The Ghost Story

[aeolium]

With the nights drawing in, and partly in commemoration of the centenary of M R James' second book of ghost stories, More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, I thought it might be worth having a thread on this literary form. Which are its best manifestations, from any country, and what are the qualities that distinguish the better ones? Why was its duration largely confined to the C19 and the first part of the C20*? Did the rise of religious scepticism and doubt create a parallel growth in the interest in the supernatural/unexplained, while established churches had lost the power to persecute those who departed from conventional religious explanations?

At any rate, if you have a particular liking for any ghost story, here's the place to share it.

[Apologies if any similar thread has appeared on either this or the predecessor R3 boards - I don't have ff's powers of recall about what has been discussed already]

*I am excluding the C18 gothic novel genre and also the modern horror story from the classic ghost story genre.

[french frank]

Fascinating questions, and I'd really never considered: "Why was its duration largely confined to the C19 and the first part of the C20?"

The most recent one that I've read is Wilde's The Canterville Ghost (1887)) which is an example of spookiness + comedy which perhaps sets it apart from the 'classic' ghost story. Would that be correct? Is the idea that the reader is made to suspend disbelief so far that the feeling of fright is real and they're left with a feeling of unease?

[Mandryka]

I think M.R. James will always be considerably ahead of the rest of the pack where ghost stories are concerned. My favourite of his stories is A School Story, closely followed by The Mezzotint.

A non-English language ghost story worth checking out is Knut Hamsun's A Ghost.

[Roslynmuse]

Agree that M R James' wonderfully laconic style makes him the most engaging of all writers in the genre.

Despite not being a great Dickens fan, I do think "The Signalman" is a fine story.

The Lord Halifax Ghost Book has a slightly different take on things, being a collection of first- second- and ninth-hand 'experiences' (with real people and places) - it is so matter-of-fact that the stories resonate for longer in the mind than many more lurid accounts.

I'll dig out some other favourites later!

[Pabmusic]

Fascinating questions, and I'd really never considered: "Why was its duration largely confined to the C19 and the first part of the C20?"

The most recent one that I've read is Wilde's The Canterville Ghost (1887))

As far as the growth and demise of the ghost story goes, its parallel is surely the growth of understanding of our world (Darwin, Mendeleev, Curie, Rutherford, Einstein, etc.). It's as if we need something that we can't explain - religion of all sorts, alien abduction, conspiracy theories and - yes - ghost stories. The event that changed all this, I suspect, was the First World War. Ghost stories would have seemed tasteless when so many thousands wanted to believe their own loved ones were just 'in another room'. There was a huge growth in interest in spiritualism in the '20s and '30s.

As to The Canterville Ghost, it's been a favourite since I first read it at university. The attempts of the poor, tired ghost to keep up his image in a scientific age are genuinely pathetic. Wilde was a genius, for this and for his other 'children's' stories.

Now, where's my copy of The Canterville Ghost?

[french frank]

Now, where's my copy of The Canterville Ghost?

In your copy of Lord Arthur Savile's Crime & Other Stories? . Just the reading for the log fire evenings, that little crackle which could be the fire or was it the creak of a floorboard ...?

[vinteuil]

Sheridan Le Fanu Uncle Silas

now there's a book if you like the shudders....

In a milder form - I am still a big fan of John Meade Falkner - and The Lost Stradivarius has all the right unnerving notes...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Why was its duration largely confined to the C19 and the first part of the C20*? Did the rise of religious scepticism and doubt create a parallel growth in the interest in the supernatural/unexplained, while established churches had lost the power to persecute those who departed from conventional religious explanations?

At any rate, if you have a particular liking for any ghost story, here's the place to share it.

Interesting questions, aeolium. I think you're right that the waning of religious certainties does play an important part in the popularity of the genre, but the supernatural appears in different forms in earlier writings. I'm currently reading works by Bede and his contemporaries, where Angelic and demonic apparitions fuel the "historical" narratives, and ghosts abound in the writings of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. They also appear in non-Christian literature and folk tales.

But you're right; there is a difference in tone in 19th & 20thC writing, where there is greater use of allusion and suggestion in the "spinechiller", and often the experience is left with an ambiguous "rational" possible explanation which almost, but not quite, "fits".

Dickens, Wilde, James (and let's not forget The Turn of the Screw James, too) are all (quite rightly) much-loved masters of the genre, but I would also recommend Robertson Davies' collection High Spirits to anyone who loves this genre. Published in 1982, the stories were written over a period of eighteen years, each read aloud (an essential feature of the tradition) at Christmas. The collection gives a new "lighter" tone to the James tradition, whilst still managing to tingle the back of the neck. In addition to the excellent introductory essay, describing his lifelong affection for the genre, I would single out Revelation from a Smoky Fire as a real modern classic.

Best Wishes.

[vinteuil]

... and let's not forget The Turn of the Screw James ...

Yes, Henry James should certainly be in any top ten of ghosty story writers - as shd his friend Rudyard Kipling - The Phantom 'Rickshaw, The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes, At the End of the Passage etc...

[french frank]

Happy reading! - found while I was looking up Wilkie Collins.

I wonder what was the earliest of the 'new' genre?

[vinteuil]

... and of course it's not just an English thing. I'm thinking of those German tales of the possible-supernatural which linger in the brain long after reading - writers such as Theodor Storm - Der Schimmelreiter ('The White Horse Rider', or 'The Dykemaster'), Aquis Submersis...

[Tevot]

Hello there. What an enticing thread!

Whilst not nocturnal - Jean Rhys' "I used to live here once" is a lovely take on a theme later explored in films such as Ghost, Truly Madly Deeply and perhaps even the 6th Sense.

For twilight shivers and things that go bump in the night or the very least come knocking at your door ;-) - W.W. Jacobs' The Monkey's Paw I find hard to beat. It certainly has stayed in my mind since childhood.

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[vinteuil]

Yes, Henry James should certainly be in any top ten of ghosty story writers - as shd his friend Rudyard Kipling - :

... info on other Kipling supernatural tales to be found at :

https://www.litgothic.com/Authors/kipling.html

[aeolium]

vinteuil: yes, Meade Falkner (and perhaps The Nebuly Coat which has throughout an air of mystery - unusual though to have ghost stories of such length as they tended to become more commonly novellas or short stories). Le Fanu was a strong influence on M R James - I like his Green Tea as well as Silas - and also on Dickens, a fair amount of whose work contains 'ghostly' themes such as the resurrection of those thought to be dead, and doppelgängers (though I think The Signalman is better as a ghost story than the earlier Christmas Carol and The Haunted Man)

Further afield, what about lawyer, bureaucrat, composer and music critic E T A Hoffmann's stories, e.g. The Mines of Falun and The Sandman? And Poe's William Wilson, picking up on the doppelgänger theme. From the C20, I like one or two of de la Mare's stories: All Hallows in particular generates a powerful tension.

I'm not sure why the ghost story is so predominantly an Anglo-Saxon genre (plus some Irish) - are there any notable ones from southern and central Europe?

[vinteuil]

I'm not sure why the ghost story is so predominantly an Anglo-Saxon genre (plus some Irish) - are there any notable ones from southern and central Europe?

... I seem to remember some Maupassant stories with a decidedly eerie feel - I'll have to go and check! And also Balzac (la Peau de Chagrin, for example?)
But an interesting question - I'll do some further thinking.

But certainly the Arabian Nights - and there are Chinese ghost stories too...