Book Review: "The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories" ed. by Michael Newton

You can probably tell by now that there is a theme going on with me. From the very beginning of even being able to read, I have always been fascinated by ghost stories and stories with monsters, horrific characters and stories which make the reader feel uncomfortable. This book entitled The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories is admittedly a book I have actually read before but I am reading again because honestly, I loved it back when I read for the first time and now I'm really quite missing it. Ghost story anthologies are comfort books for me and I have always loved those beautiful stories of hauntings that humans once told to each other to warn against going out in the dead of night, or loitering around places they are not supposed to. This anthology is probably one of the better ghost story anthologies I have known in my time and so, I would love for you to enjoy it too.

Starting off with that horrifying Elizabeth Gaskell story was a great idea on the part of the editor, but I have to say that I loved a story called What Was It? by Fitz-James O'Brien. It is the second story in the anthology and covers a person who cannot be seen but their breath can be felt and their presence is definitely there. After much fighting against the transparent, the narrator is able to restrain it but does not know what it is. Not being able to see it but noticing its breath will prove important in the latter parts of the story which are equalling uncomfortable and quite upsetting actually. Written beautifully, I thought that this story may have been shorter than the others but just as amazingly told.

Edward Bulwer Lytton has been chosen for his story The Haunted and the Haunters; or The House and the Brain which is actually pretty terrifying. Once entering a haunted house and slightly unconvinced, the narrator sees a figure with some strange eyes, ghastly and humanoid in figure that can be seen staring. The phantoms are added to by some weird 35-year-old love letters from a sea-farer talking about a crime. It is filled with atmosphere and when we see blood is when we start to understand. The growing atmosphere is fuelled with strange movements and odd hauntings, unknown crimes told in hushed tones in the nighttime. Disgusting imagery of dead bodies and children who are afraid, this story is possibly one of my favourites in the whole anthology. It just feels monstrous.

Mary Elizabeth Braddon is one of my favourite ghost story writers and her story The Cold Embrace features in this anthology. A young woman set to marry a rich man on the 15th of June cries as she writes to her lover in Italy who has now taken a new lover and couldn't care less about her anymore. When it is finally the day of the wedding, the lover returns from Italy to find that something astonishing has happened. He runs from the city, he travels and travels, he gets a fever and then...? A cold set of hands wearing a serpent-ring encircle his neck and terrifies him to death. He knows what it is, who it is and where it's coming from. But it is impossible, isn't it? Madness begets madness and he cannot escape. No matter where he goes.

Other stories include but are not limited to: The North Mail by Amelia B Edwards, The Signal Man by Charles Dickens, Thrawn Janet by Robert Louis Stevenson, At the End of the Passage by Rudyard Kipling, The Monkey's Paw by W W Jacobs, Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad by M R James and The Moonlit Road by Ambrose Bierce. It is, as you can see, an anthology filled with absolute classics.

All in all, I think that reading ghost stories is one of the most enjoyable activities in the whole universe. Filled with atmosphere and engrossing to the point that you cannot possibly drag yourself away. There is a certain 'knowing' that this is going to be frightening but wanting to read it in the dead of night anyway. There's something oddly satisfying about it.