Ghosts

Ghosts PDF Author: Edith Wharton
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1681375729
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
An elegantly hair-raising collection of Edith Wharton's ghost stories, selected and with a preface written by the author herself. 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 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 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. Contents All Souls’ The Eyes Afterward The Lady’s Maid’s Bell Kerfol The Triumph of Night Miss Mary Pask Bewitched Mr. Jones Pomegranate Seed A Bottle of Perrier

Ghosts

Ghosts PDF Author: Edith Wharton
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1681375729
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
An elegantly hair-raising collection of Edith Wharton's ghost stories, selected and with a preface written by the author herself. 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 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 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. Contents All Souls’ The Eyes Afterward The Lady’s Maid’s Bell Kerfol The Triumph of Night Miss Mary Pask Bewitched Mr. Jones Pomegranate Seed A Bottle of Perrier

The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton

The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton PDF Author: Edith Wharton
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439188521
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Get Book Here

Book Description
One might not expect a woman of Edith Wharton's literary stature to be a believer of ghost stories, much less be frightened by them, but as she admits in her postscript to this spine-tingling collection, "...till I was twenty-seven or -eight, I could not sleep in the room with a book containing a ghost story." Once her fear was overcome, however, she took to writing tales of the supernatural for publication in the magazines of the day. These eleven finely wrought pieces showcase her mastery of the traditional New England ghost story and her fascination with spirits, hauntings, and other supernatural phenomena. Called "flawlessly eerie" by Ms. magazine, this collection includes "Pomegranate Seed," "The Eyes," "All Souls'," "The Looking Glass," and "The Triumph of Night."

Girlfriends, Ghosts, and Other Stories

Girlfriends, Ghosts, and Other Stories PDF Author: Robert Walser
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1681370174
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
Girlfriends, Ghosts, and Other Stories brings together eighty-one brief texts spanning Robert Walser’s career, from pieces conceived amid his early triumphs to later works written at a psychiatric clinic in Bern. Many were published in the feuilleton sections of newspapers during Walser’s life; others were jotted down on slips of paper and all but forgotten. Together they string together small nutshells of consciousness, idiosyncratic and vulnerable, genuine in their irony, wistful in their humor. The portraits and landscapes here are observed with tenderness and from a place of great anxiety. Some dwell on childish or transient topics—carousels, the latest hairstyles, an ekphrasis of the illustrations in a picture book—others on the grand themes of nature, art, and love. But they remain conversational, almost lighter than air. Every emotion ventured takes on the weight of a sincerity that is imperiled as soon as it comes into contact with the outside world, which retains all of the novelty it had in childhood—and all of the danger. Walser’s speakers are attuned to the silent music of being; students of the ineffable and neighbors to madness, they are now exhilarated, now paralyzed by frequencies inaudible to less sensitive ears.

A Research Guide to Gothic Literature in English

A Research Guide to Gothic Literature in English PDF Author: Sherri L. Brown
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442277483
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 253

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Gothic began as a designation for barbarian tribes, was associated with the cathedrals of the High Middle Ages, was used to describe a marginalized literature in the late eighteenth century, and continues today in a variety of forms (literature, film, graphic novel, video games, and other narrative and artistic forms). Unlike other recent books in the field that focus on certain aspects of the Gothic, this work directs researchers to seminal and significant resources on all of its aspects. Annotations will help researchers determine what materials best suit their needs. A Research Guide to Gothic Literature in English covers Gothic cultural artifacts such as literature, film, graphic novels, and videogames. This authoritative guide equips researchers with valuable recent information about noteworthy resources that they can use to study the Gothic effectively and thoroughly.

Short Story Index

Short Story Index PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Short stories
Languages : en
Pages : 1080

Get Book Here

Book Description


A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton

A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton PDF Author: Carol J. Singley
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195135903
Category : Literature and history
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Get Book Here

Book Description
Various authors focus on life and works of Edith Wharton, on her women in fashion, in history, out of time, addiction and intimacy, travel, and modernity, art, the age of film. The book contains an illustrated chronology and a bibliographical essay.

The Routledge Introduction to the American Ghost Story

The Routledge Introduction to the American Ghost Story PDF Author: Scott Brewster
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040086896
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 152

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book traces the historical development of the American ghost story from its Indigenous, Puritan, and Enlightenment origins to its heyday in the nineteenth century and continued vibrancy in modern literary and visual culture. It explores the main tropes, thematic preoccupations, principal settings, and stylistic innovations of literary ghost stories in the United States, and the ghost story’s rich afterlife in cinema, television, and digital culture. Throughout, the role played by ghost stories in nation-building, and the questions these tales raise about race, class, sexuality, religion, and science, will be examined. The book examines major practitioners in the field, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, Shirley Jackson, Henry James, Stephen King, Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, and Edith Wharton, alongside prominent ghost narratives in cinematic, televisual, and online form, including podcasts, gaming, and ghost-hunting apps. This study also gives a new prominence to neglected or less familiar authors, including BIPOC writers, who have helped to shape the American ghost story tradition.

The Ghost Who Would Not Die

The Ghost Who Would Not Die PDF Author: Linda Alice Dewey
Publisher: Hampton Roads Publishing
ISBN: 1612830331
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Get Book Here

Book Description
In her latest book of supernatural, true-life mystery, Linda Alice Dewey is contacted by a ghost named Jacobs. Jacobs is a runaway slave who was brutally murdered during the Civil War. Using Jacobs's own words, Dewey tells Jacobs's gripping story of being a slave, a fugitive, a vagrant in nineteenth-century America--and his "life" as The Ghost Who Would Not Die. After Jacobs is murdered, his ghost congregates with other ghosts, plays tricks on people, and wanders aimlessly through middle America. Eventually, he begins to help the living by telepathically influencing their thoughts and, ultimately, attaching himself to Dewey and her son. Dewey helps Jacobs to "cross over" and find the peace and freedom that was denied him in life and during the first hundred years after his death. The Ghost Who Would Not Die is a gripping, Civil War–era tale, as well as a well-told, true ghost story that is sure to appeal to readers interested in the supernatural and life after death.

The Triumph of Night and Other Tales

The Triumph of Night and Other Tales PDF Author: Edith Wharton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book Here

Book Description
Throughout her career Wharton wrote ghost stories, and is a central figure within the genre in the twentieth century. When she collected many of her ghost stories together in Ghosts (1937) she put them under the 'special protection' of Walter de la Mare. Like him, she manages to evoke uncannily convincing atmospheres and characters, and in such stories as 'Afterward' the way in which the tale is told is so satisfying that one can only admire her craftsmanship. Wharton's collection Ghosts is described by E.F. Bleiler as a 'landmark volume in supernatural fiction', and to this we have been able to add a number of other tales of the supernatural, many of which will be unknown to her readers.

Apart from Modernism

Apart from Modernism PDF Author: Robin Peel
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press
ISBN: 9780838640791
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Get Book Here

Book Description
"The study emphasizes the crucial role that Wharton's contact with Europe had on her writing, and the significance intellectually and politically of her relationship with Morton Fullerton and her reading of his books on politics. It locates Wharton in her period, surrounded as she was by discourses which called for political and social change, change which an outlook that Peel calls "American Toryism" made her reluctant to embrace. Her love of motorcars and her excitement about other technological developments such as aeroplanes was inspired by a feeling of exclusivity and not the democratization of culture, which she feared and condemned. France, England, Italy, and America formed the quartet of countries that contained the best and worst of culture, and Peel emphasizes how ironical it was that a writer whose ideological beliefs endorsed the importance of home, roots, and tradition should have spent so much of her life as a restless, apparently rootless traveler."--BOOK JACKET.