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Famous Modern Ghost Stories

By Dorothy Scarborough & Algernon Blackwood &
Famous Modern Ghost Stories by Dorothy Scarborough & Algernon Blackwood &  digital book - Fable

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Publisher Description

Classic ghost stories of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Machen, and others.

In 1920, acclaimed author and editor Dorothy Scarborough collected what she believed to be the finest ghost stories of her time. Her quintessential anthology Famous Modern Ghost Stories includes entries from such pioneering horror writers as Ambrose Bierce, Algernon Blackwood, Guy de Maupassant, and Myla Jo Closser.

As Scarborough says in her introduction to this volume: “Ghosts are the true immortals, and the dead grow more alive all the time.” The deceased and their mysterious spirits prove to be a source of endless fascination in the stories collected here, including Leonid Andreyev’s biblical speculation Lazarus; Fitz-James O’Brien’s gothic evocation of a New York City boarding house, What Was It?; Mary. E. Wilkins Freeman’s haunting narrative of three sisters, The Shadows on the Wall; and others.

9 Reviews

3.0
“3.5* review tomorrow”
“Beyond the story "The Willows," the other stories were okay but not exceptional.”

About Dorothy Scarborough

Dorothy Scarborough was an American author who wrote about Texas, folk culture, cotton farming, ghost stories, and women’s life in the Southwest. Scarborough was born in Mount Carmel, Texas, and she went on to study at the University of Chicago and the University of Oxford. Beginning in 1916, she taught literature at Columbia University. She died on November 7, 1935, at her home in New York City and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Waco, Texas.

Algernon Blackwood

Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE (1869–1951), was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist, and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary critic S. T. Joshi stated, “His work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer’s except Dunsany’s” and that his short story collection Incredible Adventures (1914) “may be the premier weird collection of this or any other century.”

Robert W. Chambers

Robert W. Chambers (1865–1933) was an American author and painter best known for his short story collection The King in Yellow (1895). Born in Brooklyn, Chambers studied art in Paris and was a professional illustrator before he turned to writing. In addition to The King in Yellow, his supernatural tales include The Maker of Moons (1896) and The Mystery of Choice (1897). Later in his career, Chambers wrote bestselling romances and historical novels. 

W. F. Harvey

Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and Civil War veteran. A prolific and versatile writer, Bierce was regarded as one of the most influential journalists in the United States, and as a pioneering writer of realist fiction. His story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” has been described as “one of the most famous and frequently anthologized stories in American literature.”
 

Olivia Howard Dunbar

Wilbur Daniel Steele

Myla Jo Closser

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) was an American author and poet who profoundly influenced the mystery, horror, and science fiction genres. A master of the short story, Poe wrote many classic tales, including “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and “The Masque of the Red Death.” His other enduring works include the poem “The Raven” and his only completed novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

Arthur Machen

Arthur Machen (1863–1947) was a Welsh author and actor best known for his fantasy and horror fiction. He grew up with intentions of becoming a doctor, but followed a boyhood passion of the supernatural and occult and started to write. In 1890, Machen began publishing short stories in literary magazines. Four years later, he released his breakthrough work, The Great God Pan. Decried upon initial publication for its depictions of sex and violence, the tale has since become a horror classic and has been hailed as “maybe the best [horror story] in the English language” by Stephen King. Machen continued to publish supernatural novels but spent time as actor in a traveling player company after his wife’s death. His literary career revived once more with the publication of his works The House of Souls and The Hill of Dreams. During World War I, Machen became a full-time journalist. Though he rallied for republications of his works, Machen’s literary career ultimately diminished, and he lived much of his life in poor finances. 

Guy de Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant was a nineteenth-century French author, remembered as a master of the short story form, who depicted human lives, destinies, and social forces in disillusioned and often pessimistic terms. He was a protégé of Gustave Flaubert, and his stories are characterized by economy of style and efficient, seemingly effortless dénouements. Born in 1850 at the late–sixteenth century Château de Miromesnil, de Maupassant was the first son of Laure Le Poittevin and Gustave de Maupassant, who both came from prosperous bourgeois families. Until the age of thirteen, de Maupassant lived with his mother at Étretat in Normandy. The Franco-Prussian War broke out soon after his graduation from college in 1870, and he enlisted as a volunteer. In his later years he developed a constant desire for solitude, an obsession for self-preservation, and a fear of death and paranoia of persecution. In 1892, de Maupassant attempted suicide. He was committed to the private asylum of Esprit Blanche at Passy, in Paris, where he died in 1893.

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