Top 10 Short Stories, The - The 19th Century - The Ghost Story

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author? The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme. Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made. If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. In this volume close encounters of a spectral kind come to visit and offer us their stories through the pens of such literary masters as Alexander Pushkin, Oscar Wilde, Amelia Edwards, Washington Irving and many others can. The excellence of their story-telling craft makes each story a journey into certain and unsettling fear. 1 - The Top 10 Short Stories - 19th Century Ghost Stories - An Introduction 2 - The Canterville Ghost - Part 1 by Oscar Wilde 3 - The Canterville Ghost - Part 2 by Oscar Wilde 4 - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving 5 - The Signalman by Charles Dickens 6 - The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott 7 - The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin 8 - The Phantom Rickshaw by Rudyard Kipling 9 - The Phantom Coach by Amelia Edwards 10 - The Deserted House by E T A Hoffman 11 - The Cold Embrace by Mary Elizabeth Braddon 12 - An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street by Sheridan Le Fanu