The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories

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“The ghost is the most enduring figure in supernatural fiction. He is absolutely indestructible. . . . He changes with the styles in fiction but he never goes out of fashion. He is the really permanent citizen of the earth, for mortals, at best, are but transients.”
—Dorothy Scarborough

This new selection of ghost stories, by Michael Newton, brings together the best of the genre. From Elizabeth Gaskell’s “The Old Nurse’s Story” through to Edith Wharton’s “Afterward,” this collection covers all of the most terrifying tales of the genre. With a thoughtful introduction, and helpful notes, Newton places the stories contextually within the genre and elucidates the changing nature of the ghost story and how we interpret it.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.Michael Newton was both an undergraduate and postgraduate at University College London. He is the author of Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children (Faber & Faber, 2002) and of a book on Kind Hearts and Coronets for the British Film Institute’s Film Classics series (2003). He has also edited Edmund Gosse’s Father and Son for Oxford World’s Classics and Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent for Penguin. He has taught at UCL, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, and Princeton University, and currently works at the University of Leiden. At present he is completing a book on the history of assassination and political violence.GB

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