Summary
Summary of The Best Ghost Stories
Who it’s for
For readers who love atmospheric horror, tales told by the fire, haunted houses and phantom visitors. Students of horror fiction can explore ghost stories ranging from quiet visitations to cosmic dread.
What this book is
The Best Ghost Stories is an anthology of supernatural fiction gathered by the American editor Joseph Lewis French, with an introduction by the detective novelist Arthur B. Reeve. It belongs to the early twentieth century, when magazines and cheap books fed a large appetite for tales of the uncanny. The book brings together stories by different writers, each built to unsettle.
What do you get from it? A tour through the many forms a ghost story can take, from quiet visitations in old houses to larger fears of forces beyond human understanding. Each tale is short enough to read in one sitting, ideally after dark. Let us start with what the editor was trying to do.
In this summary
- 1An editor gathers the best frightsFree
- 2Old houses keep their secrets
- 3Visitors from beyond the grave
- 4Beyond ghosts, the fear of the unknown
Key point 1 of 4
An editor gathers the best frights
An anthology is a kind of argument, and this one argues that the ghost story deserves a shelf of its own. Joseph Lewis French worked as a compiler of collections in the early twentieth century, and he chose tales that had already proved they could frighten readers. The aim was variety as much as fear.
The introduction by Arthur B. Reeve adds a second voice. Reeve was known for detective fiction, in which a scientific investigator solves crimes by reason. That makes him a telling guide here, since a ghost story often sets reason against something that will not be explained.
So the reader begins in a tension between the rational and the strange. The collection leans on that tension again and again, and it is a good habit to watch for it as you read.
That’s 1 of 4 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks