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raccoon

(31,517 posts)
Tue Jan 12, 2016, 10:09 AM Jan 2016

Can anyone recommend any terrific 19th Century ghost story writers such as Bram Stoker

and Montague Rhodes James? Specifically short story writers.


OK, so Stoker does spill over to the 20th Century. Early 20th Century also OK.

12 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Can anyone recommend any terrific 19th Century ghost story writers such as Bram Stoker (Original Post) raccoon Jan 2016 OP
Edgar Allen Poe? packman Jan 2016 #1
Yep, Poe's worth a re-read. nt raccoon Jan 2016 #6
W.W. Jacobs wrote "The Monkey's Paw" in 1902. Adsos Letter Jan 2016 #2
Me too. I know he wrote other stories; wonder if any of the rest were that scary. nt raccoon Jan 2016 #5
Not exactly what you're looking for, but... TreasonousBastard Jan 2016 #3
Read some of his stuff when I was in college and T rex roamed the earth. Might be worth a go at his raccoon Jan 2016 #4
Not much is really that memorable, but... TreasonousBastard Jan 2016 #7
Have you read The Woman in White? pscot Jan 2016 #8
Yes. I love Wilkie Collins. nt raccoon Jan 2016 #9
How about Henry James hermetic Jan 2016 #10
Read it in college. Maybe I'll give it another try. Turn of the raccoon Jan 2016 #11
Dion Fortune is not quite 19th century and the occult rather than ghosts specifically was PufPuf23 Jan 2016 #12

Adsos Letter

(19,459 posts)
2. W.W. Jacobs wrote "The Monkey's Paw" in 1902.
Tue Jan 12, 2016, 11:31 AM
Jan 2016

That story scared the crap out of me when I was a kid.

TreasonousBastard

(43,049 posts)
3. Not exactly what you're looking for, but...
Tue Jan 12, 2016, 01:16 PM
Jan 2016

H. P. Lovecraft is one of the spookiest writers of the early 20th C.

He was born in the 1890's, if that counts.

raccoon

(31,517 posts)
4. Read some of his stuff when I was in college and T rex roamed the earth. Might be worth a go at his
Tue Jan 12, 2016, 01:24 PM
Jan 2016

stuff again; I'm sure I wouldn't remember the stories.

TreasonousBastard

(43,049 posts)
7. Not much is really that memorable, but...
Tue Jan 12, 2016, 01:29 PM
Jan 2016

reading them is an experience. He hints about terror, instead of spelling it all out.

I got chills reading his short novel "At the Mountains of Madness".

pscot

(21,041 posts)
8. Have you read The Woman in White?
Tue Jan 12, 2016, 02:07 PM
Jan 2016

It's not a ghost story; more of a mystery. But I remember it as being pretty spooky anyway. Wilkie Collins wrote it.

hermetic

(8,663 posts)
10. How about Henry James
Mon Jan 18, 2016, 07:14 AM
Jan 2016
The Turn of the Screw? I read that waaay long ago and recall it being rather creepy.

My favorite ghost story is The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It was written in 1959 but takes place in Gothic mansion.

raccoon

(31,517 posts)
11. Read it in college. Maybe I'll give it another try. Turn of the
Mon Jan 18, 2016, 06:25 PM
Jan 2016

Screw, I mean.

Read Shirley Jackson too.

PufPuf23

(9,282 posts)
12. Dion Fortune is not quite 19th century and the occult rather than ghosts specifically was
Mon Jan 18, 2016, 10:36 PM
Jan 2016

her subject matter and she was primarily an occultist rather than a novelists but I really like her fiction.

Fortune was born at the end of Elizabethan England and came of age and was a person of Edwardian England.

Her novels and one edition of short stories were published or written in the 1920s and 1930s.

The Secrets of Dr. Taverner, 1926
The Demon Lover, 1927
The Winged Bull, 1935
The Goat-Foot God, 1936
The Sea Priestess, 1938
Moon Magic, (unfinished in her lifetime, and published posthumously in 1956)

These are all very fine and timeless reads (I have read all of them at least twice)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dion_Fortune

I am fond of EA Poe and HP Lovecraft.

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