2 h 40 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 2 h 40 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the quiet room frightens you most because nothing in it seems wrong?
In The Shape of Fear, Elia Wilkinson Peattie brings the supernatural into everyday life. These thirteen ghostly tales place ordinary people in quiet rooms, where the sense of something unseen draws close. The fear grows through suggestion, asking you to notice what familiar surroundings might conceal.
Longing matters as much as terror here: the wish for someone lost, or for something just out of reach. Peattie explores what frightens people and why, with an eye for what they say, how they behave, and what they hide. These are slow chills, inviting attention rather than promising gore or fast action.
What you’ll discover
- Fear in familiar places Discover how everyday surroundings become unsettling when something unseen seems close.
- Longing beneath the dread Explore tales where the wish for someone lost carries its own haunting force.
- People with hidden depths Watch what ordinary people say and conceal as Peattie turns her attention inward.
- The power of suggestion Feel the slow unease of ghost stories that leave room for your imagination.
- One haunting at a time Read slowly, letting each short tale's mood settle before you begin the next.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy ghost stories with a human heart will feel at home here, along with lovers of frontier settings, winter landscapes and quiet humor.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Ghosts return for human reasons
- Fear can hide a troubled conscience
- Love moves through the winter darkness
- Loneliness haunts the open prairie
- Ordinary work meets the unexplained
- Houses keep more than their furniture
- Care stands beside supernatural justice
- Quiet details make the unseen present
- Haunting reveals what remains between people
Who’s who
- Tim O'ConnorA gentle, gifted newspaper man who drinks and gambles, and who cannot bear the dark or the vision he calls the Shape of Fear.
- Rick DodsonTim's witty fellow journalist, who loves his friend and wants to know what he fears.
- Ralph HagadornA young man who skates all night across the ice toward a wedding and toward the woman he hopes to tell he loves.
- ElsbethA thin, brown, wise-eyed little girl who leads her godmother and brothers to her secret fairy place in the woods.
- Virgil HoytAn adventurous photographer's assistant in St. Paul who hates sorrow and is asked to photograph a dead woman.
- Nora FinneganA huge, laughing washerwoman and fine cook who takes in a lost red-headed boy and longs for a child.
- Urda BjarnasonA very old Icelandic storyteller in North Dakota who sees what others cannot and holds a room of men by her tales.
- Miss Prudence BoggsA lively young woman from Iowa who shares a Philadelphia house with her sister and a very proper ghost.
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- Paperback
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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The Shape of Fear in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
The Shape of Fear
by Elia Wilkinson Peattie · 1898
A man afraid of the dark wants every light to burn, and one night a lovely white Shape appears before him.
Medium levelUnder 2 hours to read2 languages
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In short
Why would a man who drinks, gambles and sneers at nearly everything beg his wife to keep every electric light burning? In the first tale of this book, Tim O'Connor fears something he calls the Shape of Fear, and his friend Rick Dodson learns what it looks like.
The Shape of Fear at a glance
- Reading time
- About 1 h 30 min1 h 10 min fast, 1 h 50 min slow
- Length
- 21,700 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1898by Elia Wilkinson Peattie
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 man fears the shape of his goodness
The opening tale gives the book its name. Tim O'Connor starts life as a poet, and his mother plans the priesthood for him. He ends up a newspaper man with a beautiful prose style and a taste for absinthe, cards and cynical talk.
He marries a woman with pale gold skin and yellow eyes, who holds him body and soul. She feeds him, nurses him after a bout of drinking and guards his money.
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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
- 1898
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 1 h 40 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Peattie, Elia Wilkinson. The Shape of Fear. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-shape-of-fear.
Peattie, E. W. (2026). The shape of fear. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-shape-of-fear (Original work published 1898)
Peattie, Elia Wilkinson. The Shape of Fear. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-shape-of-fear.
@book{peattie2026shape,
author = {Peattie, Elia Wilkinson},
title = {The Shape of Fear},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-shape-of-fear},
note = {First published 1898}
}
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What is The Shape of Fear about?
It is a collection of thirteen ghost stories by Elia Wilkinson Peattie. The tales range from a newspaper man afraid of the dark to a haunted rectory, a vanishing house on the prairie and a comic Philadelphia ghost.
Who is Tim O'Connor in The Shape of Fear?
Tim O'Connor is the gifted but fearful newspaper man in the opening tale. He drinks, gambles and keeps every light on, and his friend Rick Dodson wants to know what he is so afraid of.
What does the Shape of Fear mean?
It is the name Tim gives to the white, lovely figure that terrifies him. He explains that it is made up of all the good he might have done, so the fear is of his own lost goodness.
The author
Elia Wilkinson Peattie
1862–1935 · American author and literary critic
Elia Wilkinson Peattie (1862–1935) was an American author and literary critic. She was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and lived in Chicago and Omaha. She wrote novels, short stories, and books for children. Her short-story collection The Shape of Fear appeared in 1898. She died in Wallingford, Vermont.
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