The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton

These stories are more than just the usual run of ghost stories having to do more with the unexplainable that borders along the conscious mind and the supernatural. I enjoyed Mrs. Wharton's writing style as much as the stories themselves. I highly recommend the book.

These stories are very interesting and told in the matter of fact, down to earth style that makes Wharton so readable. These short tales were written over a 25 year or so period and published in different books. The Forward & Afterward were written in 1937. This novel format came out in 1973.The pictures are OK and give a hint of the ghostly presence in each story. Each story tends to end abruptly and leaves you wanting to know more.

I read this anthology on the heels of reading a similar anthology of horror tales by Bram Stoker. I was surprised to find that Wharton easily surpasses Stoker as a writer of gothic tales. I had expected that the author of Dracula would be better at this genre, but no.Some of the stories, like Kerfol, compare well with the best gothic tales of Vernon Lee, using foreign aristocratic settings and historic elements quite deftly. Wharton is equally adroit with stories that use American settings, including those that are quite outside her own native culture of old New York. "The Trimph of Night", for example, is set in upstate NY and deals with what happens when a man shirks his responsibility for stopping an evil man. "Bewitched" is set somewhere in New England, possibly CT like Ethan Fromme because the town of Starkfield is mentioned a few times in the story, as it is also mentioned in Ethan Fromme. "Bewitched" leaves much to the imagination, and after one reading it is not yet clear to me what exactly happened in this one. I know I will have to re-read it soon. "The Eyes" appears to be set in New York, and I was surprised at how full of gay subtext the story was, as if the protagonist in the tale was perhaps inspired by a homosexual man that Wharton knew, but did not quite like...Henry James perhaps, though I am sure she knew others.This little anthology made me feel sorry that Wharton never gave us a gothic novel or two. The book shows that she certainly had an imagination for the disturbing and the macabre, although perhaps not enough interest in such subject matter as to compel the writing of a novel in that vein. Expect very fine, genteel ghost stories, but don't let my descriptors fool you. The tales are frightening and effective, and I believe them to be some of the best American gothic you can find.

Edith Wharton had a love of spine tingling stories. For lack of a better term, they are 'old fashioned,' with some a bit more tingly than others. However, if you can get a group of grown ups around a fire and read The Pomegranate Seed, Afterward or Mr. Jones aloud, you'll have a good time.

I'm still reading and savoring (probably sic) this compilation. This is one of a number of Edith Wharton's Ghost Story compilations, and I think one of the best. There are only 9 stories here, but so far, they're all good. I started liking Edith Wharton after I consumed her "Age of Innocence", and if you're a fan like me, I don't think you'll be disappointed with this volume! Highly recommended.

In the preface to the collection, Wharton, like many early 20th century practitioners of the form, bemoans an assumed downfall of the ghost story, collapse of the fantastic imagination, etc., in terms that will probably seem overblown to modern readers aware that the ghost story has not, in fact, died out. But she also offers what I think are sage words on the aesthetics of the ghost story:"The 'moral issue' question must not be allowed to enter into the estimating of a ghost story. It must depend for its effect solely on what one might call its thermometrical quality; if it sends a cold shiver down one's spine, it has done its job and done it well. But there is no fixed rule as to the means of producing this shiver, and many a tale that makes others turn cold leaves me at my normal temperature. The doctor who said there were no diseases but only patients would probably agree that there are no ghosts, but only tellers of ghost stories, since what provides a shudder for one leaves another peacefully tepid. Therefore one ought, I am persuaded, simply to tell one's ghostly adventures in the most unadorned language, and 'leave the rest to Nature.'"That Wharton denies that the "moral issue" is not relevant to the estimation of a ghost story should not lead the reader to conclude that her stories are only light-hearted divertissements. They are, in point of fact, almost always driven by a philosophical concern or a metaphorical connection to actual daily life. "Mr. Jones," for example, is simultaneously a satisfying antiquarian ghost story, with the discovery of a family secret among ancient papers; an ironic reflection on the delicate balance of power between servants and masters in the early 20th century; and a genuinely dark piece of fiction with a mostly absent yet powerful and malevolent ghost.One of Wharton's virtues is her ability to take the plot devices used in stock ghost stories and, by using her gifts for atmospheric descriptions of place and succinct evocations of human psychology, breathe new life into them so that they become terrifying all over again. "Afterward," perhaps the single finest of her ghost stories, takes what could be a trite concept of ghostly revenge and turns it into a disturbing meditation on the nature of guilt and complicity and the sheer mysteriousness of the universe. "The Triumph of Night" uses its ghostly forewarning of disaster to emphasize its narrator's isolation and fear. And "Pomegranate Seed" begins with a ghost so narrowly metaphorical that it could seem like a joke, and treats its psychological effects so seriously that what started in humor ends in genuine despair.There are a couple stories here that are non-supernatural. I won't say too much about them because the absence of ghosts sometimes comes as a surprise, but I will note that both are satisfying in subtly different ways from the stories with "genuine" ghosts; one is almost bitterly satirical, while another is quietly melancholy and rather touching.In narrative terms Edith Wharton's ghost stories, often concerned with the aristocracy, with old, large houses, and with shadowy spectres who have unfinished business, may sound too traditional for the knowing sensibilities of the contemporary reader. But, like her friend Henry James, Wharton was interested in the psychological as well as the literal trappings of the ghost, and it's that interest that makes her ghost stories satisfying, relevant, and perhaps even unsettling to the reader of today. Surely the point being made in the following excellent paragraph is timeless:"No, she would never know what had become of him-- no one would ever know. But the house ~knew~; the library in which she spent her long lonely evenings knew. For it was here that the last scene had been enacted, here that the stranger had come, and spoken the word which had caused Boyne to rise and follow him. The floor she trod had felt his tread; the books on the shelves had seen his face; and there were moments when the intense consciousness of the old dusky walls seemed about to break out into some audible revelation of their secret. But the revelation never came, and she knew it would never come. Lyng was not one of the garrulous old houses that betray the secrets entrusted to them. Its very legend proved that it had always been the mute accomplice, the incorruptible custodian, of the mysteries it had surprised. And Mary Boyne, sitting face to face with its silence, felt the futility of seeking to break it by any human means."

The customer service on this order was fabulous - received in perfect condition and within just a couple days. Thanks !I love Edith Wharton's work and didn't know what to expect really concerning the ghost topic - the stories are excellently written of course and the suspense is definitely there - but I'm someone who needs more from a ghost story than these offer. I just read the Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories providing stories from many famed authors including one of Edith's and the majority were not only suspenseful - but bone chilling, down right scary stuff. Thats more my personal style for this topic.I did enjoy this book. though and recommend to those whom don't need Really scary stories to feel that full suspense thing they're after.