The Phantom Coach: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Ghost Stories

(Hardback)

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Description

Ghost stories date back centuries, but those written in the Victorian era have a unique atmosphere and dark beauty. Michael Sims, whose previous Victorian collections have been widely praised, has gathered twelve of the best stories about humanitys oldest obsession. The Phantom Coach includes tales by a surprising, often legendary cast, from Charles Dickens and Margaret Oliphant to Henry James, Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as lost gems by forgotten masters such as Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and W. F. Harvey. Amelia Edwardss chilling story gives the collection its title, while Ambrose Bierce, Elizabeth Gaskell and W. W. Jacobs will turn you white as a sheet. With a skilful introduction to the genre and notes on each story, The Phantom Coach is a spectacular collection of ghostly Victorian thrills.

Reviews

Long before vampires were sparkly and romantic, they were actually scary. This collection brings together some of the Victorian era's most chilling bloodsucker fiction * Entertainment Weekly, on Dracula's Guest *
This creepy connoisseur's collection of Victorian vampire stories is PACKED with pointy-toothed bloodsuckers and gruesome ghastliness ... Think Christopher Lee in his coffin, red eyes snapping open, dust off your wooden stake and garlic necklace, and blame the eighteenth-century Eastern Europeans whose peasant superstitions spawned the whole gory vampire genre * Daily Mail, on Dracula's Guest *
A masterful collection of Victorian detective stories... Sims gives a smart preface to each story and then allows the mysteries to unfurl ... This collection is pure chocolate box indulgence * The Times, on The Dead Witness *
This is a collection for the connoisseurs of the classic ghost story nobody does creepy like a Victorian * Kate Saunders, The Times, Saturday Review *

Author Bio

Michael Sims is the author of acclaimed non-fiction books The Adventures of Henry Thoreau, The Story of Charlottes Web, Apollos Fire: A Day on Earth in Nature and Imagination and Adams Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of Human Form. His anthologies include The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime, Draculas Guest: A Connoisseurs Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories and The Dead Witness: A Connoisseurs Collection of Victorian Detective Stories. He lives in western Pennsylvania with his wife and son. www.michaelsimsbooks.com @MichaelSimsBook