Showing results by author "E F. Benson" in All Categories

A grisly spirit turns travelling companion for an unwitting traveller on the top deck of a London bus one bleak winter’s night in this short story.

Hester Ward is blessed with youth, health, beauty, a husband and two adorable children, but she is being tormented by a face in her dreams. It is hoped that a holiday by the coast will relieve her, but the face eventually manifests itself.

‘The Outcast’ tells the story of Mrs Bertha Acres, who is handsome and charming company, but inspires horror and dread in all who meet her, most notably her husband who killed himself after only a month of marriage. She starts afresh in a new village, but she is cursed to always be an outcast.

In the remote town of Firham-By-Sea, two holidaymakers are curious about the derelict Corner House and its mysterious owners. Upon investigation, they unveil the grim story of Mr and Mrs Labson.

‘The Bath-Chair’ tells the story of the Faraday siblings. Edmund is a shrewd businessman, priding himself on his impeccable health. His spinster sister, Alice, lives with him performing all domestic duties and despises him. When Edmund starts seeing a lame figure who looks startlingly like himself and his own health starts mysteriously declining, Alice revels in plotting his downfall.

Thomas Oulton has worked for a London banking house for 30 years and is widely respected by his colleagues, so when he seemingly disappears with a client’s money, everyone is shocked, none more so than his manager, Louis Carrington. When a friend comes to spend the weekend with Louis and his family at their Surrey home, a series of strange phenomena leads the narrator to discover what’s happened to Oulton.

Concerned for their recently widowed friend Harry, Vincent and Tom join him in Egypt for a boat trip along the Nile. Whilst the widower seems determined to forget his late wife, he recreates their honeymoon voyage, and their evening games of cards soon attract an unsettling presence.

A positive spin on the supernatural, ‘Pirates’ sees ageing industrialist Peter Graham return to his former family home in Cornwall after more than 40 years. The ghosts of the house represent happy memories of his childhood.

It’s Christmas in the Chandler household, and as the party gather around the fire, their host Everard recalls a ghostly tale from the previous Christmas in the misty forests of Scotland.

'A Winter Morning' is a dark story of longing and regret. It sees a widower, mourning both his wife and son, recall his son’s final moments and contemplate life and death.

"Queen Lucia" (1920) is the first volume of E. F. Benson’s "Mapp and Lucia" 6-novel series. It is a comedy of manners, set in provincial Riseholme (Lincolnshire). Emmeline Lucas rules local society with the help of her friend Georgie Pillson, a position she fiercely protects from her rival Daisy Quantock. But this very situation is at risk, as a scandal breaks out and a famous Prima Donna arrives in the sleepy old hamlet.

An arch-schemer, gossip, and insatiably curious social climber, Miss Elizabeth Mapp is a 40-something spinster living in the picturesque English seaside town of Tilling. Miss Mapp and her nemesis, Godiva Plaistow vie for sartorial and social status much to the amusement of the gentlemen of Tilling - particularly Major Flint and his friend Captain Puffin.

"Just room for one inside, sir," isn't quite as bone-chilling as hearing "room for one more, honey" in one of the Twilight Zone's most popular episodes, "Twenty Two." The Rod Serling masterpiece was inspired by E.F. Benson's "The Bus-Conductor". A ghost bears the chilling news instead of a recurring dream in Benson's chiller.

The unnamed narrator had planned the perfect getaway, at a charming Italian villa. But the moment he crosses its threshold, he senses something is amiss. When a bout of insomnia robs him of sleep one night, and he goes exploring, he stumbles across a heart-stopping sight: a room swarming with massive, mottled, luminescent caterpillars.

E. F. Benson fue novelista, biógrafo y escritor de cuentos de terror.

E. F. Benson fue novelista, biógrafo y escritor de cuentos de terror. Estudió en Temple Grove, East Sheen, Surrey, luego en Marlborough, y terminó sus estudios en el Kings College de Cambridge, donde se aficionó grandemente a la arqueología.

More classic ghost stories from the golden age of spookiness. Eight stories by eight great writers, curated for your hair-raising pleasure. Edith Wharton, Ambrose Bierce, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Company weave marvelous spells that whisk you into times and places you never thought you'd experience. Frightful and delightful.

"Dracula's Guest" is one of the stories published only after Stoker's death, and even though Dracula is in the title, he will not make it into the story. Interestingly enough, Jonathan Harker, the actual guest - also does not appear. This short story is actually an original introduction to Dracula. It is a slightly altered version of a chapter of the novel that was discarded during preparations for print. The final story is "The Room in the Tower", by Edward Frederic Benson. Strange, unsettling atmosphere is present right from the beginning, and it intensifies via recurrent nightmares - right up to the shocking climax of the final scene.

Thirty little gems by some of the world's great classic short story writers, including: 'The Flying Man' by H. G. Wells, 'Between Rounds' by O. Henry, 'A School Story' by M. R. James, 'A Pair of Silk Stockings' by Kate Chopin, 'A Deal in Ostriches' by H. G. Wells, 'The Piano Next Door' by Elia W. Peattie, 'Royal Visitors' by E. F. Benson, 'The Stolen Bacillus' by H. G. Wells, 'The Story of Chugoro' by Lafcadio Hearn, 'One Law for the Rich' by Stacy Aumonier, 'My Enemy and Myself' by Vincent O'Sullivan and more.

A gripping collection of classic stories in which the central figures are highly dangerous female characters - ranging from the creepy and unsettling to the utterly terrifying.