Masterpieces of Mystery in Four Volumes: Ghost Stories

Metadata

Gutenberg ID

27722

Title

Masterpieces of Mystery in Four Volumes: Ghost Stories

Language

en

Book source

Project Gutenberg

Description max 80 words

This anthology presents a curated selection of classic ghost stories spanning centuries, from Pliny the Younger's ancient accounts to Victorian and modern thrillers. Edited by Joseph Lewis French, the collection explores the enduring appeal of the supernatural, featuring tales of haunted houses, invisible entities, and psychological terror that challenge the boundaries between reality and imagination.

Summary up to 500 words

Edited by Joseph Lewis French, *Masterpieces of Mystery in Four Volumes: Ghost Stories* traces the evolution of the ghost story from its primal origins in human speech to its literary maturity. The collection spans centuries, beginning with Pliny the Younger's letters describing apparitions that predicted political rise and haunted Athenian mansions. In one such tale, the philosopher Athenodorus confronts a chained spectre, freeing a soul by interring its remains, thereby breaking the house's curse. The volume then moves to the nineteenth century, where the genre gains sophistication and psychological depth. Algernon Blackwood's "The Listener" follows a writer in a London alley who becomes obsessed with the wind, rats, and a gathering of black cats, suspecting an unseen presence influencing his sanity. Montague Rhodes James presents "Number 13," a chilling account of a haunted house where a mysterious figure appears in windows. Katherine Rickford's "Joseph" and Ralph Adams Cram's "Sister Maddelena" offer additional supernatural encounters that blend domestic settings with eerie dread. Guy de Maupassant's "The Horla" depicts a man driven mad by an invisible entity that absorbs his reflection in a mirror and ultimately consumes his home in a fire. William F. Harvey's "The Beast with Five Fingers" introduces a blind naturalist and a mysterious stowaway on a ship, while Robert Louis Stevenson's "Thrawn" and Wilbur Daniel Steele's "The Yellow Cat" complete the set with further mysteries. Collectively, these stories illustrate the growth of the genre, blending naive narration with sophisticated psychological horror. The tales explore themes of isolation, the fragility of sanity, and the enduring human fear of the supernatural, demonstrating that the ghost has held his own with his human fellow in fiction for centuries.

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Categories

• Mystery
• Horror