Victorian Ghost Stories
- Introduction: The Haunted Text
- I. Doubts and Affirmations: the Purposes of the Victorian Ghost Story
- II. The Psychological Ghost
- III. The Political Ghost and Women's Issues
- IV. Some Final Thoughts on the Victorian Ghost Story
Bibliography
Primary Texts
The following list identifies the original magazines in which the stories appeared, and the modern text used here. Reproducing citations from the Victorian source would be pointless, given that most of the periodicals are rare and inaccessible, and all page numbers refer to a recent imprint.
Braddon, M. E. ‘The Cold Embrace.’ [The Welcome Guest, 29 September 1860]. The Cold Embrace. Edited and with an Introduction by Richard Dalby. Ashcroft, British Columbia: Ash-Tree Press, 2000. 3–10.
Braddon, M. E. ‘Good Lady Ducayne.’ [The Strand Magazine, February 1896]. The Cold Embrace. Edited and with an Introduction by Richard Dalby. Ashcroft, British Columbia: Ash-Tree Press, 2000. 249 –258.
Braddon, M. E. ‘The Island of Old Faces.’ [The Misletoe Bough, 1889]. The Cold Embrace. Edited and with an Introduction by Richard Dalby. Ashcroft, British Columbia: Ash-Tree Press, 2000. 249 –258.
Braddon, M. E. ‘The Shadow in the Corner.’ [All the Year Round, Extra Summer Number 1889]. The Cold Embrace. Edited and with an Introduction by Richard Dalby. Ashcroft, British Columbia: Ash-Tree Press, 2000. 133–148.
Broughton, Rhoda. ‘Poor Pretty Bobby’ [Temple Bar, December 1872]. Rhoda Broughton’s Ghost Stories. With an Introduction by Marilyn Wood. Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1995. 45–61.
Broughton, Rhoda. ‘The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth.’ [Temple Bar, February 1868]. The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories. Selected and Introduced by Michael Cox and R. A. Gilbert. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. 74–82.
Conan Doyle, Arthur. ‘Lot No. 249.’ [Harper’s Magazine, September 1892]. Tales of Unease. London: Wordsworth, 2000. 165–194.
Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. London: Chapman & Hall, 1843; rpt. Complete Ghost Stories. London: Wordsworth, 1997. 56–121.
Dickens, Charles. ‘The Ghost in Master B’s Room.’ [All the Year Round, Christmas 1859]. The Haunted House. Foreword by Peter Ackroyd. London: Hesperus, 2002. 71–81.
Dickens, Charles. ‘The Mortals in the House.’ [All the Year Round, Christmas 1859]. The Haunted House. Foreword by Peter Ackroyd. London: Hesperus, 2002. 3–19.
Dickens, Charles. ‘The Signalman.’ [All the Year Round, Christmas 1866]. Complete Ghost Stories. London: Wordsworth, 1997. 260–271.
Dickens, Charles. ‘To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt.’ [All the Year Round, Christmas No. 1865]. The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories. Selected and Introduced by Michael Cox and R. A. Gilbert. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. 55–64.
Edwards, Amelia B. ‘The Phantom Coach.’ [All the Year Round, Christmas No. 1864]. The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Amelia B. Edwards. London: Leonaur, 2009. 300–315.
Edwards, Amelia B. ‘Sister Johanna’s Story.’ All Saints’ Eve. Selected and introduced by Richard Dalby. London: Wordsworth, 2008. 105–116.
Edwards, Amelia B. ‘The Story of Salome.’ [Tinsley’s Christmas Magazine, 1867]. The Virago Book of Victorian Ghost Stories. Edited by Richard Dalby. London: Virago, 1988. 64–80.
Edwards, Amelia B. ‘Was it an Illusion?’ [Arrowsmith’s Christmas Annual, 1881]. The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories. Selected and Introduced by Michael Cox and R. A. Gilbert. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. 239–255.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. ‘The Old Nurse’s Tale.’ [Household Words, Christmas Number 1852]. The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories. Selected and Introduced by Michael Cox and R. A. Gilbert. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. 1–18.
James, Henry. ‘The Turn of the Screw.’ [Collier’s Weekly, January–April 1898]. The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories. Edited and with an Introduction and Notes by T.J.Lustig. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. 113–236.
Le Fanu, J. S. ‘An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street.’ [Dublin University Magazine, December 1853]. The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories. Selected and Introduced by Michael Cox and R. A. Gilbert. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. 19–36.
Le Fanu, J. S. ‘Green Tea.’ [All the Year Round, October–November 1868]. In a Glass Darkly. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Robert Tracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. 5–40.
Molesworth, Louisa. ‘The Story of the Rippling Train.’ [Longman’s Magazine, October 1887]. The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories. Selected and Introduced by Michael Cox and R. A. Gilbert. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. 319–327.
Oliphant, Margaret. ‘The Library Window.’ [Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, January 1896]. A Beleaguered City. Introduction by Jenni Calder. Edinburgh: Canongate, 2000. 363–402.
Oliphant, Margaret. ‘Old Lady Mary.’ [Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, January 1884]. A Beleaguered City. Introduction by Jenni Calder. Edinburgh: Canongate, 2000. 211–274.
Oliphant, Margaret. ‘The Open Door.’ [Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, January 1882]. A Beleaguered City. Introduction by Jenni Calder. Edinburgh: Canongate, 2000. 171–210.
Riddell, Charlotte. ‘The Open Door.’ [First published in Weird Stories, 1882]. The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories. Selected and Introduced by Michael Cox and R. A. Gilbert. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. 256–282.
Other Contemporary Texts
Brière de Boismont, Alexander. On Hallucinations – A History and Explanation of Apparitions, Visions, Dreams, Ecstasy, Magnetism and Somnambulism. Translated from the French by Robert T. Hulme. London: Renshaw, 1859.
Carlyle, ThomasSigns of the Times. [span class class="periodical">Edinburgh Review, June 1829] Reproduced on The Victorian Web.
Crowe, Catherine. The Night Side of Nature. London: T. C. Newby, 1848.
Hibbert, Samuel, & Ferriar, John. Sketches of the Philosophy of Apparitions; or, an Attempt to Trace such Illusions to their Physical Causes. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1825.
Radcliffe, John Netten. Fiends, Ghosts, and Sprites, Including an Account of the Origin and Nature of Belief in The Supernatural. London: Bentley, 1854.
Sully, James. Illusions: A Psychological Study. 1884; rpt. London: Kegan Paul, 1905.
Secondary Sources
Ackroyd, Peter. The English Ghost: Spectres Through Time. London: Vintage, 2011.
Allen, Nicholas. ‘Sheridan Le Fanu and the Spectral Empire.’ The Ghost Story from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century. Eds. Helen Conrad O’Briain and Julie Anne Stevens. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010. 112–123.
Cadwallader, Jen. Spirits and Spirituality in Victorian Fiction. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Cooke, Simon. ‘Margaret Oliphant’s “The Library Window” and the Idea of “Adolescent Insanity.”’ Victorians Institute Journal 34 (2006): 243–57.
Dickerson, Vanessa. Victorian Ghosts in the Noontide: Women Writers and the Supernatural. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996.
Freud, Sigmund. An Essay on the Uncanny. 1919; rpt. London: Penguin, 2003.
Hay, Simon.A History of the Modern British Ghost Story. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
Imfeld, Zoe Lehmann. The Victorian Ghost Story and Theology. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Irish Gothic: Genres, Forms, Modes, and Traditions, 1760–1890. Edited by Christina Morin and Niall Gillespie. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Killeen, Jarlath. ‘Gendering the Ghost Story? Victorian Women and the Challenge of the Phantom.’ The Ghost Story from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century. Eds. Helen Conrad O’Briain and Julie Anne Stevens. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010. 81–96.
McCorristine, Shane. Spectres of the Self: Thinking about Ghosts and Ghost-Seeing in England, 1750–1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Smith, Andrew. The Ghost Story, 1840–1920. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010.
Sullivan, Jack. Elegant Nightmares: The English Ghost Story from Le Fanu to Blackwood. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1978.
Thurston, Luke. Literary Ghosts from the Victorians to Modernism: The Haunting Interval. New York: Routledge, 2012.
Uglow, Jennifer. ‘Introduction.’ The Virago Book of Ghost Stories. Edited by Richard Dalby. London: Virago, 1988.
Created 2 June 2021