The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories

Michael Newton was both an undergraduate and postgraduate at University College London. He is the author of <i>Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children </i>(Faber & Faber 2002) and of a book on <i>Kind Hearts and Coronets </i>for the British Film Institute's Film Classics series (2003). He has also edited Edmund Gosse's <i>Father and Son </i>for Oxford World's Classics and Joseph Conrad's <i>The Secret Agent </i>for Penguin. He has taught at UCL Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and Princeton University and currently works at the University of Leiden. At present he is completing a book on the history of assassination and political violence. <p><b>This terrifying selection of ghost stories brings together the very best classic works from the masters of the supernatural</b><br><br>Phantom coaches evil familiars shadowy houses spectral children and mysterious doppelgangers haunt these tales. They range from the famous such as M. R. James's tale of an ancient curse 'Oh Whistle and I'll Come To You My Lad' and W. W. Jacobs's story of gruesome wish-fulfilment 'The Monkey's Paw' to lesser-known masterpieces: Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Thrawn Janet' telling of a parish priest tormented for life by his encounter with the undead; Charles Dickens's unsettling account of a railway signal-man and an ominous portent; and Edward Bulwer Lytton's 'The Haunted and the Haunters' where a cursed house harbours a diabolical secret.<br><br>Michael Newton's introduction discusses why ghost stories scare us and why they flourished from the mid-nineteenth to early-twentieth century examining their changing conventions throughout history. This edition also includes further reading notes a glossary and a chronology.<br><br>Edited with an introduction and notes by Michael Newton</p> <p><b>This terrifying selection of ghost stories brings together the very best classic works from the masters of the supernatural</b><br><br>Phantom coaches evil familiars shadowy houses spectral children and mysterious doppelgangers haunt these tales. They range from the famous such as M. R. James's tale of an ancient curse 'Oh Whistle and I'll Come To You My Lad' and W. W. Jacobs's story of gruesome wish-fulfilment 'The Monkey's Paw' to lesser-known masterpieces: Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Thrawn Janet' telling of a parish priest tormented for life by his encounter with the undead; Charles Dickens's unsettling account of a railway signal-man and an ominous portent; and Edward Bulwer Lytton's 'The Haunted and the Haunters' where a cursed house harbours a diabolical secret.<br><br>Michael Newton's introduction discusses why ghost stories scare us and why they flourished from the mid-nineteenth to early-twentieth century examining their changing conventions throughout history. This edition also includes further reading notes a glossary and a chronology.<br><br>Edited with an introduction and notes by Michael Newton</p>