Author Description

A riveting collection of spectral chills and ghostly tales by twenty-seven masters of twentieth-century literature. The phantasms, shades, and specters in this volume of ghost stories by contemporary writers like Alison Lurie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Joyce Carol Oates, and William Trevor as well as such modern literary giants as Henry James, Isak Dinesen, Franz Kafka, and Rudyard Kipling write letters, carry lanterns, ride bicycles, patrol halls, run motorboats, rake leaves, and deliver mail. They also inhabit dolls and sticks of furniture. Some of them merely haunt houses, while others invade the darkest corners of the soul. Throughout this expertly edited collection, a companion to Robert Phillips's equally successful anthology, the very popular Omnibus of 20th Century Ghost Stories, writers as distinctive of their decade as Edith Wharton and Muriel Spark or the incomparable Max Beerbohm and the up-and-coming Max Eberts explore the literary possibilities of the classic ghost story to deliver taut suspense, psychological terror, and eerie mystery. The irresistible mix of chills and artistry, of terror and genius, make every tale in this volume worth the visit. CONTENTS: Ghosts On The Lake by Ilse Aichinger Sonata For Harp And Bicycle by Joan Aiken Enoch Soames by Max Beerbohm The Happy Autumn Fields by Elizabeth Bowen Oh Father, Father, Why Have You Come Back? by John Cheever Dead Women's Things by Kathy Chwedyk The Upper Berth by F. Marion Crawford The Supper At Elsinore by Isak Dinesen Lost Lives by Max Eberts The Shadowy Third by Ellen Glasgow A Shape Of Light by William Goyen W.S. by L.P. Hartley The Astral Body of a U.S. Mail Truck by James Leo Herlihy The Bus by Shirley Jackson The Friends Of The Friends by Henry James Blumfeld, An Elderly Bachelor by Franz Kafka "They" by Rudyard Kipling The Highboy by Alison Lurie The Ghosts Of August by Gabriel García Márquez The Doll by Joyce Carol Oates Wolfie by Robert Phillips A Spiritualist by Jean Rhys Owl by Elizabeth Spencer A Gracious Rain by Christopher Tilghman Mr. Acland's Ghost by William Trevor The Leaf-Sweeper by Muriel Spark Pomegranate Seed by Edith Wharton