The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, Volume Five

It's the most wonderful time of the year - time for more rare ghostly tales of Yuletide terror from Victorian England!

For this fifth Valancourt volume of Christmas ghost stories, editor Christopher Philippo has dug deeper than ever before, delving into the archives of Victorian-era newspapers and magazines from throughout the British Isles to find twenty-one rare texts for the Christmas season - seventeen stories and four poems - most of them never before reprinted.

Featured here are gems by once-popular but now-forgotten 19th-century masters of the supernatural like Amelia Edwards, Barry Pain, and Florence Marryat, alongside contributions by totally obscure authors like James Skipp Borlase, a writer of penny dreadfuls who specialized in lurid Christmas horror stories, and Harry Grattan, who made history by writing the first ghost story recorded by Edison for the phonograph. Also included are an introduction and bonus materials, such as 19th-century news articles and advertisements related to Christmas ghosts.

Contents

Introduction by Christopher Philippo
1. Little Willie Bell (1827) by J. G. Lockhart
2. The Mistletoe Bough (1828) by Thomas Haynes Bayly
3. My Brother's Ghost Story (1860) by Amelia B. Edwards
4. Old Hell Shaft (1865) by Anonymous
5. Ejected by a Ghost (1869) by John Pitman
6. The Netherstone Mystery (1878) by Mrs. S. R. Townshend Mayer
7. That Awful Face! (1882) by Florence Marryat
8. Two Christmas Eves (1885) by Howell Davies
9. A Tale of Mystery (1885) by Mabel Collins
10. The Ghosts of the Bards: A Legend of Anglesea (1886) by Phœnix
11. Hel-Ya-Water: A Shetland Legend of Yule Time (1886) by Jessie Saxby
12. The Undying Thing (1893) by Barry Pain
13. The Siren: An Adventure in Manxland (1898) by Magister Monensis
14. The Tryst, An Old Yule Legend (1898) by Baroness de Bertouch
15. The Mummy Hand: A Story of One Christmas Eve (1901) by Adeline Sergeant
16. The Dead Hand: A Tale of a Weird and Awful Christmastide (1903) by James Skipp Borlase
17. The Wicked Lady Howard; or, The Coach Made of Dead Men's Bones (1905) by James Skipp Borlase
18. The Ghost of the Living: A Christmas Story (1905) by Charles H. Mansfield and Walter E. Mansfield
19. A Christmas Ghost Story (1905) by Harry Grattan
20. Woden, the Wild Huntsman (1911) by Arthur Walter Berry
21. Squire Humperdinck and the Devil: A Christmas Story for Children (1913) by F. G. Grundemann