2
BERIC'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?
Skeptica