Summary
Summary of Tales of Terror
Tales of Terror at a glance
Summary: 8 min to read
- Reading time
- About 7 h 30 min5 h 55 min fast, 8 h 55 min slow
- Length
- 106,800 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
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Key ideas
Key idea 1
A friend falls under another will
Dr Peter Haslar returns from America expecting to find his friend Jack Redcar happily married. Instead, Jack’s wife Maude begs for help. A woman named Annette has entered their lives, and the gentle man Haslar knew has become cruel. Maude remembers Annette’s hard face and eyes that gleamed like oil.
Haslar follows Jack and Annette to a snowbound Spanish town, where his attempt to intervene leaves him injured. The threat is not merely something strange to explain: it is a will that can overpower friendship, affection and good sense.
Key idea 2
Ghosts turn doubters into listeners
Dr Lindsay laughs at the ruined windmill that frightens his neighbors.
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Key idea 3
Ships leave trust without protection
On the Sirocco, Lily Hetherington prepares to marry her loyal fiancé Dick Fenton.
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Key idea 4
Haunted rooms preserve their warnings
At Moorland Grange, Lydia Stainsby finds a warning carved in an oak chamber: anyone who sees the white raven there will die.
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Key idea 5
Complacency leaves danger unanswered
A warm evening on a veranda in Meerut brings together a colonel, his family and two young officers.
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Key idea 6
Belief gives a curse its strength
Ruth refuses to fear John Morgan, the stranger her village treats as a prophet.
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Key idea 7
Guilt can take a ghostly shape
Richard Gibling sails toward Cuba with Captain Jubal Tredegar, a man whose gloom seems deeper than the hardships of the sea.
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Key idea 8
Fear works through the mind
Again and again, a practical witness begins by denying the supernatural and ends by reporting something he cannot dismiss.
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Key idea 9
Calm testimony makes dread convincing
Across these tales, haunting takes many forms: a restless spirit, a threatening prophecy, a commanding stranger or guilt carried onto a ship.
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Who it’s for
If you love ghost stories told by sworn witnesses, haunted rooms, curses that keep their word, and tales set at sea, in India and in the Black Forest, here is a whole evening of shivers.
What this book is
Would you believe a ghost if it led you, step by step, toward a secret? A doctor comes home to find his best friend hollowed out by a woman with oily eyes. A skeptical physician rides past a ruined windmill and sees a corpse glowing in the road.
Dick Donovan was the pen name of a British writer who died in 1934. He gathered fifteen tales of the uncanny in Tales of Terror, from the Indian Mutiny to Black Forest castles and haunted rooms in Devon and Wales. Many are told by men who swear they never believed in spirits. You get the substance of each tale up to its brink, and what links them.
In this summary
- 1A friend falls under another willFree
- 2Ghosts turn doubters into listeners
- 3Ships leave trust without protection
- 4Haunted rooms preserve their warnings
- 5Complacency leaves danger unanswered
- 6Belief gives a curse its strength
- 7Guilt can take a ghostly shape
- 8Fear works through the mind
- 9Calm testimony makes dread convincing
A friend's ruin begins on a staircase
Dr Peter Haslar writes as an old man to correct the newspaper versions of a case he calls ghastly. In 1857 he is best man for his friend Jack Redcar, an engineer, who marries the lovely Maude Tremlett. Then Haslar sails for America and stays two years.
He returns to find a note from Maude begging him to come at once. She is aged and haunted, and she says Jack has been taken from her by a woman called Annette. At Wiesbaden she met this woman on a hotel staircase, saw a hard face and eyes that gleamed like oil, and shuddered. The woman appeared again in London, where Maude's baby sickened after she held him. From then on Annette ruled the house, and gentle Jack struck his wife.
Haslar follows the pair to Potes, a snowbound town in northern Spain. There he finds Jack gaunt and frightened, until Annette walks in with her silvery voice and calm smile. Moments later Haslar lies on the floor with a broken arm. Good sense alone cannot defeat a will with no scruples.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
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Check yourself
What role do skeptical narrators play in the tales?
Right. “The author uses this to win trust.”Not quite. “The author uses this to win trust.”
What concern links the stories of Ruth and Juliette?
Right. “Both stories ask whether a prophecy is a warning or a trap.”Not quite. “Both stories ask whether a prophecy is a warning or a trap.”
How does Gibling understand Captain Tredegar’s fear?
Right. “Gibling believes the captain suffers from old guilt, and his careful notes point to rational causes.”Not quite. “Gibling believes the captain suffers from old guilt, and his careful notes point to rational causes.”
Go deeper: the whole of Tales of Terror
About 7 h 40 min to read.Start freePaperback, hardcover and large print, printed for you at cost, are on their way.Email me when it is printed
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 106,800 words
- Reading timeAbout 7 h 30 min
Questions about Tales of Terror
What is Tales of Terror by Dick Donovan about?
It is a collection of fifteen supernatural and horror stories, including The Woman with the Oily Eyes, The Corpse Light, Red Lily, With Fire and Death and The Doomed Man. Most are told by narrators who begin as skeptics.
Who was Dick Donovan?
Dick Donovan was the pen name of Joyce Emmerson Preston Muddock, an English writer who died in 1934. He wrote detective stories and many tales of mystery and the supernatural for magazine readers.
Are the stories in Tales of Terror true?
They are fiction, though many narrators swear they are true and some tales draw on folk legends, such as vampire belief in the Pyrenees or the German dance of the dead. Several are framed as signed testimony.
What tales are in the collection?
The book includes The Woman with the Oily Eyes and its sequel, The Corpse Light, Red Lily, The Pirate's Treasure, The Legend of Wolfspring, The White Raven, With Fire and Death, The Cave of Blood, The Astrologer, The Dance of the Dead, The Mystic Spell and The Doomed Man.
Is Tales of Terror easy to read or hear?
Each story is short and self-contained, with a clear narrator, strong scenes and a steady build toward a midnight moment. That makes the book well suited to reading or listening one tale at a time.
Cite this edition
Donovan, Dick. Tales of Terror. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/tales-of-terror.
Donovan, D. (2026). Tales of terror. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/tales-of-terror
Donovan, Dick. Tales of Terror. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/tales-of-terror.
@book{donovan2026tales,
author = {Donovan, Dick},
title = {Tales of Terror},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/tales-of-terror}
}
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