Midwest Book Review of The Best Ghost Stories 1800-1849

The Midwest Book Review had this to say about my classic ghost anthology:

[A] unique perspective on this dawn of horror's early roots and their connections to our modern day. "The Best Ghost Stories 1800-1849" is a choice pick with  stories from many legendary authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and Washington Irving, very much recommended reading. You can check out the ghost book trailer on my site. Have a haunting weekend!

Scary Ghost References in Lyrics by The Cure

The Cure is the most successful Goth band in history. In prior posts I've let everyone know about my Cure blog that I've started and about the publication of The Best Ghost Stories book. This post is about a marriage of the two. What I mean by that is I did a little research into scary ghost reference by The Cure in their lyrics. I found 5 songs that contain them. I dare you to listen to these songs while reading The Best Ghost Stories 1800:1849: A Classic Ghost Anthology.

The Hungry Ghost - 4:13 Dream

Siren Song - 4:13 Dream

The Upstairs Room - B Side to "The Walk" and Join the Dots

Fear of Ghosts - "Lovesong" EP

Untitled - Disintegration

Author Countries for the Top 10 Ghost Stories

The Best Ghost Stories 1800-1849: A Classic Ghost Anthology

In the last post I laid out the Top 10 ghost stories for the 1st half of the 19th century. Just like I did for The Best Horror Short Stories 1800-1849, I thought it would be fun to list the author countries. Here it goes:

10. The Ghostly Visiter; or, The Mysterious Invalid (1833)

Anonymous author, likely from England as it was published in a "Penny Dreadful" in London.

9. The Tapestried Chamber (1827)

Sir Walter Scott was Scottish.

8. Adventure of the German Student (1824)

Washington Irving was American.

7. The Old Maid in the Winding Sheet (1837)

Nathaniel Hawthorne was American.

6. The Spectral Ship (1828)

Wilhelm Hauff was German.

5. A Night in a Haunted House (1848)

This anonymous ghost story appeared in a Dublin magazine so the author was likely Irish.

4. The Mask of the Red Death (1842)

Edgar Allan Poe was American.

3. A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family (1839)

Joseph Sheridan le Fanu was Irish.

2. The Deaf and Dumb Girl (1839)

This anonymous story was translated from the French.

1. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1819)

Washington Irving was American.

That means four of the Top 10 scary ghost stories for this period came from Americans, two from Ireland, one from Scotland, one from Germany, one from France and one from England.

Best Ghost Story #2 from 1800-1849 is "The Deaf and Dumb Girl" that was Published Anonymously

My pick for the second best story from 1800-1849 will come as a surprise because it is very likely you have never heard of it. Its title is "The Deaf and Dumb Girl" and I found it published anonymously in an obscure magazine. In my next post I will give away the top ghost story in this countdown.

The 3rd Best Ghost Story 1800-1849 is A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family by Joseph Sheridan le Fanu

We are finally at the Top 3 ghost stories for the first half of the nineteenth century. It is by one of the early masters of the short ghost story: Joseph Sheridan le Fanu (1814-1873). Unlike many of his contemporaries, Fanu wrote scary ghost stories and made no bones about offending Victorian Age sensibilities. "A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family," is, in my view, his greatest ghost story. If you want to read why (and I think Bronte's "Jane Eyre" borrowed from the tale), check out The Best Ghost Stories 1800-1849: A Classic Ghost Anthology.

Price Drop - The Best Ghost Stories 1800-1849: A Classic Ghost Anthology

As those of you who follow my posts know, I am counting the Top 40 classic ghost stories for the 1st half of the 19th century. The Top 9 of these stories are found in my recently published ghost stories anthology. This is to let you know that the price has been dropped on the book from $17.98 to only $10.98. Here is a link to the Best Ghost Stories Anthology at Amazon.

5th Best Ghost Story from 1800-1849 is "A Night in a Haunted House"

Filing in the number 5 spot in The Best Ghost Stories 1800-1849: A Classic Ghost Anthology is an anonymous scary story that was published in 1848, which makes it the newest in the countdown. The title is "A Night in a Haunted House." It is an Irish ghost story and everyone knows they tell the best ghost stories!

6th Best Ghost Story from 1800-1849 is "The Spectral Ship" by Wilhelm Hauff

I am counting down the Top 10 ghost stories for the first half of the 19th century after starting with the Top 40. The scary story that floats in at the 6th spot is "The Spectral Ship" by German author Wilhelm Hauff (1802-1827). The tale was published in 1828 and I give background on it in he best ghost stories anthology that I edited. If you are looking for ghostly terror at sea, this is the story for you.

  

7th Best Ghost Story 1st half of 19th Century is "The Old Maid in the Winding Sheet" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) penned what may be the 7th best ghost story from 1800-1849 when he published "The Old Maid in the Winding Sheet" during 1837. This story is included in The Best Ghost Stories 1800-1849: a Classic Ghost Anthology with comments and story background. The scary story is truly chilling throughout and for that reason shines above "Lady Eleanor's Mantle," which I believe to be his second best ghost story. Hawthorne, of course, is no stranger to the supernatural genre. "The Minister's Black Veil" is one of the fine tales found in The Best Horror Short Stories 1800-1849: A Classic Horror Anthology. For the record, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Wilhelm Hauff are the only authors to have stories in each anthology.

Best Ghost Story 11 from 1800-1849 is The Ghostly Visiter, or The Mysterious Invalid

On February 27, 1833 a horrific ghost story was published by the title The Ghostly Visiter; or, The Mysterious Invalid. The scary story was printed anonymously in The Penny Story-Teller, a British pulp magazine that came out every Wednesday.

The Penny Story-Teller and others were called "penny dreadfuls" given the frightening contained within their pages. In these rages is where horror short stories first took root in the UK. "The Ghostly Visiter" is one of the finest examples of a ghost story to come out of these papers and I waste no time in placing in spot 11 of my countdown of the Top 40 ghost stories for the first half of the nineteenth century. In my next post I will reveal the Top 10 ghost stories, which are contained in The Best Ghost Stories book that I recently edited. 

 

Best Ghost Story 12 from 1800-1849 is "The Spectre-Smitten" by Samuel Warren

We are into the Top 12, the scary dozen, ghost stories for the first half of the nineteenth century. Number 12 was penned by Samuel Warren (1807-1877), a practicing lawyer and former medical school student. His haunting short story "The Thunderstruck and the Boxer" was included in The Best Horror Short Stories 1800-1849: A Classic Horror Anthology and you can find analysis of it there. From 1831-1837 Warren anonymously published a series of stories in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, which were later collected in "Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician." This popular collection was claimed by other authors, which forced Warren to come clean as to its authorship.

But this is a ghost stories countdown and Warren penned one of the best for the period under review. The scary story is The Spectre-Smitten. It is one of the finest ghost stories of insanity and the supernatural. The protagonist is a law student and Warren certainly drew on his experience as a law student in February 1831 when the story was published in Blackwood's. Enjoy!

www.AndrewBarger.com

  

Best Ghost Story 13 from 1800-1849 is "A Night in a Church" by Cornelius Felton

Thirteen is a very lucky number when it comes to this countdown of the Top 40 ghost stories for the first half of the nineteenth century. That's because the story in spot 13 is one of the most horrific of its kind and it has a storied (every pun intended) past. The scary story was published anonymously under the initials C.C.F. After conducting a bit of sleuthing, I was able to learn that Cornelius Conway Felton (1807-1862) used this pseudonym early in his career.  

The ghost story is A Night in a Church and it was published in 1831 when Felton was 24 years old. Three years later he would graduate Harvard College and from 1860-1862 become its president. After reading "A Night in a Church" you will agree that this story is the most frightening ever penned by a future Harvard president in the first half of the nineteenth century (perhaps ever). It had a nice publication run, being republished as late as the 1870s.

If you want to read the Top 10 ghost stories for this period, they are contained in The Best Ghost Stories 1800-1849: A Classic Ghost Anthology that I recently edited with story background and a list of ghost stories read. 

Best Ghost Story 15 from 1800-1849 is "The Collier's Family" by Friedrich Motte Fouque

It's October and the perfect month to finish my countdown of the Top 40 ghost stories for the first half of the nineteenth century. So let's get on with it.

The 15th best ghost story is The Collier's Family by Baron Friedrich Heinrich Karl de la Motte Fouque (1777-1843), who just happens to have the scariest name in the countdown. This horror gem was first published in English in "Popular Tales and Romances of the Northern Nations," which was published in 1823. This three volume collection of tales by mostly German authors also contained "Wake Not the Dead." This is the third vampire short story we have on record and many attribute it to Ludwig Tieck, though this has not been proven as the story was never found among his papers.

Fouque is best known today for his novel "Undine" where a water spirit marries a knight in shining armor. In 1814 ETA Hoffmann, who appeared at spot 17 with "Mines of Falun" and whose horror story "The Deserted House" appears in The Best Horror Short Stories for this same period, translated "Undine" into an opera. But it is "The  Collier's Family" that is the focus here, which includes a scary phantom brownie creature that haunts the collier's family. Collier is antiquated term for a coal miner and this story tops the other miner ghost story on the countdown, which is the previously mentioned "Mines of Falun," if for nothing else than originality.

In my short story collection Mailboxes - Mansions - Memphistopheles there is "The Brownie of the Alabaster Mansion" if you want to read a modern take on this creature that you are sure to find interesting! Tomorrow I will post a link to ghost story 14, so read quickly.  

Best Ghost Story 16 from 1800-1849 is "Lady Eleanor's Mantle" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was no stranger when it came to telling a scary ghost story. His "Legends of the Province House" was mentioned as being exemplary by H.P. Lovecraft and his 1835 story titled "Graves and Goblins" is quite good. But this post is about Lady Eleanor's Mantle, which floats in at the 16th spot in my countdown of the scary ghost stories for the first half of the nineteenth century.

"Lady Eleanor's Mantle" is a ghostly tale of pestilence and because of that it draws certain parallels to Edgar Allan Poe's "Mask of the Red Death," which is included in my recently published book: The Best Ghost Stories 1800-1849: A Classic Ghost Anthology. Without giving away too much, the horror story contains an insane person and is well worth a read on a moonlit night. Enjoy.  

Best Ghost Story 18 from 1800-1849 is "Monos and Daimonos"

Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) is known in supernatural circles for penning one of the greatest ghost stories of the nineteenth century: "The Haunted and Haunters." This scary story is not in consideration for this countdown of the best ghost short stories from 1800-1849, however, as it was published in 1857. H.P. Lovecraft called it "one of the best short haunted house tales ever." But enough about "The Haunted and Haunters."

Bulwer-Lytton's second best ghost story is Monos and Daimonos, which floats in at 18 on the countdown. It was published in 1830. The horror story involves a shipwreck, a murder and . . . well . . . a relentless ghost set out for revenge. I hope you enjoy it!

Read my new book: The Best Ghost Stories 18800-1849: A Classic Ghost Anthology  

Best Ghost Story 19 from 1800-1849 is Albert Werdendorff; or, The Midnight Embrace by Sarah Wilkinson

Although Albert Werdendorff; or, The Midnight Embrace is not the most artful name in this countdown of the Top 40 best ghost stories for the first half of the nineteenth century, but the story itself is little diminished by it. Penned by Sarah Wilkinson over 200 years ago in 1808, this scary story makes a person think twice about being hugged at midnight. Wilkinson was a early author of the Gothic school along with other stars like Mathew Gregory "Monk" Lewis and Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe. I hope you enjoy it.

Best Ghost Stories Anthology

  

Best Ghost Stories Anthology for $.99

Want to be frightened over the weekend? For a limited time the Kindle version of The Best Ghost Stories 1800-1849: A Classic Ghost Anthology has been dropped to $.99. Read it tonight for a buck. And for those of you in the United States--have a great long weekend!

Best Ghost Story 21 from 1800-1849 is The Haunted Manor-House of Paddington by Charles Ollier

Ghost story 21 of the Top 40 from 1800-1849 is The Haunted Manor-House of Paddington by Charles Ollier (1788-1859). "The Haunted Manor-House of Paddington: A Tale for November" was published in Bentley's Miscellany during 1841 at a time when Ollier was associated with the literary magazine. The haunted manor, which has fallen into "gloomy ruin" in the scary story, is based on an actual house in the Paddington borough of Westminster, England where Ollier lived. The house was ideally situated next to a cemetery and was demolished nearly 200 years ago, as a footnote in the story admits. The story's building terror and heard but not seen ghost nearly place it in the Top 20 ghost stories for the first half of the nineteenth century. But I believe there is much more to this horror tale than meets the eye.  

For my observant followers of this countdown you have already noticed that the photo provided is of Charles Dickens (1812-1870). This is not a mistake of the Charles. One reason is because there are no known photos/illustrations of Charles Ollier. More importantly, is what I believe is a link from this scary ghost story to Boz; or more specifically to his famous novella: A Christmas Carol. This most famous ghost story of our modern age was published on December 17, 1843. This was a mere two years after Ollier published "The Haunted Manor-House of Paddington." This is unremarkable in itself, except that the later ghost story contains a ghost or spirit that warns of the future visit of a more horrid ghost. Dickens was clearly familiar with the magazine. He was its first editor from 1836-1839. During this same period Charles Ollier was employed by Richad Bentley, founder of the magazine. It is very likely that Dickens read Ollier's ghost story and the rest, as they say, is history.

Buy the Book: The Best Ghost Stories 1800-1849: A Classic Ghost Anthology

Best Ghost Story 23 from 1800-1849

Horace Smith (1779-1849) was an English stockbroker, poet and novelist. When he became independently wealthy trading stocks, he turned to writing full time. One can also add to his resume: ghost short story writer.

Floating in at spot 23 in my countdown of the Top 40 ghost stories for the first half of the nineteenth century is Horace Smith's Sir Guy Eveling's Dream. This scary story first appeared in The New Monthly Magazine of 1823. Smith later collected it in his compilation of short stories and essays titled Gaieties and Gravities in 1826. Nine years later Washington Irving would publish his much anthologized "Adventure of the German Student," which has a similar construct as "Sir Guy Eveling's Dream." I won't give away anymore than that!

The Best Ghost Stories 1800-1849: A Classic Ghost Anthology is now available on Kindle, Nook or through the iBookstore.

Best Ghost Story 24 from 1800-1849 is "The Water Spirit"

Joseph Snowe's ghost story "All Soul's Eve" appeared at spot 30 in my countdown of the Top 40 ghost stories from 1800-1849. His next appearance on the countdown is at spot 24 with The Water Spirit. This scary story about a mid-wife who is summoned by the spirit world is very well written. It first appeared in Vol 1 of the 1839 collection of short stories titled The Rhine, Legends, Traditions, History from Cologne to Mainze by Snowe. Long before the movie Jaws, this ghost story taps into our hidden fears about what lurks beneath the water. I hope you enjoy it.