A short story classified under the American Gothic genre, the piece depicts an eerie set of events following the distressing occurrences within the Boyne household, as their dream relocation takes a drastic turn. Wharton cleverly weaves together Gothic themes including horror, retribution, and despair to create a dynamic plot which is additionally aided by the use of foreshadowing, an uncanny setting, and the reflective voice of its character.
Divided into five parts, Afterward introduces newly rich couple Mary and Ned Boyne, who decide to make their dream move to England after Ned strikes a good business investment. In search of a suitable house they come across the...
Louisa May Alcott enthusiasts would be delighted to read this short novel published in 1867, just a year before the grand debut of her most famous Little Women trilogy. This is one of three books she wrote under the pseudonym AM Barnard. She used this name to pen tales that were meant more for adult readers, though younger people will find them quite interesting too.
The Abbot's Ghost or Maurice Treherne's Temptation is a romance, mystery, ghost-story and novel of manners all rolled into one. She subtitled it A Christmas Story and it certainly evokes memories of old-fashioned holiday seasons, before the advent of the Internet and TV, where one sat round a cozy f...
Ambrose Bierce (1842 – 1914?), satirist, critic, poet, short story writer and journalist. His fiction showed a clean economical style often sprinkled with subtle cynical comments on human behaviour. Nothing is known of his death, as he went missing while an observer with Pancho Villa’s army in 1913/14.
(Summaries by Peter Yearsley)
The Ways of Ghosts: Stories of encounters with the ghosts of the dead and dying. The spirits of the dead reach out to the living, to pass on a message or to pursue a killer.
Contents (with beginning time):
Being a physiologist, Austin Gilroy is unconvinced that the occult is real. His friend Professor Wilson, however, is not only convinced that psychical powers are real, but eagerly desires that Gilroy should be persuaded. To this end, Wilson invites Austin to his house for a demonstration. The effect is that Austin, although still skeptical, now concedes that there is more in the matter than he at first believed. But when the psychic, Miss Penclosa, controls his actions to the point where he nearly murders his fiancee, Austin Gilroy doubts no longer.