Nightshade: 20th Century Ghost Stories - Paperback

by Robert Phillips (Editor)

The ghost story redefined in twenty-seven chilling tales from notable crafters of twentieth-century literature

The phantasms, shades, and specters in this volume of ghost stories by contemporary writers like Alison Lurie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Joyce Carol Oates, and William Trevor as well as such modern literary giants as Henry James, Isak Dinesen, Franz Kafka, and Rudyard Kipling write letters, carry lanterns, ride bicycles, patrol halls, run motorboats, rake leaves, and deliver mail. They also inhabit dolls and sticks of furniture. Some of them merely haunt houses, while others invade the darkest corners of the soul.

Throughout this expertly edited collection, a companion to Robert Phillips's equally successful anthology, the very popular Omnibus of 20th Century Ghost Stories, writers as distinctive of their decade as Edith Wharton and Muriel Spark or the incomparable Max Beerbohm and the up-and-coming Max Eberts explore the literary possibilities of the classic ghost story to deliver taut suspense, psychological terror, and eerie mystery. The irresistible mix of chills and artistry, of terror and genius, make every tale in this volume worth the visit.

Author Biography

Robert Phillips is the author and editor of more than twenty-five books, including The Triumph of the Night, which was reissued in paperback as The Omnibus of 20th Century Ghost Stories. He is Moores University Scholar at the University of Houston and has written for the New York Times, the New Yorker, and The Paris Review. He lives in Texas.