Voices of the Ghost

"The Vacant Lot" by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman From the time that the editor of Harper's Bazaar overlooked Freeman's cramped handwriting, difficult to read, and published the story "Two Old Lovers", Mary Wilkins Freeman never looked back. Her Vermont and Massachusetts background forms an important part of many of her stories. This story is both a ghost story and a mystery, and the mystery is as interesting as the ghost story. It is, quite literally, a matter of haunted ground, of old wrongs done, of old blood sunk in the earth that will not lie quiet. The listener, indeed, may also have a hard time lying quiet! "On the Brighton Road" by Richard Middleton Richard Barham Middleton was once known as a poet, having published two volumes of poetry in the early 1910s, but now is remembered for his ghost stories. His life was cut short by his own hand at the age of 29, before any of his work had been published. Friends, admirers, and family championed his work after his death, and it has continued to appear in anthologies. This story has a very subtle kind of horror to it. One figure is limping beside a lonely road; another, walking the same road, is down on his luck and with few prospects. They form a bond, and it turns out there is a very dark side to that bond - one that may reach past death itself! "Sister Johanna" by Amelia B. Edwards A woman looks on as her capricious young sister agrees to marry one man, and then runs away with his handsome younger brother. When the man she jilted returns after a long and mysterious absence, an even more mysterious meeting, in the dead of night, leaves the two women to wonder, and to mourn, for the rest of their lives. More a story of character than a story of terror, Amelia Edwards nevertheless does not fail to leave her listeners with a chill.

Here are two terrifying and sobering stories of ghosts who will stop at nothing! "The Romance of Certain Old Clothes" Which did she really want: her sister's husband, or her sister's trousseau? Will her desires cost her her life? In this story by the American master Henry James, a woman loses her heart to a man, but then loses that man to her sister. When her sister dies, she finally marries him, and her sister's trousseau comes to her as well - along with a spirit of jealous envy, even of the dead, that leads her to a terrible confrontation. The mastery of human psychology that marked all of Henry James' work plays out in this mystery of the human heart, a mystery that even goes beyond the grave. "Lost Hearts" In this M. R. James story, three children learn that a classical scholar's love of the past has led him into a terrible and bloody delusion. His bloody fixation on hermetic lore, which seems to promise eternal life, leads two of them to their deaths, but not to the end of their existence. That does not come, if it comes at all, until the third child falls into the scholar's power. Hearing Voices? Don't miss the rest of the Voices of the Ghost series!

Pity Sir Simon de Canterville, the poor Ghost of Canterville Chase! He killed his wife and was then starved to death by her brothers, but ever since then he's been happily haunting the family's mansion, always inventing fresh characters and costumes and blood-curdling shrieks. Now along comes the Otis family, confident brash Americans who really aren't impressed by an old British ghost. What's a poor spirit to do? Only the young daughter of the family is sympathetic, and only she can help him solve his problem once and for all. Oscar Wilde's witty text and clever story-telling will make this one of your favorite humorous ghost stories.