The Open Door: and Other Stories of the Seen and Unseen

'There was not a soul to be seen, up or down; and the trees stood like ghosts, and the silence was terrible, and everything clear as day. You don’t know what silence is until you find it in the light like that...' Margaret Oliphant’s superbly strange tales have been long overdue their rediscovery as classics of the Victorian ghost story genre. From suspenseful hauntings to weird experiences of the afterlife and encounters with sympathetic ghosts, Oliphant tells her tales with well-wrought imagery and a nuanced voice to deliver a thoroughly unnerving and unforgettable reading experience. This newly edited volume collects six of her greatest ‘Seen and Unseen’ stories – Oliphant’s most popular series in her day – and includes a new introduction exploring the life of this pioneering novelist.