Twenty-Five Ghost Stories.

A collection made for the fireside on a dark night, this volume gathers a run of short supernatural tales in the classic tradition of the ghost story.

What it's about

Twenty-Five Ghost Stories assembles brief tales of the uncanny, apparitions, hauntings, warnings from beyond the grave and inexplicable visitations, each aiming for the pleasurable chill that the form does best. The stories range across the familiar furniture of the genre, lonely houses, restless spirits and the thin places where the living and the dead seem to touch, offering variety of setting and scare within a single compact book.

Themes

Death, memory and the fear of what may lie beyond the visible world run through the collection, along with guilt, justice from the grave and the human fascination with the inexplicable. The stories play, as ghost stories always have, on our uncertainty about what waits in the dark.

Why it still matters

The short ghost story is a durable and much-loved form, and anthologies like this preserve the storytelling instincts of an age that gathered to be frightened. Their pleasures are as effective now as ever.

Who it's for

For lovers of ghost stories and the uncanny, for readers who like short tales to dip into, and for anyone seeking a shiver on a winter evening.