Ghost Stories & Supernatural Tales
From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us! — Scots prayer
Well, wouldn’t you rather have advance warning? My father, who was a superb ghost-storyteller, taught me to appreciate and love a good ghost story. I have found ghost stories around the world, from Japan to England and Scotland, from Persia to Argentina. The United States from its colonial days has been good for “hants,” despite Nathaniel Hawthorne’s fear that we were not old enough (he wrote some terrific ones himself).
This page, because my bias and my suddenly remembering a writer who would qualify, will be frequently updated.
Enjoy! Hope you find something to give you the shivers!
A Sicilian Romance
A Sicilian Romance
In A Sicilian Romance (1790) Ann Radcliffe began to forge the unique mixture of the psychology of terror and poetic description that would make her the great exemplar of the Gothic novel, and the idol of the Romantics. This early novel explores the cavernous landscapes and labyrinthine passages of Sicily's castles and convents to reveal the shameful secrets of its all-powerful aristocracy.