eBook The 3rd Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories download

I have been an admirer of the classic ghost tale for decades now, particularly those of Victorian England, which - for myself and many others - was the height of the genre. These books (I have all ten now) contain some of those, plus more modern examples, but - under the guiding hand of Robert Aickman (a great master of the eerie tale), the selection is superior to many anthologies I have read over the years. Ghost stories - at their best - move in a rather subtle and evocative mindscape, playing on fears, hopes, and losses to often suspend the reader in an air of expectation, and taking full advantage of the suggestive power of place and time. To me - as far as "horror" and fantasy stories go - the well-wrought ghost story stands heads above the usual vampire, "serial killer" and Lovecraftian epics of creeping unease, and - certainly - has more sheer psychological oomph per square mortuary slab than the lumbering rot of walking dead stories. These are all wonderful to read, and have their own spaced on my bookshelf.

Throughout the 1970s, Fontana published a remarkable skein of ghost story collections, piloted by R. Aikman and later by R. Chetwynd-Hayes, no mean supernatural authors themselves. Some of the paperbacks in this series, which winds its way up to the "20th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories" are now collectors' items and worth over a hundred dollars apiece.

R. Chetwynd-Hayes has assembled an anthology of ghost stories that are both chilling and relatively unknown for this fifteenth book in the series. He has refrained from including too many humorous stories in this collection, as is his usual habit. Instead, he incorporates quite a few Christmas stories, including two you won't be able to guess from their titles. England appears to be a bad place to spend the holidays, in spite of all that propaganda from Charles Dickens.

These are the stories in the 15th Fontana Book:

"The Man from Glasgow" by W. Somerset Maugham--A traveler taking his ease in a Spanish hotel meets a man who suffers a ghostly encounter whenever the moon is full.

"Master of Hounds" by Peter A. Hough--It's always a bad idea to kick your dog, most especially if he leads your pack of foxhounds.

"The Dead Man of Varley Grange" by Anonymous--Jack Darent a former officer in the service of Her Majesty Queen Victoria is invited to spend Christmas shooting waterfowl with a group of friends. Unfortunately, the shooting party is staying over in the haunted Varley Grange. There's nothing like the spectre of a nun to put a damper on your Christmas dinner.

"Christmas Entertainment" by Daphne Froome--Another Christmas party gone bad. More unusually, this story is haunted by a deceased scientist.

"John Charrington's Wedding" by E. Nesbit--A much-collected Victorian ghost story, and one of my top 50. It's bad enough when brides are accidentally locked into chests or pursued by demon lovers, but when the groom is overheard telling his fiancée, "My dear, my dear, I believe I should come from the dead if you wanted me!" watch out!

"The Primrose Connection" by Margaret Chilvers-Cooper--A child with a companion visible only to herself is kidnapped by a couple who just lost their own daughter.

"The Saving of a Soul" by Sir Richard Burton--At the castle of Weixelstein in Germany, a brave serving-wench helps lay a ghost.

"No Living Man So Tall..." by Rosemary Timperley--Very good, very short story with its title borrowed from its last sentence. Top 50 material.

"The House by the Headland" by 'Sapper'--A hiker seeking shelter from a storm witnesses a murder.

"Drury Lane Ghost" by W. Macqueen-Pope--Told as a true account by a man who served as a fire warden for the Drury Lane Theatre during WWII.

"The Night Walkers" by Sydney J. Bounds--A bickering couple on a holiday cruise is warned away from Deadmen's Lock by the locals. Of course, that's where Roger and Jan tie up for the night.

"The Business of Madame Jahn" by Vincent O'Sullivan--A ne'er-do-well boulevardier murders his old aunt and inherits her Parisian shop. But not for long.

"Here Today..." by James Fisher--A man is offered a hundred pounds to stay overnight in a haunted house. This plot device may sound trite, but the story has an unusual ending.

"White Christmas" by David E. Rose--A little girl falls ill right before Christmas.

"Only Child" by Frances Stephens--A young boy hates his step-father and spends hours in the attic, trying to avoid him. While there, he makes a new friend.

"The Bearer of the Message" by Fritz Hopman--A French physician attends an International Conference of Medicine in Moscow, and gets an unusual opportunity to save an old man's life.

"The Herb Garden" by Meg Buxton--'One is nearer God's heart in a garden Than anywhere else on Earth.' The local priest hears ghostly monks in an old woman's garden.

"The Hanging Tree" by R. Chetwynd-Hayes--A young Victorian teenager sees ghostly presences on the public green and on her house's staircase, and plans an unusual Christmas treat for herself.

Through the 1970s, Fontana published a remarkable skein of ghost story collections, piloted by R. Aikman and later by R. Chetwynd-Hayes, no mean supernatural authors themselves. Some of the paperbacks in this series, which winds its way up to the "20th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories" are now collectors' items and worth over a hundred dollars apiece. I'm still kicking myself for not saving all of the volumes I bought while we were on an extended stay in Great Britain.

Unfortunately, this seventh book in the series is an exception to the general rule of excellence. I think perhaps the editor was running out of ghost stories and took a turn into weird fiction to pad out the collection. Surreal tales are to be found in abundance, but very few phantasms.

These are the stories in the 7th Fontana Book:

"Levitation" by Joseph Payne Brennan--A magician dies suddenly after causing a volunteer from his rural audience to rise into the air.

"Dearth's Farm" by Gerald Bullett--Atmospheric tale of a man who visits his recently wedded cousin on her husband's farm. Why is her husband beginning to resemble his favorite horse?

"Esmeralda" by John Keir Cross--Here's a shabby little shocker, as they used to say about "Tosca." A man strangles his wife and buries her in the basement of his tobacco shop. He is then haunted by his fantasy daughter, who seems to know all of his sordid little sexual secrets.

"The Dead Valley" by Ralph Adams Cram--A story from the school of Algernon Blackwood about Nature gone bad. Two boys hike over the hills to Hallsburg to buy a puppy, and are not able to make it home by sunset. They stumble across a valley where nothing seems to be alive.

"The Visit to the Museum" by Vladimir Nabokov--A man visits a dusty little French museum at the request of a friend and somehow ends up in Stalin's Russia. I think Nabokov wrote this story because he could.

"Gone Away" by A.E. Coppard--Three English friends who are touring France disappear one by one, the last of them while locked in a prison cell.

"Governor Manco and the Soldier" by Washington Irving--A Spanish foot soldier appears outside of Grenada with a fine Arabian horse and a saddlebag full of treasure. His tale of ghostly Muslim soldiers who are waiting under the mountain to retake Grenada earns him a trip to jail.

"The Cicerones" by Robert Aickman--A man is locked inside a Belgian cathedral during lunch hour with several unusual guides. This story by the editor is by far the most frightening in the book. Why is it that tourists in cathedrals always take it upon themselves to wander down into the crypt?

"Old Mrs. Jones" by Mrs. Riddell--This author was a respected writer of Victorian supernatural fiction, but she was obviously being paid by the word for this story. It is a 43-page tale of a cab-driver and his family who are living beyond their means in a large house that was once inhabited by a wicked doctor.

"Over an Absinthe Bottle" by W. C. Morrow--A young man who is starving to death on the streets of San Francisco is invited to share a bottle of absinthe by a cadaverous-looking gambler.

"Where the Woodbine Twineth" by Davis Grubb--All ghost story collections seem to include at least one child who claims to have companions no one else can see. This is one of the best tales of that difficult subgenre.