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Gothic horror writer Susan Hill has made a name for herself with a string of traditional supernatural stories centring on early twentieth century England. Hill has focussed her attentions on the novel, which suits her style as her plots often take a while to come to boiling point. It’s worth mentioning that many of her predecessors aiming for a similar effect and style were short story writers instead. One of the classic spook-mongers a hundred years ago was Algernon Blackwood. The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories is still available for download. Some in the collection are better than others but the thing most culturally alien about them is the abrupt way in which each story is concluded. Readers today may feel things have been left hanging in the air and that some vandal has randomly deleted the last few paragraphs at the typesetting stage. But that’s the way they were. They’re still worth the investment of time and reader commitment anyway. Another more well-known writer was Charles Dickens. When we say well known, Dickens isn’t so well known for his short ghost stories. But The Signalman is still being discovered by horror fans today. In this quick and relatively easy read the author plays upon Victorian fears of a train-driven apocalypse to craft a tale where a doomed railway worker has troubling insights into a fatal accident yet to come. When you consider how freely or cheaply available the old stuff is on download, you really have nothing to lose – except maybe a good night’s sleep. Ghoulish tales from old masters
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Susan Hill, Algernon Blackwood, ghost, short stories,
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