME
Frederick Cowles: Punch and Judy
Henry S. Whitehead: The Fireplace
H. F. Arnold: The Night Wire 400
Fritz Leiber: Smoke Ghost 406
Wyatt Blassingame: Song of the Dead
I MUST BE DREAMING
Wilkie Collins: The Dream Woman 437
Washington Irving: The Adventure of the German Student
A SÉANCE, YOU SAY?
Joseph Shearing: They Found My Grave
Edgar Jepson: Mrs. Morrel’s Last Séance
Joyce Carol Oates: Night-Side
CLASSICS
M. R. James: “Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come To You My Lad”
W. W. Jacobs: The Monkey’s Paw
W. W. Jacobs: The Toll-House
Edith Wharton: Afterward
Willa Cather: Consequences
Cynthia Asquith: The Follower
Cynthia Asquith: The Corner Shop
H. P. Lovecraft: The Terrible Old Man
Erckmann-Chatrian: The Murderer’s Violin
Saki: The Open Window
Saki: Laura
Fitz-James O’Brien: What Was It?
Alexander Woollcott: Full Fathom Five
H. R. Wakefield: He Cometh and He Passeth By
Perceval Landon: Thurnley Abbey
THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES
Algernon Blackwood: The Woman’s Ghost Story
Victor Rousseau: The Angel of the Marne
Olivia Howard Dunbar: The Shell of Sense
Marjorie Bowen: The Avenging of Ann Leete
BEATEN TO A PULP
Greye La Spina: The Dead-Wagon
Urann Thayer: A Soul with Two Bodies
Arthur J. Burks: The Ghosts of Steamboat Coulee
Thorp Mcclusky: The Considerate Hosts
Cyril Mand: The Fifth Candle
August Derleth and Mark Schorer: The Return of Andrew Bentley
M. L. Humphreys: The Floor Above
Manly Wade Wellman: School for the Unspeakable
A. V. Milyer: Mordecai’s Pipe
Julius Long: He Walked by Day
Dale Clark: Behind the Screen
MODERN MASTERS
M. Rickert: Journey into the Kingdom
H. R. F. Keating: Mr. Saul
Chet Williamson: Coventry Carol
