The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton - Edith Wharton is one of my favourite writers. I discovered her some 25 years ago and I remember going on holiday to Italy one year when my girls were in their early teens and being accused of not listening to them as I was so engrossed in my book. They were right....the book was The House of Mirth the ending of which totally poleaxed me. It remains one of my favourite by this author.
Over the years I worked my way through all her titles and have them all on my shelves. The vast majority of them are the old "Green" Virago editions which I love and always will. If I am in a second hand bookshop and spot a Green cover I am off like a homing pigeon to see what it is. I have even been known to buy duplicate copies of those I already own as I cannot bear to see them languish in obscurity (at the moment I have three copies of the early Virago Diary of a Provincial Lady with which I will not part).
I have Wharton's Ghost stories scattered among old and battered editions (none of which will be binned I hasten to reassure you) but this edition hard back recently issued by Virago is simply gorgeous.
The accompanying press release reads as follows:
In these powerful and elegant tales Edith Wharton evokes mood of disquiet and darkness within her own era. In icy New England a married farmer is bewitched by a dead girl; a ghostly bell saves a woman's reputation. Brittany conjures ancient cruelties; Dorset witnesses a retrospective haunting and a New York club cushions an elderly aesthete as he tells of the ghastly eyes haunting his nights"
All these stories are chilling and unsettling. There is nothing ghoulish or outwardly fearsome to alert you but rather a gradual feeling of dread as the reader progresses.
It is difficult to highlight a particular story as they are all, simply, superb. BUT I am going to. Pomegranate Seed - a recently married woman whose husband has been widowed is worried by mysterious letters arriving which clearly haunt and upset her spouse. She sets out to find out the identity of the writer....
All Souls. A woman alone in a house on the night of All Souls. I found this one really really scary.
And, in my opinion, the best one of the lot. "Afterwards". A couple buy an old house in the country. They are told, after enquiring, that there is no resident ghost but are then told that if they think they have seen one they will not know until "afterwards". That is all I am going to say but I think it is a tiny masterpiece and chilled me to the marrow.
This is a wonderful new hardback edition from Virago and my thanks to them for being gracious and generous and sending me a copy. It is beautiful and elegant but Be Warned. If it has a sticky label on the back, be very careful when trying to remove it as it nearly took off a piece of the cover when I tried to do so.
But a wonderful present for Halloween or for Christmas or for any time.....
