Just three books this month as I spent most of my time jumping between ghost story anthologies.
Spirits of the Season: Christmas Hauntings edited by Tanya Kirk. (The British Library, 2018)
This anthology of hauntings set during the Christmas season was a perfect reading for the cold and dark days at the end of the year. The stories by Edith Nesbit and H. Russell Wakefield were standouts.
The Four-Fifteen Express (1867) by Amelia B. Edwards (4/5)
The Curse of the Catafalques (1882) by F. Anstey (2/5)
Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk (1889) by Frank Cowper (5/5)
The Christmas Shadrach (1891) by Frank Stockton (3/5)
Number Ninety (1895) by B.M Croker (3/5)
The Shadow (1905) by E. Nesbit (5/5)
The Kit-Bag (1908) by Algernon Blackwood (5/5)
The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance (1913) by M.R. James (3/5)
Boxing Night (1923) by E.F. Benson (3/5)
The Prescription (1929) by Marjorie Bowen (4/5)
The Snow (1929) by Hugh Walpole (5/5)
Smee (1929) by A.M. Burrage (4/5)
The Demon King (1931) J.B. Priestley (3/5)
Lucky’s Grove (1940) by H. Russell Wakefield (5/5)
Chill Tidings: Dark Tales of the Christmas Season edited by Tanya Kirk. (The British Library, 2020)
Another great collection of Christmas hauntings from the British Library Tales of the Weird series. I don’t think this collection is as strong as the previous one, but it was still an enjoyable read.
A Strange Christmas Game (1868) by Charlotte Riddell (3/5)
The Old Portrait (1896) by Hume Nisbet (4/5)
The Real and the Counterfeit (1895) by Louisa Baldwin (4/5)
Old Applejoy’s Ghost (1900) by Frank R. Stockton (3/5)
Transition (1913) by Algernon Blackwood (3/5)
The Fourth Wall (1915) by A.M. Burrage (3/5)
The Festival (1925) by H.P. Lovecraft (4/5)
The Crown Derby Plate (1933) by Marjorie Bowen (4/5)
Green Holly (1944) by Elizabeth Bowen (3/ 3)
Christmas Re-union (1947) by Andrew Caldecott (4/5)
A Christmas Meeting (1952) by Rosemary Timperley (4/5)
Someone in the Lift (1955) by L.P Hartley (5/5)
Told After Super (1891) by Jerome K. Jerome (4/5)
Blood Standard by Laird Barron (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2019)
After a mob enforcer gets into trouble, he’s sent to upstate New York and winds up investigating the disappearance of a young girl. This was recommended to me quite a while ago. I shouldn’t have waited so long. Fast paced, hard boiled, dark, but also funny at times. Loved the prose and the dialogue.
That’s it for 2024. Here’s to 2025!
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