6 h 22 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 6 h 22 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the past refuses to leave the room when the living step inside?
Twenty-Five Ghost Stories, gathered by editor W. Bob Holland, brings together short tales of hauntings, spirits and the supernatural. Haunted houses, restless dead and strange warnings turn familiar places into sources of unease. This is a sampler of ghost fiction by many hands, where each new story offers another encounter with the unseen.
The collection draws on a tradition in which place, unfinished business and doubt give fear its force. An old house or a lonely road carries the weight of the past. A spirit may seek justice, guard a secret or offer a warning. Between what someone sees and what they believe, uncertainty leaves room for a slow shiver.
What you’ll discover
- Places that hold the past Enter houses, inns and empty rooms where what once happened still casts a shadow.
- Spirits with unfinished business Meet restless presences whose warnings, secrets and attachments trouble the world of the living.
- The fear of doubt Feel the unease deepen when a ghost may be real—or a troubled perception.
- A short, sharp chill Follow compact tales that move from calm through unease toward a final sting.
- Many paths into darkness Explore a gathering of supernatural fiction rather than settle into one long plot.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy campfire tales, short stories finished in one sitting, and narrators who insist their accounts are true will love this anthology. It also suits those who relish stormy-night chills and a laugh.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Ordinary moments open onto the strange
- Cruelty and jokes invite dread
- The dead have unfinished business
- Skeptics meet what they cannot explain
- Place and voice make fear believable
- Haunted houses invite a search
- Hauntings give wrongdoing a voice
- Doubt keeps the stories tense
- Witnesses and images carry the haunting
Who’s who
- The narrator of The Black CatA once gentle animal lover whose drinking turns him cruel, he writes his confession on the eve of his death.
- PierreA cheerful student who brings home a dried hand as a joke and hangs it where his doorbell should be.
- Walter StedmanA young laborer from the city, hated by townsmen and accused of murdering his employer's daughter, whom he secretly loves.
- Sara PyneA nearsighted woman who tells why her seaside cottage is draped in blue denim after meeting a salesman's ghost on a train.
- Gilbert DentA lawyer who falls for a woman glimpsed at a window each sunset and cannot let the mystery go.
- Kit RobinsonAn old miner who keeps watch by a spruce tree, waiting for the right person to claim a dead partner's secret.
- David CraigA practical young man who rents a haunted house for its low price and sets out to find what drags the chain.
- John ReillyA cyclist touring Pennsylvania on Christmas morning who stops at a ruined house to ask directions.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
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- Audiobook
- Read by Lucas Linden, complete. It opens once the recording is online.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 14 minutes, to read today.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
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Twenty-Five Ghost Stories
A severed hand hangs from a bell pull, a stranger names tonight's burglar, and a black cat follows its master.
Medium level2–5 hours to read20 languages
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In short
What would you do if a stranger appeared in your room at dusk and told you which house a burglar will rob tonight? Or if a friend hung a dried hand from his bell pull as a joke?
Twenty-Five Ghost Stories at a glance
- Reading time
- About 3 h 35 min2 h 50 min fast, 4 h 15 min slow
- Length
- 51,300 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
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Poe and Maupassant open with dread
The book opens with two tales of dread that begin in ordinary rooms. In The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe, a condemned man writes down the household events that destroyed him. He once loved animals, and his black cat, Pluto, followed him everywhere. Drink changes his temper, and his kindness turns to cruelty.
Pluto eventually suffers his anger too, and the man blames a spirit of perverseness, the urge to do wrong simply because it is wrong. Later a second black cat arrives with a white patch on its chest that slowly changes shape.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 4 h 5 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Twenty-Five Ghost Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/twenty-five-ghost-stories.
Twenty-five ghost stories. (2026). Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/twenty-five-ghost-stories
Twenty-Five Ghost Stories. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/twenty-five-ghost-stories.
@book{anonymous2026twentyfive,
title = {Twenty-Five Ghost Stories},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/twenty-five-ghost-stories}
}
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What is Twenty-Five Ghost Stories about?
It is a collection of short ghost tales by different writers. Each tells of a haunting, an apparition or a strange coincidence, in settings from Mexican offices and Yorkshire manors to ships at sea and a Pennsylvania road.
Who wrote the stories in Twenty-Five Ghost Stories?
W. Bob Holland edited the collection. The tales come from various authors, including Edgar Allan Poe and Guy de Maupassant, while others appear under initials or without any name at all.
Are the ghosts in these stories always real?
Not always. Some stories treat the ghost as real, and others look for ordinary causes such as nerves, tricks or mistaken senses. The mix keeps readers guessing which kind of tale they are in.
The author
W. Bob Holland
W. Bob Holland is the compiler behind Twenty-Five Ghost Stories, a vintage anthology of supernatural tales from the golden age of the popular ghost story, assembled for readers who like their chills short, sharp, and strange.
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