Book Review: "Minor Hauntings" ed. by Jen Baker

Full Title: Minor Hauntings: Chilling Tales of Spectral Youth edited by Jen Baker

When I first read this title I did not mind that it probably was not going to be as haunting as it claimed as it was a compilation by the British Library Tales of the Weird. With these, I am more interested in whether the stories have managed to capture my imagination and stay true to their theme whilst also being compiled as to not be overly similar so that I cannot tell them apart. Yes, it is a strange set of criteria but I think that this book really did the trick. I was also shocked at how haunting spectral youth can actually be. I never knew that ghostly children could scare anyone - it was more or less hauntings happening to children like The Turn of the Screw that I found terrifying. This book really opened my eyes to more possibilities for ghost stories.

The book starts off with a story called The Dead Daughter: A Tale by Henry Glassford Bell. First printed in the Edinburgh Literary Journal in 1831 and then in the Literary Gazette in 1832, this supernatural tale bases itself on a daughter of a family who died suddenly and comes back to walk the hallways of her house after years of death. One of the key images from this story that I enjoyed the most was when the father goes to open her coffin to make sure she is dead upon seeing the ghost wandering the house. Her remains are described as 'mouldering' which I thought was an odd choice of language but I really quite like it. It is a very atmospheric story that sets up the rest of the anthology quite nicely.

What would a horror anthology be without a work by one of the key writers of the genre? M.R James' Lost Hearts features as another story I enjoyed in this anthology. First published in The Pall Mall Magazine in 1895 it tells the story of an orphan boy sent to live with relatives in the countryside when the atmosphere turns dark and strange. As secrets begin to reveal themselves, he finds he may not have been the only child sent to live with these 'relatives' and occult practices litter the air wherever he looks. Malevolent ghosts, vengeance and turmoil encircle the house as the orphan tries to find out the truth and the master of the house tries to keep it from him. It is classic M.R James and of course, it is written brilliantly.

Including stories that I have personally never even heard of, I like the way it incorporates the lesser known and even cult-literature of the age as we move through. Yes, we have someone as famous as M.R James and Elizabeth Gaskell as writers within the anthology but we also have writers such as Charlotte Riddell whom, if you are not very into horror stories then you probably would not have heard of her. We also have writers such as Margery Lawrence, Ellen Glasgow and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. These are people that, if you are not used to reading either cult horror stories from the 19th century or magazine publications from the 19th century, you probably may have glossed over and not paid attention to. But, Jen Baker brings them back to life in this anthology by featuring some of their most famous work from Britain's most curated literary magazines and journals.

From ghost children to haunted parents to graveyards and atmospheres in large houses, the Romantic and Victorian ages of the ghost story were dominated by sheer paranoia which brought us on nicely to works in the latter half of the Victorian period such as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray and even Dracula. But it is these short stories of the day that would have gone along with buyers who were travelling to work, housewives sitting and reading on a break from socialising, train rides and in the comfort of the carriage. It would be these that were told around campfires and at Halloween, at night and at decadent masquerade parties as to have fun with fear.

All in all, I believe that the British Library Tales of the Weird has got it right again. In all of their anthologies I have yet to read one that I would rate badly. I look forward to December when their folk horror anthology is finally released.