This was a set of public domain classic short stories on the theme of hauntings and the supernatural. I was not impressed. It started out decently enough with the very first story, but that went on too long and turned boring, and the next few didn't even start out interesting, so I DNF'd this one around story number seven. I forget exactly where. I had a curiously parallel experience with Edith Wharton's gothic short stories which I listened to around the same time as I read this.
The titles in this collection are these:
- The Fall Of The House Of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe
- The Old Nurse's Story by George MacDonald
- The Superstitious Man's Story by Thomas Hardy
- A Story Of Ravenna by Boccacio
- Teig O'Kane And The Corpse by Douglas Hyde
- The Haunted And The Haunters: Or The House And The Brain by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
- The Botathen Ghost by SR Hawker
- The Ghost Of Lord Clarenceux by Arnold Bennett
- Dr Duthoit's Vision by Arthur Machen
- The Seven Lights by John Mackay Wilson
- The Spectral Coach Of Blackadon (author unknown)
- Drake's Drum by William Hunt
- The Spectre Bridegroom by William Hunt
- The Pool In The Graveyard by Greville MacDonald
- The Lianhan Shee by Will Carleton
- The Haunted Cove by George Douglas
- Wandering Willie's Tale by Walter Scott
- Glamis Castle
- Powys Castle
- Croglin Grange
- The Ghost Of Major Sydenham
- The Miraculous Case Of Jesch Claes
- The Radiant Boy Of Corby Castle
- The Altheim Revenant
- Sertorius And His Hind
- Erichtho
- Patroklos
- Vision Of Cromwell
- Lord Strafford's Warning
- Kotter's Red Circle
- The Vision Of Charles XI Of Sweden
- Ben Jonson'S Prevision
- Queen Ulrica
- Denis Misanger
- The Pied Piper
- Jeanne D'Arc
- Anne Walker
- The Hand Of Glory
- The Bloody Footstep
- The Ghostly Warriors Of Worms
- The Wandering Jew In England
- Bendith Eu Mammau
- The Red Book Of Appin
- The Good O'Donoghue
- Sarah Polgrain
- Eleanor Cobham, Duchess Of Gloucester
The first seventeen are fictional ghost stories. Eighteen through thirty-seven are supposedly true stories, only a couple of which (Glamis Castle and Croglin grange) I was familiar with, and thirty-eight through to the last are supposedly omens and phantasms. Like I said, I grew bored quickly, but there is a wealth of out-of-copyright material and folklore here which could be put to good use by an inventive and enterprising writer, but other than that interest, I can't commend it.
