What’s Halloween without a good ghost story, or five?

In 1921, Texas-born Dorothy Scarborough, lecturer in English at the Columbia University, edited a selection of spooky tales, and called it Famous Modern Ghost Stories.
The book includes works both familiar (Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Machen), and less obvious choices (Anatole France, Olivia Howard Dunbar).
One hundred years on, the volume is still a wonderful selection of ghostly narratives, and is highly recommended.

Here’s the full index…

• Introduction: The Imperishable Ghost
• The Willows – Algernon Blackwood
• The Shadows on the Wall – Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
• The Messenger – Robert W. Chambers
• Lazarus – Leonid Andreyev
• The Beast with Five Fingers – W. F. Harvey
• The Mass of Shadows – Anatole France
• What Was It? – Fitz-James O’Brien
• The Middle Toe of the Right Foot – Ambrose Bierce
• The Shell of Sense – Olivia Howard Dunbar
• The Woman at Seven Brothers – Wilbur Daniel Steele
• At the Gate – Myla Jo Closser
• Ligeia – Edgar Allan Poe
• The Haunted Orchard – Richard Le Gallienne
• The Bowmen – Arthur Machen
• A Ghost – Guy de Maupassant

The book is currently downloadable for free, in a variety of formats, from the Project Gutenberg page.

Enjoy!