Ghosts / by Edith Wharton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937, author.

Series:

New York Review Books classics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American fiction--19th century.

American fiction.

American fiction--20th century.

Genre:

Paranormal fiction.

Short stories.

Physical Description:

xi, 274 pages ; 21 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : New York Review Books, 2021.

Summary:

"No history of the American uncanny tale would be complete without mention of Edith Wharton, yet many of Wharton's most dedicated admirers are unaware that she was a master of the form. In fact, one of Wharton's final literary acts was assembling Ghosts, a personal selection of her own most chilling stories, written between 1902 and 1937. In 'The Lady's Maid's Bell,' the earliest tale included here, a servant's dedication to her mistress continues from beyond the grave, and in 'All Souls,' the last story Wharton wrote, an elderly woman treads the permeable line between life and the hereafter. In all her writing, Wharton's great gift was to mercilessly illuminate the motives of men and women, and her ghost stories never stray far from the preoccupations of the living, using the supernatural to investigate such worldly matters as violence within marriage, the horrors of aging, the rot at the root of new fortunes, the darkness that stares back from the abyss of one's own soul. These are stories to 'send a cold shiver down one's spine,' not to terrify, and as Wharton explains her in her preface, her goal in writing them was to counter 'the hard grind of modern speeding-up' by preserving that ineffable space of 'silence and continuity' which is not merely the prerogative of humanity, but -- 'in the fun of the shudder'--its delight"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: All Souls'

The Eyes

Afterward

The Lady's Maid's Bell

Kerfol

The Triumph of Night

Miss Mary Pask

Bewitched

Mr. Jones

Pomegranate Seed.

Other Format:

Online version: Wharton, Edith, 1862- Ghosts

ISBN:

9781681375724

1681375729

OCLC:

1228912059

Publisher Number:

99989456641