GOTHIC TALES

In this unique collection of chilling stories Pulitzer Prize winning author Edith Wharton (1862– 1937) demonstrates her mastery of the gothic tale. While claiming not to believe in ghosts, paradoxically she did confess that she was frightened of them. Wharton instils this potent fear into her supernatural fiction to great effect.
Her careful technique and evocative style are on full display in such powerful stories as The Eyes in which a man confronts his own personal ghosts; Triumph of the Night in which the protagonist develops an awareness of evil when he inadvertently visits a remote estate; Bewitched, a potent tale of the effects of isolation in remote New England; Miss Mary Pask, a devastating account of a man’s visit with a female ghost; Afterward, a chilling story of greed and retribution; Kerfol, a historical murder mystery set in Brittany in which the ghosts are a pack of dogs; and A Bottle of Perrier in which a man succumbs to compulsive fear on a visit to a friend living in a desert house in Africa. Also included here is the novella Ethan Frome, a classic of American Literature, set against a backdrop of a bleak New England winter with convincing characters trapped in circumstances from which they seem unable to escape.
Compelling and frequently terrifying, this superbly crafted collection of tales readily fulfil Edith Wharton’s criterion for a successful ghost story: “If it sends a cold shiver down one’s spine, it has done its job and done it well.”