I was surprised to come to the end of the book I was reading on my Kindle today. It’s a Project Gutenberg file of She and I always forget that those often end somewhere around the 95% to 98% mark. So when I finished I had a little panic because I hadn’t downloaded the gothic novels I had planned to read for RIP yet. I started paging through to see what I did have and discovered Famous Modern Ghost Stories.
Published in 1921, this collection of ghost stories features the likes of Anatole France, Ambrose Bierce, Guy de Maupassant, and Edgar Allan Poe. The collection is assembled by Dorothy Scarborough, Ph.D., lecturer in English at Columbia University. This book has a companion volume she also compiled, Humorous Ghost Stories.
I am in the midst of the first story, “The Willows” by Algernon Blackwood. Blackwood is so far not impressing me. The narrator of the story is canoeing down the Danube with a friend. They have reached a swampy area and found a dry island to camp on for the night. Problem is, he has gone on at great length for pages about the history of the Danube and the sites he and his friend have seen so far on their trip. I so wanted to shout numerous times, Get on with it! But since I was in public I kept my mouth closed and firmly projected my impatience at the story. Which makes me wonder now if somehow my firm mental projections at books I have read on my now dead Kindle had anything to do with its demise? Hmmm.
The Blackwood story is not what I was keen to tell you about. It’s the introduction to the book by Dorothy Scarborough, Ph.D. (that’s how she has her name on the book!). She is a hoot! Her introduction had me laughing throughout, not sure whether she was serious or pulling my leg. First she mentions how there has been a huge increase in the population of the spirit world and then she says:
Life is so inconveniently complex nowadays, what with income taxes and other visitations of government, that it is hard for us to have the added risk of wraiths, but there’s no escaping.
Then she goes on to try to explain why there might be more ghosts now than formerly and why they might be so much more vigorous than they used to be:
Perhaps the war, or possibly an increase in class consciousness, or unionization of spirits, or whatever, has greatly energized the ghost in our day and given him both ambition and strength to do more things than ever. Maybe ‘pep tablets’ have been discovered on the other side as well!
Next, she explains how modern ghosts are different from those old-timey ghosts:
Modern ghosts are less simple and primitive than their ancestors, and are developing complexes of various kinds. They are more democratic than of old, and have more of a diversity of interests, so that mortals have scarcely the ghost of a chance with them. They employ all the agencies and mechanisms known to mortals, and have in addition their own methods of transit and communication. Whereas in the past a ghost had to stalk or glide to his haunts, now he limousines or airplanes, so that naturally he can get in more work than before. He uses the wireless to send his messages, and is expert in all manner of scientific lines.
And ends up sounding like a motivational speaker for ghosts:
Whatever a modern ghost wishes to do or to be, he is or does, with confidence and success.
Finally she gets around to talking a bit about the stories in the collection. One of the stories has a man being haunted by a severed arm. Scarborough writes:
Fiction shows us various ghosts with half faces, and at least one notable spook that comes in half. Such ability, it will be granted, must necessarily increase the haunting power, for if a ghost may send a foot or an arm or a leg to harry one person, he can dispatch his back-bone or his liver or his heart to upset other human beings simultaneously in a sectional haunting at once economically efficient and terrifying.
Are you laughing? I hope you are laughing.
The story I am most interested in reading falls second in the collection, “The Shadows on the Wall” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. Scarborough says that “one prominent librarian considers [it] the best ghost story ever written.” I shall soon find out and let you know!
I LOVE GHOST STORIES! I’ve collected a number of similar ‘collective’ works in the past, including non-fiction books on the subject. Ghosts are basically my only ‘mister’ genre I enjoy reading & watching on tv.
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njmckay, well then if you have an ereader you will want to download this collection from Project Gutenberg. The introduction alone is worth it.
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The only kinds of ghost stories I like are the ones with humor. I love her ending about the “sectional haunting at once economically efficient and terrifying.”
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Jeanne, I believe the thought of sectional haunting made me snort out loud on the train. I don;t much care for contemporary ghost stories but these old ones are generally entertaining. It is always fascinating to see what scared people most.
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What fun!
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Very fun!
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As you, like all readers of Wuthering Expectations know, the ghost story is fundamentally a comic genre. “or whatever” – I love that.
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Tom, her “or whatever” is hilarious. When I found out about the companion volume of humorous ghost stories I had to go download that. I hope it is even funnier than these “serious” ones.
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I would never think to read ghost stories, but an introduction like that might just change my mind; the ghosts ought to be glad to have her as an agent. And perhaps I should see what else Dr. Dorothy herself has written.
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A hoot indeed! The days of unionized spirits have come to and end but we can perhaps look forward to Kardashian ghosts and other celebrity spooks. I do love ghost stories though they are very hard to pull off – the best probably written by MR James and Sheridan Le Fanu.
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Ian, alas for the unionized spirits. The thought of Kardashian ghosts sends a chill down my spine! Ghost stories are indeed hard to pull off. We’ll see how these “moderns” compare to the classic James and Le Fanu.
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GretchenJoanna, I’m not generally a reader of current ghost stories, but good, old-fahsioned ones are always entertaining. The ghost definitely have an excellent agent in Dr. Dorothy! 🙂
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I haven’t read ghost stories since I was a teenager when a friend and I used to go on holiday together and scare ourselves stupid reading them in bed. I shall, no doubt find myself re-engaging with the genre as I get further into the short story project. It would be seriously remiss to leave them out. I think Dr Scarborough had her tongue very firmly in her cheek as she wrote this. She did, after all, go on to compile a collection of humorous ghost stories. She sounds like a woman I would enjoy meeting.
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Alex, I read some Edith Wharton ghost stories a few years ago but other than that I haven’t read many, at least not collections. I generally prefer to go for the novels. But I am glad I found Dr. Scarborough on my kindle when I needed her! After a while it became clear she was poking fun, but at the start, just jumping in with no background, I wasn’t entirely certain!
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She sounds pretty funny. Scarborough also wrote a fiction book titled “The Wind” about an east coast young woman who has to move to the wilds of West Texas to live with her uncle and aunt. Really well written study of how environment impacts people – plus it nails the weather around here in Texas. Just FYI about Scarbrough. She was interesting person in and of her own right as well… Now I’m curious about these ghost stories!…
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Ravingreader, ooh, thanks for the additional information on Scarborough! I have just placed a request for The Wind at the library. 🙂
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LOL! A lovely dissertation on modern ghosts vs the ‘old timey’ ghosts. I’m curious to know if you liked any of the ghost stories she chose in her collection, Stefanie. I have some short stories I hope to get to for RIP, though I have read one ghost novel that was very good and had scary moments in it (or chilling moments), I Remember You by Yrsa Sigurdardottir – just in case you were looking for a good modern ghost story!
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Susan, isn’t it great? I’m just now getting towards the end of the Blackwood story, the first one in the book. It’s a long story! I have a feeling I’ve read it before but I just can’t say how or when. Once he got over going on and on describing the scenery, it picked up and has gotten pretty good. And thanks for the recommendation! I am always looking for a good ghost story!
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Has Dorothy Scarborough written any fiction? Or is that the pen name for someone else….? Answers on a postcard, please! She does sound like a hoot.
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Litlove, She has! I found a novel of hers another commenter mentioned called “The Wind” It looks pretty good, something about Texas with supernatural elements. I borrowed it from the library and am hoping to get a chance to read it.
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I’m curious about that Freeman story–I read something by her not long ago that has faded now a bit from memory….will have to go back and look at my post. I take it the intro was written in 1921? Had to laugh at the idea of ‘modern’ ghost stories in the 20s!
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Danielle, I just finished the collection so I’ll post something about them soon. Some of them were very silly without meaning to be, but they were fun. Yes, the intro was written in 1921 but most of the stories are from the late 1800s and early 1900s. I laughed at the “modern” bit too.
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