2 h 43 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 2 h 43 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if love refuses to stay buried, and a quiet cottage offers no shelter from the dead?
In Grim Tales, E. Nesbit brings ordinary people close to something terribly wrong. These seven short ghost and Gothic horror stories move through churches, old houses and lonely roads. The voice stays calm, the language stays plain, and familiar places become grounds for supernatural dread.
In Man-Size in Marble, newly married Laura settles into a country cottage while Mrs Pascoe fears a local church-tomb legend. John Charrington's Wedding brings May Forrest toward marriage with her proud, jealous fiancé. The Ebony Frame explores an object that holds the past. Across these tales, love and loss raise an uneasy question: what do the living owe the dead?
What you’ll discover
- A cottage under shadow Follow Laura into a quiet country home where Mrs Pascoe knows a troubling local legend.
- Love facing the uncanny Meet May Forrest and John Charrington as their bond faces a disturbing test.
- The past held close Explore The Ebony Frame, where an object carries the weight of old desires.
- A calm, creeping chill Discover how plain words and ordinary lives make room for dread without piled-up gore.
- Questions beyond the grave Consider what love owes the dead when loss refuses to remain safely in the past.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy ghost stories told by a fire, old churchyards, haunted portraits, tragic love and short tales that build quickly to a chill.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- The dead want something personal
- A wish opens a dangerous bargain
- A wedding promise reaches beyond death
- A secret love depends on returning
- Fear makes one detail stand out
- Deception brings love into danger
- A village warning enters the home
- A funeral song unsettles a wedding
- Ordinary comfort makes fear feel close
Who’s who
- DevigneA journalist who inherits his aunt's Chelsea house and falls under the spell of a woman in a portrait, putting his promised life with Mildred at risk.
- May ForsterThe prettiest girl in Brixham, who at last agrees to marry the persistent John Charrington and begs him to stay safe on the journey.
- John CharringtonA determined young man who always gets what he wants and swears to keep his wedding day whatever may come.
- Uncle AbrahamA lame old man who tells his young relative about the woman he met in a churchyard and promised to meet again.
- Arthur MarshA man who marries Ida Helmont after a forged letter and then must live with his anger when she tells him the truth.
- Ida HelmontA brave, witty woman who loves Arthur so much that she risks everything on one deceit and one confession.
- Jack and LauraA painter and his writer wife, newly married, rent an ivy-covered cottage, where he learns a legend about two marble knights.
- Jasper and KateA young musician and his childhood friend, who love each other while she is promised to a rich man to save her father.
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- Read by Lucas Linden, complete. It opens once the recording is online.
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- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Grim Tales
by E. Nesbit · 1893
A portrait in an ebony frame steps down to a lonely man, and the price of her love is his soul.
Easy readUnder 2 hours to read2 languages
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In short
What would you give to hold the one person you have waited for all your life? In the first tale of this book, a young man scrubs a dirty old panel and finds a portrait of himself, nailed face to face with a woman whose eyes he cannot leave.
Grim Tales at a glance
- Reading time
- About 1 h 35 min1 h 15 min fast, 1 h 55 min slow
- Length
- 22,700 words
- Library level
- Easy short sentences, plain words
- First published
- 1893by E. Nesbit
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A portrait steps out of its ebony frame
A struggling London journalist, Mr. Devigne, inherits seven hundred pounds a year and a furnished house in Chelsea from his Aunt Dorcas. He is fond enough of Mildred Mayhew, his landlady's daughter, to mean to marry her someday.
In the dining room he finds a fine ebony frame holding a bad print. The frame came from the attic, where an old black picture also lies. He scrubs it with a sponge and a nailbrush, tears off the leather binding, and the thick panel splits into two pictures nailed face to face. One shows Devigne himself in a cavalier's costume, a likeness he has never sat for. The other shows a woman in black velvet, with eyes that plead like a child's and command like an empress's. He hangs her portrait in the frame and avoids her gaze for days.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 15 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1893
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 1 h 40 min
- Level
- Easy read
Cite this edition
Nesbit, E. Grim Tales. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/grim-tales.
Nesbit, E. (2026). Grim tales. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/grim-tales (Original work published 1893)
Nesbit, E. Grim Tales. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/grim-tales.
@book{nesbit2026grim,
author = {Nesbit, E.},
title = {Grim Tales},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/grim-tales},
note = {First published 1893}
}
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What is Grim Tales by E. Nesbit about?
It is a collection of seven Victorian ghost stories, including The Ebony Frame, John Charrington's Wedding and Man-Size in Marble. Most are told by someone who lived through the events, and many are about love that reaches past death.
Which stories are in Grim Tales?
The seven are The Ebony Frame, John Charrington's Wedding, Uncle Abraham's Romance, The Mystery of the Semi-Detached, From the Dead, Man-Size in Marble, and The Mass for the Dead. Each stands alone and can be read in one sitting.
Is Grim Tales based on a true story?
No, the tales are fiction, though their narrators insist that everything happened. Nesbit drew on folk legends, such as the marble knights who walk on All Saints' Eve, and on the Victorian taste for ghost tales in magazines.
The author
E. Nesbit
1858–1924 · English children's writer and poet
Edith Nesbit (1858–1924) was an English author and poet who published as E. Nesbit. She was born in London and later lived in Kent. Her children’s books include The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899), Five Children and It (1902), The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904), and The Railway Children (1906).
More by E. Nesbit
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