Ghost Stories

[poliphilo]

BBC 4 gave us a short history of the ghost story last night. They started with The descent of Inanna and wound up with Robert Aickman- and all in half an hour- whee!

But they got it right. At least I thought they did. They paused on Sheridan le Fanu and M.R. James and Aickman- and that's as it should be. These are the masters. And they didn't bother with the Turn of the Screw (which I consider over-rated.) I'd have liked a nod in the direction of Margaret Oliphant, but you can't have everything and there were an awful lot of Victorian and early 20th century writers who knocked out a ghost story or two.

Ooh, and Jackie, you'd have liked this- they fished out a clip of Algernon Blackwood talking to camera in 1951- and he was everything you could have wished- long-nosed and gaunt with an avuncular twinkle in his eye.

I'm crazy for ghost stories. Here's my personal top ten.

An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street- Sheridan le Fanu
The Signalman- Charles Dickens
The Library Window- Margaret Oliphant
Thrawn Janet- Robert Louis Stevenson
Mr Humphreys and his Inheritance- M.R. James
The Room in the Tower- E.F. Benson
The Dog Hervey- Rudyard Kipling
The Wendigo- Algernon Blackwood
Seaton's Aunt- Walter de la Mare
The Houses of the Russians- Robert Aickman

Comments

[ex-kharin447.livejournal.com]

Of course, one reason to debate whether to include The Turn of the Screw is the question of whether it actually is a ghost story at all or simply the deranged imagination of an unreliable narrator.

[ex-kharin447.livejournal.com]

PS

Agree entirely about The Room in the Tower. Quite my favourite ghost story.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I read it first in my early teens and it scared the bejasus out of me.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think one or two of the stories on my list might be open to that kind of debate. The Library Window and Seaton's Aunt are both open to the charge that the narrator is a little bit overwrought....