THE BEST GHOST STORIES***
E-text prepared by Suzanne Lybarger, Brian Janes, Emmy, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/)
Transcriber's note:
Two words in this text contain macrons over double ee. These are denoted in the text with [=ee].
Superscripted text is denoted by the use of the following markings: 12^{mi} where "mi" is superscripted.
A Transcriber's note at the end of the text lists the changes made in transcription.
The Modern Library of the World's Best Books
THE BEST GHOST STORIES
Introduction by Arthur B. Reeve
The Modern Library Publishers New York Copyright, 1919, by Boni & Liveright, Inc. Manufactured in the United States of America by H. Wolff
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION--"THE FASCINATION OF THE GHOST STORY" _Arthur B. Reeve_ vii
THE APPARITION OF MRS. VEAL _Daniel De Foe_ 3
CANON ALBERIC'S SCRAP-BOOK _Montague Rhodes James_ 18
THE HAUNTED AND THE HAUNTERS _Edward Bulwer-Lytton_ 31
THE SILENT WOMAN _Leopold Kompert_ 60
BANSHEES 79
THE MAN WHO WENT TOO FAR _E.F. Benson_ 85
THE WOMAN'S GHOST STORY _Algernon Blackwood_ 108
THE PHANTOM RICKSHAW _Rudyard Kipling_ 118
THE RIVAL GHOSTS _Brander Matthews_ 141
THE DAMNED THING _Ambrose Bierce_ 160
THE INTERVAL _Vincent O'Sullivan_ 170
DEY AIN'T NO GHOSTS _Ellis Parker Butler_ 177
SOME REAL AMERICAN GHOSTS 188
INTRODUCTION
THE FASCINATION OF THE GHOST STORY
ARTHUR B. REEVE
What is the fascination we feel for the mystery of the ghost story?
Is it of the same nature as the fascination which we feel for the mystery of the detective story?
Of the latter fascination, the late Paul Armstrong used to say that it was because we are all as full of crime as Sing Sing--only we don't dare.
Thus, may I ask, are we not fascinated by the ghost story because, no matter what may be the scientific or skeptical bent of our minds, in our inmost souls, secretly perhaps, we are as full of superstition as an obeah man--only we don't let it loose?
Who shall say that he is able to fling off lightly the inheritance of countless ages of superstition? Is there not a streak of superstition in us all? We laugh at the voodoo worshiper--then create our own hoodooes, our pet obsessions.
It has been said that man is incurably religious, that if all religions were blotted out, man would create a new religion.
Man is incurably fascinated by the mysterious. If all the ghost stories of the ages were blotted out, man would invent new ones.
For, do we not all stand in awe of that which we cannot explain, of that which, if it be not in our own experience, is certainly recorded in the experience of others, of that of which we know and can know nothing?
