The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton
by Edith Wharton
List Price:
Our Price: $5.98
You Save: $9.02 (60%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $3.10 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Edith WhartonEdition: Paperback
Published: 1997-10-10
ISBN: 0684842572
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Scribner
Book Reviews of The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton
Book Review: This book needs to come with a disclaimer!
Summary: 5 Stars
Edith Wharton is an acknowleged giant of the fiction novel. But this particular book of hers needs to come complete with a disclaimer. I would suggest: DON'T EXPECT TO READ THE AVERAGE GHOST STORY HERE. My one negative thing to say about this book is actually a positive. I could only read one of these stories at a time because I had to think one story over before I went on to the next . My tendency is to sit down with a book and read it cover to cover with minor stops along the way for everyday life to intervene. I have been reading this book for over a week now because each story makes me stop after I have read it to have a nice long thinking session regarding what I have just read. I loved that.
My favorite story of the eleven story collection is titled, "Afterward". The title means that a person did not know if they had met the ghost at Lyng in Dorsetshire until long, long afterward. A superb rendering of a mystery which began so quietly that Mary Boyne didn't even know she was involved in it until it was too late.
Another favorite is "Kerfol" which takes place in Brittany and involves a pack of dogs and how they got where they were. Or were they there at all?
And then there is "Bewitched" a masterpiece which made me shiver while reading about the frozen New England winter even though it was 90 degrees outside my house. Wharton's descriptions of the physical appearances of all those involved in this wonderfully frightening tale is straight from the Grant Wood painting American Gothic, except with all the wintery background painted in by Edith Wharton.
Very highly recommended. These are not the modern man's ghost stories even though they were published in 1973. Some have no resolution, you have to decide for yourself how you think the situation ended. Some may not seem like ghost stories at all until you think about them afterward. Some are like those odd occurrances which make you wonder if you really got all your information straight and if you might, just might, be imagining things. A bonus for me were the black and white drawings which accompanied each story. The writing is wonderful but I had expected that from Edith Wharton. What I had not expected was to be so totally engrossed.
Summary of The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton
"'No, I don't believe in ghosts, but I'm afraid of them,' is much more than the cheap paradox it seems to many. To 'believe,' in that sense, is a conscious act of the intellect, and it is in the warm darkness of the prenatal fluid far below our conscious reason that the faculty dwells with which we apprehend ghosts." Edith Wharton, known for her keen observations of an emotionally stifling upper-class social world, was so afraid of ghosts that for many years she couldn't even sleep in a room with a book containing a ghost story. As horror scholar Jack Sullivan writes, "It is this sharply felt sensation of supernatural dread filtered through a skeptical sensibility that made Wharton a master of the ghost story." This collection contains 11 of her elegant, chilling tales, including "Afterword," "The Triumph of Night," and "Pomegranate Seed," plus Wharton's 1937 preface and an autobiographical postscript.One might not expect a woman of Edith Wharton's literary stature to be a believer of ghost stories, much less be frightened by them, but as she admits in her postscript to this spine-tingling collection, "...till I was twenty-seven or -eight, I could not sleep in the room with a book containing a ghost story." Once her fear was overcome, however, she took to writing tales of the supernatural for publication in the magazines of the day. These eleven finely wrought pieces showcase her mastery of the traditional New England ghost story and her fascination with spirits, hauntings, and other supernatural phenomena. Called "flawlessly eerie" by Ms. magazine, this collection includes "Pomegranate Seed," "The Eyes," "All Souls'," "The Looking Glass," and "The Triumph of Night."
Ghosts Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Ghost Stories
Haunted Christmas: Ghost Storiesby Jo-Anne Christensen
Lone Pine Publishing; Published: 2002-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.10
Price in other shops:
Tragedy at Devil's Hollow: And Other Kentucky Ghost Storiesby Michael Paul Henson
Overmountain Press; Published: 2000-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.36
Price in other shops:
13 Scary Ghost Storiesby Marianne Carus
Scholastic Paperbacks; Published: 2002-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.00
Price in other shops:
The Ghost Stories of Edith Whartonby Edith Wharton
Scribner; Published: 1997-10-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.97
Price in other shops:
Japanese Fairy TalesTuttle Publishing; Published: 2007-05-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.33
Price in other shops:
When the Ghost Screams: True Stories of Victims Who Hauntby Leslie Rule
Andrews McMeel Publishing; Published: 2006-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.98
Price in other shops:
Love GhostMedia Blasters; Release date: 2006-05-16; DVD
Best price: $11.95
Price in other shops:
Japanese Ghosts and Demons: Art of the Supernaturalby Stephen Addiss
George Braziller; Published: 2001-04; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
The Tomie CollectionTOMIE COLLECTIONS, THE - 5 MOVIE SET (DVD MOV; Release date: 2006-09-19; DVD
Best price: $4.11
Price in other shops:
Sensational Knowledge: Embodying Culture through Japanese Dance (Music Culture)by Tomie Hahn
Wesleyan; Published: 2007-05-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.82
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
The Custom of the Country (Penguin Classics)by Edith Wharton
Penguin Classics; Published: 2006-05-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.33
Price in other shops:
Ghost Stories of Henry James (Wordsworth Classics) (Wordsworth Classics)by Henry James
Wordsworth Editions Ltd; Published: 2001-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.99
Edith Wharton (Vintage)by Hermione Lee
Vintage; Published: 2008-04-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.30
Price in other shops:
Best Ghost Stories of J. S. LeFanuby J. Sheridan LeFanu
Dover Publications; Published: 1964-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.17
Price in other shops:
The House of Mirth (Dover Thrift Editions)by Edith Wharton
Dover Publications; Published: 2002-08-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.44
Price in other shops:
Old New Yorkby Edith Wharton
Scribner; Published: 1995-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.00
Price in other shops:
Ghost and Horror Stories of Ambrose Bierceby Ambrose Bierce
Dover Publications; Published: 1964-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.82
Price in other shops:
The Haunting of Hill House (Penguin Classics)by Shirley Jackson
Penguin Classics; Published: 2006-11-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.91
Price in other shops:
The New York Stories of Edith Wharton (New York Review Books Classics)by Edith Wharton
NYRB Classics; Published: 2007-10-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.50
Price in other shops:
Gothic Tales (Penguin Classics)by Elizabeth Gaskell
Penguin Classics; Published: 2001-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.29
Price in other shops: