Ghost: 100 Stories to Read with the Lights On

Certain writers you’d expect to see in a collection of ghost stories: Edgar Allan Poe and Bram Stoker, of course. But how about Hilary Mantel, Kazuo Ishiguro, Graham Greene, D.H.Lawrence, and Elizabeth Gaskell? Louise Welsh has had the terrifying task of gathering together the best ghost stories of all time – tales of things that go bump in the night, cannibals, poltergeists, haunted houses, the lot. And it turns out that everyone’s been at it. There are ghost stories here from Pliny the Younger right through to the modern master of shorts, Helen Simpson. Sir Walter Scott even makes an appearance. The cast is broad and the book itself a monster, at nearly 800 pages.

The ghost story is infinitely adaptable, if this collection is anything to go by. These are just the most recent forms of a tale told ever since two people sat alone in the dark. Pliny tells us about a haunted house. Burns sings of Tam O’Shanter. Ishiguro steps into his creepiest mode to tell the story of a gourmet cannibal – tired of the trend for human flesh, his hunger compels him to eat a ghost.

The ghost story isn’t always so earnestly chilling: P. G. Wodehouse tips up to have a spot of fun with the genre, as does Oscar Wilde. But whether humorous or unsettling, one thing is clear. Every writer has a skeleton in their closet.