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darkling_talesLJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY dfordoom)
The Virago Book of Ghost Stories: The Twentieth Century: Vol 2 was a recent second-hand bookstore find, and quite a good find it was too. Since it’s published by Virago all the stories are by women writers, but the most exciting thnig for me is the number of stories I’d never come across before.
Of the half dozen stories I’ve read so far the most impressive is Margaret Irwin’s The Book. A unconventional but creepy ghostly tale about the sort of book you really should leave on the bookshelf. With and Without Buttons by Mary Butts is very odd indeed, but intriguing. Two sisters try to scare a neighbour with a tale of a haunted house, but find that the scare has already started without their help and is out of their control.
Celia Fremlin’s Don’t Tell Cissie tries a little to hard to be whimsical, while Rebecca West’s The Grey Men is a rather unexciting if competent tale of a premonitory dream.
A. S. Byatt’s The July Ghost is wonderfully ambiguous, about a ghost who may or may not be the fulflilment of a wish, although strangely it’s someone else’s wish. A very effective little story. Daphne du Maurier’s The Pool is a coming-of-age story disguised as a ghost story, but it’s a nice evocation of childhood obsessions.
I’ve only scratched the surface of this anthology so far. I really must find the other Virago ghost story anthologies now!
dfordoom)The Virago Book of Ghost Stories: The Twentieth Century: Vol 2 was a recent second-hand bookstore find, and quite a good find it was too. Since it’s published by Virago all the stories are by women writers, but the most exciting thnig for me is the number of stories I’d never come across before.
Of the half dozen stories I’ve read so far the most impressive is Margaret Irwin’s The Book. A unconventional but creepy ghostly tale about the sort of book you really should leave on the bookshelf. With and Without Buttons by Mary Butts is very odd indeed, but intriguing. Two sisters try to scare a neighbour with a tale of a haunted house, but find that the scare has already started without their help and is out of their control.
Celia Fremlin’s Don’t Tell Cissie tries a little to hard to be whimsical, while Rebecca West’s The Grey Men is a rather unexciting if competent tale of a premonitory dream.
A. S. Byatt’s The July Ghost is wonderfully ambiguous, about a ghost who may or may not be the fulflilment of a wish, although strangely it’s someone else’s wish. A very effective little story. Daphne du Maurier’s The Pool is a coming-of-age story disguised as a ghost story, but it’s a nice evocation of childhood obsessions.
I’ve only scratched the surface of this anthology so far. I really must find the other Virago ghost story anthologies now!
