Wharton’s Ghost Stories – collected together in this beautifully-produced book from Virago’s Designer Collection – are characterised by the tensions between restraint and passion, respectability and impropriety. Here we have narratives rooted in reality, with the ghostly chills mostly stemming from psychological factors – the fear of the unknown, the power of the imagination and the judicious use of supernatural imagery to unnerve the soul. As one might expect with Wharton, the writing is first class and the characters brilliantly drawn – with sufficient depth and subtlety to appear fully convincing.

The book opens with The Lady’s Maid’s Bell, one of the most unnerving tales in this excellent collection. Narrated by the maid herself, it is a classic ghost story in which the protagonist is haunted by the appearance of a spectre, the identity of which becomes clear as the story unfolds. There are several familiar elements here: a dark gloomy house; a feverish young lady of the manor; servants who refuse to speak of the maid’s predecessor; and a ghostly image that only the protagonist herself is able to detect. However, perhaps the most frightening element of the story is Wharton’s use of sound – the terrifying ring of the maid’s bell after hours, piercing the intense silence of the house as it rests at night.

Silence also plays a key role in All Souls, another highlight and possibly the most terrifying story in the collection. It tells the tale of a widow, Sara Clayborn, who believes she has spent a horrific weekend at her home, Whitegates, a lonely, remote house in the wilds of Connecticut. Having spotted an unknown woman heading towards her house, Sara breaks her ankle and is confined to bed for the night. On waking she discovers that the servants are nowhere to be found. The house appears to be deserted; an eerie silence having replaced the normal bustle of activity during the day. In this story, it is not the unexplained creaks and groans that strikes terror into the heart of the protagonist; rather, it is the ominous lack of any sound at all, especially as the house appears to be completely deserted.

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Most of Edith Wharton's ghost stories have a sense of ambiguity. Is the supernatural at work, or did people misinterpret real events? Wharton writes her works with a Gothic atmosphere--foggy nights, creepy old houses, strange servants, and unreliable narrators. The weight of a guilty conscience leads to supernatural events in some cases. Women are victims of controlling men in a few stories, but women manipulate the men in others. Wharton's writing is elegant, and she exhibits a deep understanding of people's emotions, strengths, and failings. This collection included 11 ghost stories. Great storytelling!

Her ability to immediately draw you in to a story is just so impressive! She is such a gifted writer. I wanted more with every story I read. Some of the endings seemed terribly abrupt, like she had a word limit or deadline.

The truly beautiful thing about a pandemic is when your library is closed and you are forced to read books that have been sitting on your shelf for years. Luckily for me, this was one of those books.

Some tales are stronger than others but a good selection on offer here.

An excellent example of the classic American ghost story from the turn of the twentieth century. I love to teach a couple of these stories when my students are expecting more classic Wharton. Ghost stories are underrated.

(Surprised to discover that I forgot to mark this as read at the time I finished it. Some memory slippage inevitable, it seems!) Exquisitely unsettling, enough to make your blood run cold in a way that M R James' stories don't. I recently listened to an episode of the Backlisted podcast about this very collection and concur wholeheartedly that there is an undercurrent of sex beneath these stories. Marriages are often at the heart of these tales. Afterward is often lauded as her best tale but I found Pomegranate Seed deeply unsettling. Excellent, inspiring stuff as I set out to write a ghost story of my own!

Well written atmospheric ghost stories, not overly scary but Wharton leaves plenty of mystery so the supernatural is always the possible answer.

Edith Wharton trascendió como la primer mujer en recibir un Premio Pulitzer por su novela ya clásica "La edad de la inocencia", en 1921, y aunque en forma general, su nombre no se asocia en forma típica con el horror, lo cierto es que si incursionó un poco en esos temas, de lo que esta colección da buena muestra.

La mayoría de los once relatos presentados en la edición que me tocó leer (la de Editorial Alianza del 2010), están escritos en una forma que recuerda bastante a la literatura gótica del Siglo XVIII en su tratamiento, de modo que, cuando la autora hace ciertas concesiones a la modernidad, ya tan solo por contraste logra un efecto de desorientación en el lector que refuerza el impacto del conjunto de los relatos. Es perceptible además, la influencia de Henry James en el estilo de la autora. En conjunto, logra una buena colección, que no resulta aburrida aunque en ocasiones, uno debe de poner mucho de su parte para que funcionen ciertos relatos. Ya saben, hay ciertas situaciones que a lo mejor eran más faciles de asimilar hace un siglo que en estos días, y a veces, los personajes de ls Wharton ¡pecan de "simplones"!

Como sea, si lo que se esta buscando es un buen libro para acompañar una tarde lóbrega invernal, este sin duda será una buena elección. No esta falto en calidad, y aunque ya no pueda resultar novedoso, hay bastante "carnita" para roer en muchos de los relatos :O

Mis favoritos:
"Kerfol"
"El grano de la granada"
"Después"
"El triunfo de la noche"
Aunque los demás no le ven a la saga.

I always enjoy her writing, but this sort of genre-thing is not what Edith does best. Read House of Mirth instead, and Age of Innocence. Then House of Mirth again.

Cover of the 1976 Popular Library mass-market. You can tell it's post-Exorcist, as it definitely imitates the style, as did a lot of horror or occult-themed paperbacks of the day.

Me gustaron mucho y quiero leer más cuentos de Edith

Reseña en: https://www.instagram.com/p/B4AIJ7kF_cQ/

Read as a part of a postal book club. My first Wharton and not characteristic of her other writing, I gather.
I am not much of a horror fan but I do enjoy suspense and stories that might involve the unexplained. In some cases, the stories themselves were unexplained, unresolved, or so open to interpretation it seems there continues to be uncertainty as to what had happened.
I enjoyed the atmospheric writing and misdirection or plot twists (not so much plot twists as twists in characters’ ideas of what is happening).