Monthly Archives: September 2014

For Authors/Writers: The Writer Unboxed

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Two Ghosts in Salem

The Rival Ghosts by Brander Matthews (1896)

Tuesday’s Tale of Terror September 23, 2014

Rival Ghosts is one of the most adorable ghost stories. Uncle Larry shares with us a charming tale in the old tradition of storytelling.

We are on a cruise ship in the Atlantic, snuggled in deckchairs and warmed under blankets against the chilly sea breezes as the ship heads toward Fire Island. Uncle Larry tells the story of Baron Eliphalet Duncan, half Scotch and half Yankee, who encounters a family ghost and a house ghost. Dueling ghosts? Spirit lore, banchees and bogies, tambourines and banjos all play a role in this humorous spoof. There is a lovely romance too as we visit their house in Salem.

“You know,” resumed Uncle Larry, “that two waves of light or of sound may interfere and produce darkness or silence. So it was with these rival spooks. They interfered, but they did not produce silence or darkness. On the contrary, as soon as Eliphalet and the officer went into the house, there began at once a series of spiritualistic manifestations—a regular dark séance.”

Author Brander Matthews is considered to be a rather undistinguished and forgotten writer who was friends with Twain and Kipling. He wrote short stories, novels, plays, essays and was a professor of dramatic literature at Columbia College, New York City.

Read The Rival Ghosts at Gutenberg.org (scroll down to page 93)

Listen to Rival Ghosts at Librivox: Humorous Ghost Stories Chapter Eight in two parts:

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For Authors/Writers: The Writer Unboxed

Don’t forget to view the INDEX above of more free Tales of Terror classic Authors.

A Haunting Suspense

The Presence by the Fire by H.G. Wells (1897)

Tuesday’s Tale of Terror September 16, 2014

The early fiction of H.G. Wells includes a number of “uncollected stories,” and The Presence by the Fire is one that most readers (even most Wells’ fans) have never read. This somewhat sentimental ghost story was rediscovered years ago at the old British Museum Library (1990s?). Romantic love stories of the supernatural are often on my list and this one, although predictable, is a ghostly experience that reminds me of old world drama. It’s a 15-minute read, heartfelt and haunting.

Reid’s wife Mary is dying. At her deathbed, he is torn to pieces, as he knows he must let her go. She utters a last farewell to him and he hangs on through the last breath she takes in this world. How does he cope with Mary gone from his life? Perhaps his love is so strong that he can draw his departed Mary back into this world.

“The firelight played upon her face.”

Read H. G. Wells’ short story The Presence by the Fire at StoryPilot.com

Speaking of ghosts …

Have you read any of the stories by novelist and playwright J.B. Priestley (1894-1984)? The Old Dark House is a haunted house tale (nowhere to be found online in text) but is a film (1931) with Boris Karloff, Charles Laughton, Gloria Stuart (1 hour, 10 minutes), directed by James Whale (director of Frankenstein).

The film is black-and-white vintage spookery, shadows and candlelight, beating rain and thunder. Travelers are driven off the road from violent rain and wind and must find shelter in a storm-battered castle in Wales. There is a warm fire, weird and cranky caretakers in a castle with no beds … and, Morgan a savage who is loose on the property, a mysterious voice upstairs, a madman kept behind a locked door, and murder. Okay, so cliché after cliché saturates this story and it’s full of melodrama, but if you like the old style movies, this classic is one that harkens back like old wine, a bit musky on the palate but after a glass or two, it’s fun and interesting.

J.B. Priestley is considered to be the “sage of English Literature” and is famous for his book Man and Time (published as a companion to Carl Jung’s Man and His Symbols), a book about the metaphysics of time, which I’m actually reading now as part of my research for my new novel (working title Greylock). He is an unusual author who writes about time-slips of past, present, and future.

I did find a text (an excerpt) of The Old Dark House (original title Benighted) in The Mammoth Book of 20th Century Ghost Stories, edited by Peter Haining on Amazon.com. This anthology has some terrific old ghost stories by authors Henry James, Jack London, Daphne du Maurier, Ruth Rendell, Agatha Christie, Fay Weldon and Muriel Spark and more (and almost none of these stories are free online).

You can watch the film The Old Dark House on YouTube Cynykyl Video

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http://article.wn.com/view/2014/03/15/Horror_writer_Algernon_Blackwood_turns_145_today_so_read_the/

For Authors/Writers: The Writer Unboxed

Don’t forget to view the INDEX above of more free Tales of Terror classic Authors.

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Filed under classic horror stories, fiction, ghost stories, Ghosts, horror, horror blogs, quiet horror, short stories, tales of terror

Tagged as 20th century ghost stories, ghost stories, H.G. Wells, haunted houses, J.B. Priestley

September 9, 2014 · 9:02 am

Ghosts Who Wander

The Wood of the Dead by Algernon Blackwood (1906)

Tuesday’s Tale of Terror September 9, 2014

Let’s think that time has no existence. Past and future exist in the present. Pain and pleasure are one in the same. Author Algernon Blackwood brings us to this timelessness in The Wood of the Dead. A traveler is wandering the countryside and comes across an “old rustic” man and a maiden of loveliness. He pursues the mystery about the village ghost who lives in the woods.

“Instantly the shadows closed in upon me and “something” came forward to meet me from the centre of the darkness. It would be easy enough to meet my imagination half-way with fact, and say that a cold hand grasped my own and led me by invisible paths into the unknown depths of the grove …”

If you’ve been following this blog, you know how much I appreciate a well-written ghost story. And if you have read any of my own ghost short stories or my ghostly novel The Dazzling Darkness, you know how important ghosts are to me personally. Blackwood is truly a mentor for me because he explores human consciousness, not just the ghost of humans.

Algernon Blackwood is an author who writes artfully of fear and ghostly beauty at the same time. He is likely one of the most prolific and impressive writers of ghost stories that you’ll find. I read Blackwood whenever I want a moody story that will conjure vivid images and provide a supernatural adventure with compelling ghosts. He knocks on the ghostly thoughts within all of us and leaves impressions that last long after you’ve closed the book.

Come into the Wood of the Dead and you’ll see what I mean.

Read The Wood of the Dead at ReadBookOnline.net

A Woman’s Ghost Story is another of Blackwood’s stories that I liked. Read A Woman’s Ghost Story at Gutenberg.org (scroll to choose page 108)

Librivox Recordings of Algernon Blackwood short stories (The Woman’s Ghost Story, The House of the Past, The Empty House, Wendigo, The Occupant of the Room, and other shorts). Choose “Short Ghost and Horror Story Collection 020” at bottom of page for title selections for audio versions:

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