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    The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton
    The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton
    The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton
    Ebook236 pages4 hours

    The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton

    By Edith Wharton

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    About this ebook

    This haunting anthology is an enthralling collection of chilling tales infused with Edith Wharton's masterful exploration of human psychology and the hidden recesses of the human heart.

    As a keen observer of human nature, Wharton weaves her ghostly tales with remarkable subtlety and psychological depth. Her ghosts are not mere apparitions but poignant manifestations of guilt, regret, and unrequited desires. Through her elegant prose and sharp wit, Wharton delves into the darkest corners of the human psyche, exploring themes of forbidden passions, societal constraints, and the persistent power of the past. Each setting serves as the backdrop for chilling encounters with the spectral realm.

    The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton is a testament to Wharton's versatility as a writer. The first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, she imbues her tales with atmospheric tension, challenging the reader to question what lies beyond our mortal existence.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateNov 8, 2012
    ISBN9781447480525
    The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton
    Author

    Edith Wharton

    Edith Wharton was born in 1862 to a prominent and wealthy New York family. In 1885 she married Boston socialite 'Teddy' Wharton but the marriage was unhappy and they divorced in 1913. The couple travelled frequently to Europe and settled in France, where Wharton stayed until her death in 1937. Her first major novel was The House of Mirth (1905); many short stories, travel books, memoirs and novels followed, including Ethan Frome (1911) and The Reef (1912). She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature with The Age of Innocence (1920) and she was thrice nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was also decorated for her humanitarian work during the First World War.

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    Reviews for The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton

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    • 3/5
      Some of these stories are truly creepy, and some left me feeling sad. Edith Wharton wrote human conflict so well, and many of these stories are examples of that. There are gothic-feeling stories with haunted houses, lots of slowly-building tension, and suspense for days.
    • 4/5
      I'm not a short story fan, nor am I a horror/ghost story fan. However, I can recommend this book. Because--it's Edith Wharton. While there were a few stories I was puzzled by, or that didn't pull me in, or that were duds, in most of the stories Wharton's prose shone, the characters were well-developed, and the plots were varied and original. My favorites were: "The Dutchess at Prayer" in which an evil husband isolates his wife at an Italian country estate and, knowingly or unknowingly, seals her lover into a tomb; "A Bottle of Perrier," which is set in the middle eastern desert castle built by a medieval crusader, where the water tastes and smells terrible; and "Kesfol" where the ghosts of murdered dogs appear once a year on a Brittany estate.3 1/2 stars
    • 4/5
      A bit uneven, for sure, but there are some excellently creepy stories in here, particularly in the second half of the book. Among those I liked best: "Kerfol," "Mr. Jones," "Pomegranate Seed," and "Miss Mary Pask."
    • 4/5
      It's been way too long since I read any Wharton and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy her writing. The ghost stories in this collection are fairly understated from a spooky perspective which is how I like them - more gothic in style than full-blown horror and a lot of questions left unanswered in the reader's mind at the end of each story.
    • 5/5
      Edith Wharton's ghost stories clearly show the influence that Henry James had on her writing. Like his famous "The Turn of the Screw", the stories in this collection aren't outright scary but they are creepy and disquieting. Often the narrator doesn't even know that he or she has seen a ghost until thinking back on the event later. The same is true of the stories: the first time you read them, they seem straightforward but the more you think about them, the more unsettling they become.Wharton's writing is less prosy and and more plot-driven than James'; I enjoyed these stores more than "The Turn of the Screw", which I could barely get through. That said, a couple of the stories are ambiguous as to what exactly has happened -- "The Lady Maid's Bell" took me a while to figure out, as did "The Eyes"."Kerfol" is my favorite because Wharton gets the atmosphere just right. "Pomegranate Seed" and "All Souls'" are also among the best in the bunch for the same reason. This collection won't keep you up at night shivering in fear, but read it on a dark, winter day when you're all alone and see if you don't get a few goosebumps.
    • 2/5
      Excellent old-fashioned suspense. The only problem was that the end of each story elicited the same reaction: "It can't be over all ready!". Wharton has an excellent power of imagery, and even in a short story, developed some of the most hauntingly romantic characters. Found "The Eyes" reminded me of Poe's Tell Tale Heart.
    • 5/5
      On the other hand, Edith Wharton is a fantastic twentieth century author. Though I find her full length books a bit meandering, she is the master of the short story. (I have similar feelings about Henry James.) All of these ghost stories are interesting, easy to read, and paint a fabulous picture of life in the early twentieth century in New England and abroad. Even if you couldn't quite stomach The Age of Innocence or The House of Mirth, any collection of her stories is worth a second look.
    • 3/5
      Edith Wharton's ghost stories read like they're written by either someone who doesn't believe in ghosts or someone who believes so strongly in them that they're trying to avoid scaring themselves. The afterword includes an excerpt that apparently didn't make it into Wharton's autobiography in which she admits to living in terror of the supernatural after nearly dying as a child, so perhaps Wharton was fearful of wandering too deeply into the unknown. The stories weren't spine-tingling for me, and I doubt they will produce chills for those who read more supernatural or horror stories than I do. Thrill-seeking readers won't find them here. Recommended mainly for Wharton completists.
    • 4/5
      This book is perfect Halloween season reading! I finished it just past midnight in the shadowy small hours that comprise the boundary of All Hallows Eve (Halloween) and All Souls (All Saints) Day. This is quite appropriate, as the last story in the collection, All Souls, is set quite prominently in and around just that particular span of time.I enjoyed this unusual collection of ghost stories. They are different -- and perhaps more like "real-life" ghost encounters -- because they leave so many loose ends. There is no explaining everything (along natural or supernatural lines), there are even surprisingly few "bold and shocking" moments recounted. In many cases, it is the mystery and subtlety which works on the reader's mind.
    • 5/5
      The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton is a collection of 11 stories that are not so much traditional ghost stories as supernatural-themed ones. I didn’t know what to expect going into it, because they’re definitely a departure from the two Edith Wharton books I’ve read, The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence. Despite that, I enjoyed these stories—perfect reading for fall and Halloween!
    • 4/5
      "Afterward" is probably the story I think of most when I recall This collection, as it has been anthologized in several collections. But all these stories are well written, as are all Wharton's works, and make great reading in the Halloween season.
    • 5/5
      This collection of spooky stories contain eleven ghostly tales. The stories are not terribly scary but non the less they are enjoyable and although a couple are rather lame in general they offer a taste of early 20th century paranormal spookiness. A great book to read on October nights!
    • 4/5
      If you like the quiet ghost stories of Henry James but could do without the run-on sentences that you have to scan three times before they become comprehensible, this collection is exactly what you're looking for. Edith Wharton was a writer of great depth and subtlety, but because she strove for clarity, she's also readable. Here you'll find masterpieces of atmosphere ("All Souls'") and of characterization ("The Triumph of Night"), as well as the occasional novelty ("Kerfol"); if you're anything like me, you'll gladly read each of them multiple times. My personal favorites are "Afterward" (generally considered Wharton's best ghost story) and "Pomegranate Seed." Laszlo Kubinyi's illustrations are eerily beautiful accompaniments to the tales. Frankly, I've never understood why people are surprised that Wharton wrote ghost stories. Many authors of the first rank (Ivan Turgenev, D.H. Lawrence, F. Scott Fitzgerald) have engaged in at least a passing flirtation with the macabre, and for some--like James and Wharton--it was an abiding interest. The perception of ghost and horror stories as illegitimate or disreputable originated with small-minded literary critics, and can now be dispensed with.

    Book preview

    The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton - Edith Wharton

    1.png

    THE

    GHOST STORIES OF

    EDITH WHARTON

    By

    EDITH WHARTON

    Copyright © 2023 Fantasy and Horror Classics

    This edition is published by Fantasy and Horror Classics,

    an imprint of Read & Co.

    This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any

    way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.

    British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

    A catalogue record for this book is available

    from the British Library.

    Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd.

    For more information visit

    www.readandcobooks.co.uk

    Contents

    Edith Wharton

    A JOURNEY

    THE DUCHESS AT PRAYER

    THE LADY’S MAID’S BELL

    AFTERWARDS

    THE TRIUMPH OF NIGHT

    BEWITCHED

    A BOTTLE OF PERRIER

    THE LOOKING-GLASS

    Edith Wharton

    Edith Wharton was born in New York City in 1862. Her family were extremely wealthy, and during her youth she was provided private tuition and travelled extensively in Europe. A voracious reader, Wharton studied literature, philosophy, science, and art, and began to write poetry and short fiction. In 1885, aged 23, Edith married a banker, Edward Robbins, and for the next few years they travelled extensively together. Living near Central Park in New York, Wharton’s first poems were published in Scribner’s Magazine. In 1891, the same publication printed the first of her many short stories, titled ‘Mrs. Manstey’s View’. Over the next four decades, they—along with other well-established American publications such as Atlantic Monthly, Century Magazine, Harper’s and Lippincott’s—regularly published her work.

    A lifelong keen architect, in 1902 Wharton designed and built her home, The Mount, in Lenox, Massachusetts. It was while living here that she wrote many of her works, including the 1905 novel The House of Mirth, which was that year’s bestseller, and is now considered a classic of American literary Naturalism. In the period leading up to the First World War, Wharton wrote prolifically, and in 1921 she received the Pulitzer Prize—the first ever woman to do so—for her novel The Age of Innocence. Like much of her work, the novel examines the tension between societal pressures and the pursuit of genuine happiness, and includes careful use of dramatic irony.

    Edith Wharton died of a stroke in 1937, aged 75. In addition to her novels, she is remembered for her short fiction, especially her excellent ghost stories.

    Stories of the supernatural, many of a rare excellence, have been penned by . . . Edith Wharton

    —Montague Summers,

    The Supernatural Omnibus, 1931

    THE

    GHOST STORIES OF

    EDITH WHARTON

    A JOURNEY

    As she lay in her berth, staring at the shadows overhead, the rush of the wheels was in her brain, driving her deeper and deeper into circles of wakeful lucidity. The sleeping-car had sunk into its night-silence. Through the wet window-pane she watched the sudden lights, the long stretches of hurrying blackness. Now and then she turned her head and looked through the opening in the hangings at her husband’s curtains across the aisle . . . 

    She wondered restlessly if he wanted anything and if she could hear him if he called. His voice had grown very weak within the last months and it irritated him when she did not hear. This irritability, this increasing childish petulance seemed to give expression to their imperceptible estrangement. Like two faces looking at one another through a sheet of glass they were close together, almost touching, but they could not hear or feel each other: the conductivity between them was broken. She, at least, had this sense of separation, and she fancied sometimes that she saw it reflected in the look with which he supplemented his failing words. Doubtless the fault was hers. She was too impenetrably healthy to be touched by the irrelevancies of disease. Her self-reproachful tenderness was tinged with the sense of his irrationality: she had a vague feeling that there was a purpose in his helpless tyrannies. The suddenness of the change had found her so unprepared. A year ago their pulses had beat to one robust measure; both had the same prodigal confidence in an exhaustless future. Now their energies no longer kept step: hers still bounded ahead of life, preempting unclaimed regions of hope and activity, while his lagged behind, vainly struggling to overtake her.

    When they married, she had such arrears of living to make up: her days had been as bare as the whitewashed schoolroom where she forced innutritious facts upon reluctant children. His coming had broken in on the slumber of circumstance, widening the present till it became the encloser of remotest chances. But imperceptibly the horizon narrowed. Life had a grudge against her: she was never to be allowed to spread her wings.

    At first the doctors had said that six weeks of mild air would set him right; but when he came back this assurance was explained as having of course included a winter in a dry climate. They gave up their pretty house, storing the wedding presents and new furniture, and went to Colorado. She had hated it there from the first. Nobody knew her or cared about her; there was no one to wonder at the good match she had made, or to envy her the new dresses and the visiting-cards which were still a surprise to her. And he kept growing worse. She felt herself beset with difficulties too evasive to be fought by so direct a temperament. She still loved him, of course; but he was gradually, undefinably ceasing to be himself. The man she had married had been strong, active, gently masterful: the male whose pleasure it is to clear a way through the material obstructions of life; but now it was she who was the protector, he who must be shielded from importunities and given his drops or his beef-juice though the skies were falling. The routine of the sick-room bewildered her; this punctual administering of medicine seemed as idle as some uncomprehended religious mummery.

    There were moments, indeed, when warm gushes of pity swept away her instinctive resentment of his condition, when she still found his old self in his eyes as they groped for each other through the dense medium of his weakness. But these moments had grown rare. Sometimes he frightened her: his sunken expressionless face seemed that of a stranger; his voice was weak and hoarse; his thin-lipped smile a mere muscular contraction. Her hand avoided his damp soft skin, which had lost the familiar roughness of health: she caught herself furtively watching him as she might have watched a strange animal. It frightened her to feel that this was the man she loved; there were hours when to tell him what she suffered seemed the one escape from her fears. But in general she judged herself more leniently, reflecting that she had perhaps been too long alone with him, and that she would feel differently when they were at home again, surrounded by her robust and buoyant family. How she had rejoiced when the doctors at last gave their consent to his going home! She knew, of course, what the decision meant; they both knew. It meant that he was to die; but they dressed the truth in hopeful euphuisms, and at times, in the joy of preparation, she really forgot the purpose of their journey, and slipped into an eager allusion to next year’s plans.

    At last the day of leaving came. She had a dreadful fear that they would never get away; that somehow at the last moment he would fail her; that the doctors held one of their accustomed treacheries in reserve; but nothing happened. They drove to the station, he was installed in a seat with a rug over his knees and a cushion at his back, and she hung out of the window waving unregretful farewells to the acquaintances she had really never liked till then.

    The first twenty-four hours had passed off well. He revived a little and it amused him to look out of the window and to observe the humours of the car. The second day he began to grow weary and to chafe under the dispassionate stare of the freckled child with the lump of chewing-gum. She had to explain to the child’s mother that her husband was too ill to be disturbed: a statement received by that lady with a resentment visibly supported by the maternal sentiment of the whole car . . . 

    That night he slept badly and the next morning his temperature frightened her: she was sure he was growing worse. The day passed slowly, punctuated by the small irritations of travel. Watching his tired face, she traced in its contractions every rattle and jolt of the train, till her own body vibrated with sympathetic fatigue. She felt the others observing him too, and hovered restlessly between him and the line of interrogative eyes. The freckled child hung about him like a fly; offers of candy and picture-books failed to dislodge her: she twisted one leg around the other and watched him imperturbably. The porter, as he passed, lingered with vague proffers of help, probably inspired by philanthropic passengers swelling with the sense that ‘something ought to be done’; and one nervous man in a skull-cap was audibly concerned as to the possible effect on his wife’s health.

    The hours dragged on in a dreary inoccupation. Towards dusk she sat down beside him and he laid his hand on hers. The touch startled her. He seemed to be calling her from far off. She looked at him helplessly and his smile went through her like a physical pang.

    ‘Are you very tired?’ she asked.

    ‘No, not very.’

    ‘We’ll be there soon now.’

    ‘Yes, very soon.’

    ‘This time tomorrow—’

    He nodded and they sat silent. When she had put him to bed and crawled into her own berth she tried to cheer herself with the thought that in less than twenty-four hours they would be in New York. Her people would all be at the station to meet her—she pictured their round unanxious faces pressing through the crowd. She only hoped they would not tell him too loudly that he was looking splendidly and would be all right in no time: the subtler sympathies developed by long contact with suffering were making her aware of a certain coarseness of texture in the family sensibilities.

    Suddenly she thought she heard him call. She parted the curtains and listened. No, it was only a man snoring at the other end of the car. His snores had a greasy sound, as though they passed through tallow. She lay down and tried to sleep . . .  Had she not heard him move? She started up trembling . . .  The silence frightened her more than any sound. He might not be able to make her hear—he might be calling her now . . .  What made her think of such things? It was merely the familiar tendency of an overtired mind to fasten itself on the most intolerable chance within the range of its forebodings . . .  Putting her head out, she listened; but she could not distinguish his breathing from that of the other pairs of lungs about her. She longed to get up and look at him, but she knew the impulse was a mere vent for her restlessness, and the fear of disturbing him restrained her . . .  The regular movement of his curtain reassured her, she knew not why; she remembered that he had wished her a cheerful good-night; and the sheer inability to endure her fears a moment longer made her put them from her with an effort of her whole sound tired body. She turned on her side and slept.

    She sat up stiffly, staring out at the dawn. The train was rushing through a region of bare hillocks huddled against a lifeless sky. It looked like the first day of creation. The air of the car was close, and she pushed up her window to let in the keen wind. Then she looked at her watch: it was seven o’clock, and soon the people about her would be stirring. She slipped into her clothes, smoothed her dishevelled hair and crept to the dressing-room. When she had washed her face and adjusted her dress she felt more hopeful. It was always a struggle for her not to be cheerful in the morning. Her cheeks burned deliciously under the coarse towel and the wet hair about her temples broke into strong upward tendrils. Every inch of her was full of life and elasticity. And in ten hours they would be at home!

    She stepped to her husband’s berth: it was time for him to take his early glass of milk. The window-shade was down, and in the dusk of the curtained enclosure she could just see that he lay sideways, with his face away from her. She leaned over him and drew up the shade. As she did so she touched one of his hands. It felt cold . . . 

    She bent closer, laying her hand on his harm and calling him by name. He did not move. She spoke again more loudly; she grasped his shoulder and gently shook it. He lay motionless. She caught hold of his hand again: it slipped from her limply, like a dead thing. A dead thing? . . . Her breath caught. She must see his face. She leaned forward, and hurriedly, shrinkingly, with a sickening reluctance of the flesh, laid her hands on his shoulders and turned him over. His head fell back; his face looked small and smooth; he gazed at her with steady eyes.

    She remained motionless for a long time, holding him thus; and they looked at each other. Suddenly she shrank back: the longing to scream, to call out, to fly from him, had almost overpowered her. But a strong hand arrested her. Good God! If it were known that he was dead they would be put off the train at the next station–

    In a terrifying flash of remembrance there arose before her a scene she had once witnessed in travelling, when a husband and wife, whose child had died in the train, had been thrust out at some chance station. She saw them standing on the platform with the child’s body between them; she had never forgotten the dazed look with which they followed the receding train. And this was what would happen to her. Within the next hour she might find herself on the platform of some strange station, alone with her husband’s body . . .  Anything but that! It was too horrible—She quivered like a creature at bay.

    As she cowered there, she felt the train moving more slowly. It was coming then—they were approaching a station! She saw again the husband and wife standing on the lonely platform; and with a violent gesture she drew down the shade to hide her husband’s face.

    Feeling dizzy, she sank down on the edge of the berth, keeping away from his outstretched body, and pulling the curtains close, so that he and she were shut into a kind of sepulchral twilight. She tried to think. At all costs she must conceal the fact that he was dead. But how? Her mind refused to act: she could not plan, combine. She could think of no way but to sit there, clutching the curtains, all day long . . . 

    She heard the porter making up her bed; people were beginning to move about the car; the dressing-room door was being opened and shut. She tried to rouse herself. At length with a supreme effort she rose to her feet, stepping into the aisle of the car and drawing the curtains tight behind her. She noticed that they still parted slightly with the motion of the car, and finding a pin in her dress she fastened them together. Now she was safe. She looked round and saw the porter. She fancied he was watching her.

    ‘Ain’t he awake yet?’ he enquired.

    ‘No,’ she faltered.

    ‘I got his milk all ready when he wants it. You know you told me to have it for him by seven.’

    She nodded silently and crept into her seat.

    At half-past eight the train reached Buffalo. By this time the other passengers were dressed and the berths had been folded back for the day. The porter, moving to and fro under his burden of sheets and pillows, glanced at her as he passed. At length he said: ‘Ain’t he going to get up? You know we’re ordered to make up the berths as early as we can.’

    She turned cold with fear. They were just entering the station.

    ‘Oh, not yet,’ she stammered. ‘Not till he’s had his milk. Won’t you get it, please?’

    ‘All right. Soon as we start again.’

    When the train moved on he reappeared with the milk. She took it from him and sat vaguely looking at it: her brain moved slowly from one idea to another, as though there were stepping-stones set far apart across a whirling flood. At length she became aware that the porter still hovered expectantly.

    ‘Will I give it to him?’ he suggested.

    ‘Oh, no,’ she cried, rising. ‘He—he’s asleep yet, I think –’

    She waited till the porter had passed on; then she unpinned the curtains and slipped behind them. In the semi-obscurity her husband’s face stared up at her like a marble mask with agate eyes. The eyes were dreadful. She put out her hand and drew down the lids. Then she remembered the glass of milk in her other hand: what was she to do with it? She thought of raising the window and throwing it out; but to do so she would have to lean across his body and bring her face close to his. She decided to drink the milk.

    She returned to her seat with the empty glass and after a while the porter came back to get it.

    ‘When’ll I fold up his bed? he asked.

    ‘Oh, not now—not yet; he’s ill—he’s very ill. Can’t you let him stay as he is? The doctor wants him to lie down as much as possible.’

    He scratched his head. ‘Well, if he’s really sick–’

    He took the empty glass and walked away, explaining to the passengers that the party behind the curtains was too sick to get up just yet.

    She found herself the centre of sympathetic eyes. A motherly woman with an intimate smile sat down beside her.

    ‘I’m real sorry to hear your husband’s sick. I’ve had a remarkable amount of sickness in my family and maybe I could assist you. Can I take a look at him?’

    ‘Oh, no—no, please! He mustn’t be disturbed.’

    The lady accepted the rebuff indulgently.

    ‘Well, it’s just as you say, of course, but you don’t look to me as if you’d had much experience in sickness and I’d have been glad to assist you. What do you generally do when you husband’s taken this way?’

    ‘I—I let him sleep.’

    ‘Too much sleep ain’t any too healthful either. Don’t you give him any medicine?’

    ‘Ye—yes.’

    ‘Don’t you wake him to take it?’

    ‘Yes.’

    ‘When does he take the next dose?’

    ‘Not for—two hours –’

    The lady looked disappointed. ‘Well, if I was you I’d try giving it oftener. That’s what I do with my folks.’

    After that many faces seemed to press upon her. The passengers were on their way to the dining-car, and she was conscious that as they passed down the aisle they glanced curiously at the closed curtains. One lantern-jawed man with prominent eyes stood still and tried to shoot his projecting glance through the division between the folds. The freckled child, returning from breakfast,

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