Edith Nesbit, best known as the author of The Railway Children, The Phoenix and the Carpet, The Treasure Seekers and many other children’s classics, was also the mistress of the ghost story and tales of terror. She was able to create genuinely chilling narratives in which the returning dead featured strongly. Her flesh-creeping yarns included love that transcended the grave, reanimated corpses, vampiric vines, vengeful ghosts and a whole host of other dark delights. However, Nesbit’s vintage spooky stories, tinged with horror, are all told in a bold, forthright manner that makes them seem fresh and unsettling even when read now. There was even something striking and otherworldly about Nesbit’s appearance, for she was described by those who saw her as having ‘a long full throat and dark luxuriant hair’. For some unfathomable reason, although Nesbit is still a well-known author today, her contribution to the ghost story genre is virtually unknown and unremarked upon, for the most part neglected by publishers and out of print for years. While there is no clear explanation for this, given the unquestionable quality of her supernatural fiction, one possibility is that Nesbit has simply been pigeon-holed conveniently as a children’s author. As a consequence, her writings in other areas have perhaps by default been disregarded – a fate that, in my opinion at least, is undeserved.
Top Posts & Pages
Liddell’s Ghost
Click image to read my short story, 'Liddell’s Ghost' in Cygnus, the Journal of Speculative Fiction.
Changed
Click image to read my short story 'Changed' in The Cynic Online Magazine.
First Date
Click image to read my short story 'First Date' in Aphelion, the Webzine of sci-fi and fantasy.
Ghost Walk
Click image to read my short story 'Ghost Walk' in Aphelion, the Webzine of sci-fi and fantasy.
M R James
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Ghosts of Christmas Past
‘There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas,’ wrote Jerome K. Jerome in the introduction to his darkly comic collection Told After Supper (1891), ‘something about the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, like the dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails’. Dickens would no doubt agree, […]
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M R James’s Suffolk
The macabre beneath the landscape is not dispelled by nearness to the sea. What Henry James knew, and described in English Hours (1905) – the strangeness present on a flattened seashore – M R James (no blood relation, although the two were acquainted) expressed in two of his best-known ghost stories: Oh, Whistle, and I’ll […]
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A Warning to the Curious
Here’s a real festive treat. In 2000 the BBC produced a series called Ghost Stories for Christmas, with Christopher Lee in which Lee played M R James reading four of his own stories. Lee, who actually once met James, obviously enjoyed making this series and A Warning to the Curious is a real highlight – enjoy!
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Lost Hearts
I have been haunted by the writings of M R James since childhood but when asked what is my favourite of all his ghostly tales I’ve never fully been able to answer. Lost Hearts, an early tale which apparently James didn’t much care for, and which only appeared in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary to […]
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A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Tractate Middoth
Here’s a real treat to conclude the series of Christmas ghost stories that I’ve been posting for the last few weeks – the BBC adaptation of The Tractate Middoth from just a couple of years ago. Fingers crossed they do another one this year!
