It’s time for cozy sweaters and chilling ghost stories! Celebrate the spooky season with this 53-hour compilation that spans over 100 years and features beloved authors like H. P. Lovecraft, Edith Wharton, Joyce Carol Oates, and Donald E. Westlake. “There’s enough in this volume to please both dilettantes and devotees among ghost story readers” (Publishers Weekly). The ghost story is perhaps the oldest of all the supernatural literary genres and has captured the imagination of almost every writer to put pen to the page. Here, Edgar Award–winning editor Otto Penzler has followed his keen sense of the supernatural to collect the most chilling and uncanny tales in the canon. These spectral stories span more than a hundred years, from modern-day horrors by Joyce Carol Oates, Chet Williamson, and Andrew Klavan, to pulp yarns from August Derleth, Greye La Spina, and M. L. Humphreys, to the atmospheric Victorian tales of Rudyard Kipling, Edith Wharton, and H. P. Lovecraft, not to mention modern works by the likes of Donald E. Westlake and Isaac Asimov that are already classics. Some of these stories have haunted the canon for a century, while others are making their first ghoulish appearance in book form. Whether you prefer possessive poltergeists, awful apparitions, or friendly phantoms, these stories are guaranteed to thrill you, tingle the spine, or tickle the funny bone, and keep you listening with fearful delight. Including such classics as “The Monkey's Paw” and “The Open Window” and also featuring haunted mansions, midnight frights, lovers from beyond the grave, rapping, tapping, wailing shades, and ghosts, ghouls, and specters galore! Table of Contents BUT I’M NOT DEAD YET Conrad Aiken: Mr. Arcularis William Fryer Harvey AKA {author:W.F. Harvey]: August Heat I’LL LOVE YOU—FOREVER (OR MAYBE NOT) Ellen Glasgow: The Shadowy Third Ellen Glasgow: The Past David Morrell: But At My Back I Always Hear O. Henry: The Furnished Room Paul Ernst: Death’s Warm Fireside Andrew Klavan: The Advent Reunion R. Murray Gilchrist: The Return Rudyard Kipling: The Phantom Rickshaw Ambrose Bierce: The Moonlit Road Lafcadio Hearn: The Story of Ming-Y Lafcadio Hearn: Yuki-Onna THIS OLD HOUSE Amyas Northcote: Brickett Bottom E.F. Benson: How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery G.G. Pendarves: Thing of Darkness Edward Lucas White: The House of the Nightmare Hector Bolitho: The House on Half Moon Street Dick Donovan: A Night of Horror Vincent O’sullivan: The Burned House KIDS WILL BE KIDS Rosemary Timperley: Harry Michael Reaves: Make-Believe A.M. Burrage: Playmates Ramsey Campbell: Just Behind You A.E. Coppard: Adam And Eve and Pinch Me Steve Friedman: The Lost Boy of the Ozarks THERE’S SOMETHING FUNNY AROUND HERE Mark Twain: A Ghost’s Story Donald E. Westlake: In At The Death Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Ghost of Dr. Harris Ingulphus: The Everlasting Club Isaac Asimov and James Maccreigh: Legal Rites Albert E. Cowdrey: Death Must Die Frank Stockton: The Transferred Ghost Oscar Wilde: The Canterville Ghost A NEGATIVE TRAIN OF THOUGHT August Derleth: Pacific 421 Robert Weinberg: The Midnight El STOP—YOU’RE SCARING ME Frederick Cowles: Punch and Judy Henry S. Whitehead: The Fireplace H.F. Arnold: The Night Wire 400 Fritz Leiber: Smoke Ghost 406 Wyatt Blassingame: Song of the Dead I MUST BE DREAMING Wilkie Collins: The Dream Woman 437 Washington Irving: The Adventure of the German Student A SÉANCE, YOU SAY? Joseph Shearing: They Found My Grave Edgar Jepson: Mrs. Morrel’s Last Séance Joyce Carol Oates: Night-Side CLASSICS M.R. James: “Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come To You My Lad” W.W. Jacobs: The Monkey’s Paw W.W. Jacobs: The Toll-House Edith Wharton: Afterward Willa Cather: Consequences Cynthia Asquith: The Follower Cynthia Asquith: The Corner Shop H.P. Lovecraft: The Terrible Old Man Erckmann-Chatrian: The Murderer’s Violin Saki: The Open Window Saki: Laura Fitz-James O’Brien: What Was It? Alexander Woollcott: Full Fathom Five H.R. Wakefield: He Cometh and He Passeth By Perceval Landon: Thurnley Abbey THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES Algernon Blackwood: The Woman’s Ghost Story Victor Rousseau Emanuel: The Angel of the Marne Olivia Howard Dunbar: The Shell of Sense Marjorie Bowen: The Avenging of Ann Leete BEATEN TO A PULP Greye La Spina: The Dead-Wagon Urann Thayer: A Soul with Two Bodies Arthur J. Burks: The Ghosts of Steamboat Coulee Thorp Mcclusky: The Considerate Hosts Cyril Mand: The Fifth Candle August Derleth and Mark Schorer: The Return of Andrew Bentley M.L. Humphreys: The Floor Above Manly Wade Wellman: School for the Unspeakable A.V. Milyer: Mordecai’s Pipe Julius Long: He Walked by Day Dale Clark: Behind the Screen MODERN MASTERS M. Rickert: Journey into the Kingdom H.R.F. Keating: Mr. Saul Chet Williamson: Coventry Carol

Publication Year: 2012