‘His body was pressed against the wall at the head of the bed, and the face was a mask of agonised horror and fruitless entreaty. But the eyes were already glazed in death, and before Francis could reach the bed the body had toppled over and lay inert and lifeless. Even as he looked, he heard a limping step go down the passage outside.’

E. F. Benson was a master of the ghost story and now all his rich, imaginative, spine-tingling and beautifully written tales are presented together in this bumper collection. The range and variety of these spooky narratives is far broader and more adventurous than those of any other writer of supernatural fiction. Within the covers of this volume you will encounter revengeful spectres, vampires, homicidal spirits, monstrous spectral worms and slugs and other entities of nameless dread. This is a classic collection that cannot fail to charm and chill.

Stories include:

• The Room in the Tower
• The Dust-Cloud
• Gavon’s Eve
• The Confession of Charles Linkworth
• At Abdul Ali’s Grave
• The Shootings Of Achnaleish
• How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery
• Caterpillars
• The Cat
• The Bus-Conductor
• The Man Who Went Too Far
• Between the Lights
• Outside the Door
• The Terror by Night
• The Other Bed
• The Thing in the Hall
• The House with the Brick-Kiln
• ‘And the Dead Spake – ’
• The Outcast
• The Horror-Horn
• Machaon
• Negotium Perambulans
• At the Farmhouse
• Inscrutable Decrees
• The Gardener
• Mr Tilly’s Séance
• Mrs Amworth
• In The Tube
• Roderick’s Story
• Reconciliation
• The Face
• Spinach
• Bagnell Terrace
• A Tale of an Empty House
• Naboth’s Vineyard
• Expiation
• Home, Sweet Home
• ‘And No Bird Sings’
• The Corner House
• Corstophine
• The Temple
• The Step
• The Bed by the Window
• James Lamp
• The Dance
• The Hanging of Alfred Wadham
• Pirates
• The Wishing-Well
• The Bath-Chair
• Monkeys
• Christopher Comes Back
• The Sanctuary
• Thursday Evenings
• The Psychical Mallards