VICTORIAN GHOST STORIES

Evening Star, Issue 21636, 3 February 1934, Page 22

VICTORIAN GHOST STORIES

“ I wants to make your flesh creep ” might be the motto for ‘ Victorian Ghost Stories,’ edited by Montague Summers, and published by the Fortune Press. Years ago tales dealing with ghostly appearances were published quite frequently. They had a decided vogue. Few of the writers of to-day deal with such a theme. It would he interesting to know why. Is it because we are living in a material and sceptical age, or is the reason to be found in lack of imaginative writers? In Victorian days many noted novelists exploited this theme with great success, and an illustration of this fact is to be found in the book under review. The fourteen tales cover the whole reign of Queen Victoria, the first in time having been published in 1838; the last in December, 1900. Only two of the tales have been reprinted in any form. They have been taken from magazines and other books long since but undeservedly forgotten. No book of ghost stories would be complete without at least one by Joseph Sheridan Lc Fanu, who has been claimed as the master in the art of constructing tales of the supernatural. Three of Lo Fanu’s arc included in this volume. Among the other authors are Tom Hood, Mark Lemon (sometime editor of ‘ Punch ’), and Katherine Tynan. Apart from the supernatural aspect, this book illustrates the high degree of art to which the writing of the short story was brought in the nineteenth century.