Great Ghost Stories Horror Book Review

Featuring eerily atmospheric modern tales of foreboding and unease by such contemporary authors as Garry Kilworth, Brian Lumley, Ramsey Campbell, Tony Richards, and R. Chetwynd-Hayes, as well as disquieting classic ghost stories by literary giants like Ambrose Bierce, Washington Irving, Sir Walter Scott, F. Marion Crawford, and J. Sheridan Le Fanu, this anthology of highly original and often long-obscure works by twenty-five noteworthy masters of the macabre is guaranteed to raise more than a shiver. Gleaned from the renowned Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories series, which was edited from 1972 to 1984 by prolific horror fiction writer and erudite anthologist R. Chetwynd-Hayes, these tales reflect the enduring fascination in our literary tradition with phantoms, specters, ghouls, and wraiths. There’s a Fetch, too-in Tina Rath’s intricately plotted tale of a violent husband, a shrinking wife, a scheming woman, and a Doppleganger. Behind Guy de Maupassant’s simply titled “An Apparition” lurks a tale that Chetwynd-Hayes places among the top ten ghost stories ever written. From Daniel Defoe’s entertaining eighteenth-century period piece to the subtle slice of contemporary ghostly life from Stephen King, solace in these remarkable, chilling fictions comes only at the feet of very dark angels.