Valancourt Books
  • Home
  • About
    • Our History
    • Who We Are
    • Where to Buy
    • Contact
  • Catalogue
    • Gothic & Romantic
    • Victorian & Edwardian
    • Horror & Science Fiction
    • LGBT Literature
    • Literary Fiction
    • International Series
    • Vintage Thrills and Chills
    • audiobooks
  • Authors
  • Booksellers
  • Blog
Picture
The Valancourt Book of
​Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories

Volume Five


Edited by Christopher Philippo

Book Description

It's the most wonderful time of the year - time for more rare ghostly tales of Yuletide terror from Victorian England!

For this fifth Valancourt volume of Christmas ghost stories, editor Christopher Philippo has dug deeper than ever before, delving into the archives of Victorian-era newspapers and magazines from throughout the British Isles to find twenty-one rare texts for the Christmas season - seventeen stories and four poems - most of them never before reprinted.

Featured here are gems by once-popular but now-forgotten 19th-century masters of the supernatural like Amelia Edwards, Barry Pain, and Florence Marryat, alongside contributions by totally obscure authors like James Skipp Borlase, a writer of penny dreadfuls who specialized in lurid Christmas horror stories, and Harry Grattan, who made history by writing the first ghost story recorded by Edison for the phonograph. Also included are an introduction and bonus materials, such as 19th-century news articles and advertisements related to Christmas ghosts.

"I endeavoured to call out; I could not utter a sound. As I gasped and panted, there stole into my nostrils a deadly, terrible, overpowering stench . . . It was the dread odour of decomposing mortality . . . I felt that I must break the spell, or die." - John Pitman, "Ejected by a Ghost"

"It was a coach made of dead men's bones . . . Behind the awful vehicle stood two fleshless skeletons in place of footmen, the driver was a horned and tailed fiend, and the six coal--black steeds that he drove had eyes of fire, and snorted flame from their nostrils as they tore madly along." - James Skipp Borlase, "The Wicked Lady Howard"


Contents:

Introduction by Christopher Philippo
John Gibson Lockhart, "Little Willie Bell" (1827)
Thomas Haynes Bayly, "The Mistletoe Bough" (c. 1830)
Amelia Edwards, "My Brother's Ghost Story" (1860)
Anonymous, "Old Hell Shaft" (1865)
John Pitman, "Ejected by a Ghost" (1869)
Mrs. S. R. Townshend Mayer, "The Netherstone Mystery" (1878)
Florence Marryat, "That Awful Face!" (1882)
Howell Davies, "Two Christmas Eves" (1885)
Mabel Collins, "A Tale of Mystery" (1885)
"Phœnix", "The Ghosts of the Bards" (1886)
Jessie Saxby, "Hel-Ya-Water: A Shetland Legend of Yule Time" (1886)
Barry Pain, "The Undying Thing" (1893)
Magister Monensis, "The Siren" (1898)
Baroness de Bertouch, "The Tryst, An Old Yule Legend" (1898)
Adeline Sergeant, "The Mummy Hand" (1901)
Skipp Borlase, "The Dead Hand" (1903)
James Skipp Borlase, "The Wicked Lady Howard" (1905)
Huan Mee, "Ghost of the Living" (1905)
Harry Grattan, "A Christmas Ghost Story" (1905)
Arthur Walter Berry, "Woden, the Wild Huntsman" (1911)
F. G. Grundemann, "Squire Humperdinck and the Devil" (1913)


BOOK DETAILS
ISBN: 
1954321546
ISBN-13: 978-1954321540

$34.99 US, 258 pp.
​Hardcover
Published 2021


BOOK DETAILS
ISBN:
 1954321538
ISBN-13: 978-1954321533

$17.99 US, 258 pp.
​Trade paper
Published 2021

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Purchase Hardcover, Paperback

ALSO AVAILABLE THROUGH ONLINE RETAILERS

BUY HARDBACK
$34.99

Amazon US
Amazon UK
Barnes and Noble
Book Depository*
​*Free shipping worldwide

BUY PAPERBACK
$17.99
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Barnes and Noble
Book Depository*
​*Free shipping worldwide

BUY EBOOK
$7.99
Kindle US
Kindle UK
Nook
Kobo
​iTunes

"We owe a debt of gratitude to the publisher Valancourt, whose aim is to resurrect some neglected works of literature, especially those incorporating a supernatural strand, and make them available to a new readership." 
- Times Literary Supplement

ABOUT US

Our History
What We Publish
Who We Are
Contact

OUR CATALOGUE

Literary Fiction
Horror & Science Fiction
Vintage Thrills and Chills
LGBT Interest
Gothic & Romantic
Victorian & Edwardian

​MORE INFO

Booksellers
Valancourt Books | PO Box 17642, Richmond, VA 23226 | 804.873.8528 | email
Copyright © 2022 by Valancourt Books, LLC. All rights reserved. Valancourt Books® is a registered trademark of Valancourt Books, LLC.
Banner art by M.S. Corley