✨ Featured Offer
Brand New
$14.87
List Price: $16.95
🚚
See all 6 offers from $10.56 FREE standard delivery by: 26 Mar 2026
Overview
An elegantly hair-raising collection of Edith Wharton's ghost stories, selected and with a preface written by the author herself.
No history of the American uncanny tale would be complete without mention of Edith Wharton, yet many of Wharton's most dedicated admirers are unaware that she was a master of the form. In fact, one of Wharton's final literary acts was assembling Ghosts, a personal selection of her most chilling stories, written between 1902 and 1937.
In "The Lady's Maid's Bell," the earliest tale included here, a servant's dedication to her mistress continues from beyond the grave, and in "All Souls," the last story Wharton wrote, an elderly woman treads the permeable line between life and the hereafter.
In all her writing, Wharton's great gift was to mercilessly illuminate the motives of men and women, and her ghost stories never stray far from the preoccupations of the living, using the supernatural to investigate such worldly matters as violence within marriage, the horrors of aging, the rot at the root of new fortunes, the darkness that stares back from the abyss of one's own soul.
These are stories to "send a cold shiver down one's spine," not to terrify, and as Wharton explains in her preface, her goal in writing them was to counter "the hard grind of modern speeding-up" by preserving that ineffable space of "silence and continuity," which is not merely the prerogative of humanity but--"in the fun of the shudder"--its delight.
Contents
All Souls'
The Eyes
Afterward
The Lady's Maid's Bell
Kerfol
The Triumph of Night
Miss Mary Pask
Bewitched
Mr. Jones
Pomegranate Seed
A Bottle of Perrier
No history of the American uncanny tale would be complete without mention of Edith Wharton, yet many of Wharton's most dedicated admirers are unaware that she was a master of the form. In fact, one of Wharton's final literary acts was assembling Ghosts, a personal selection of her most chilling stories, written between 1902 and 1937.
In "The Lady's Maid's Bell," the earliest tale included here, a servant's dedication to her mistress continues from beyond the grave, and in "All Souls," the last story Wharton wrote, an elderly woman treads the permeable line between life and the hereafter.
In all her writing, Wharton's great gift was to mercilessly illuminate the motives of men and women, and her ghost stories never stray far from the preoccupations of the living, using the supernatural to investigate such worldly matters as violence within marriage, the horrors of aging, the rot at the root of new fortunes, the darkness that stares back from the abyss of one's own soul.
These are stories to "send a cold shiver down one's spine," not to terrify, and as Wharton explains in her preface, her goal in writing them was to counter "the hard grind of modern speeding-up" by preserving that ineffable space of "silence and continuity," which is not merely the prerogative of humanity but--"in the fun of the shudder"--its delight.
Contents
All Souls'
The Eyes
Afterward
The Lady's Maid's Bell
Kerfol
The Triumph of Night
Miss Mary Pask
Bewitched
Mr. Jones
Pomegranate Seed
A Bottle of Perrier
| ISBN-13 | 9781681375724 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 1681375729 |
| Weight | 0.65 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 5.02 x 0.58 x 8.00 In |
| List Price | $16.95 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Pages | 288 pages |
| Publisher | NYRB Classics |
| Published On | 2021-10-26 |
View All Offers
Sort by:
Price
Condition
Seller
Seller Comments
Price
Used, Good
Seller details
Goodwill Books
Hillsboro, OR, USA
Signs of wear and consistent use.
Free delivery by: 28 Mar 2026
Used, Like New
Seller details
Goodwill of Colorado
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO, USA
Item may have minor cosmetic defects marks wears cuts bends crushes on the cover spine pages or du...
Free delivery by: 28 Mar 2026
Used, Very Good
Seller details
HPB-Ruby
Dallas, TX, USA
Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and ...
Free delivery by: 28 Mar 2026
Used, Very Good
Seller details
HPB-Emerald
Dallas, TX, USA
Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and ...
Free delivery by: 28 Mar 2026
✨ Brand New
Seller details
Bookstores.com
Free delivery by: 26 Mar 2026
Brand New
Seller details
Alibris
Sparks, NV, USA
Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 288 p.
Free delivery by: 28 Mar 2026