The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

5. ENTERTAINING SPOOKS: Supernatural High Jinks

THE INEXPERIENCED GHOST

H G. Wells

FULL FATHOM FIVE

Alexander Woollcott

THE NIGHT THE GHOST GOT IN

James Thurber

SIR TRISTRAM GOES WEST

Eric Keown

WHO OR WHAT WAS IT?

Kingsley Amis

ANOTHER FINE MESS

Ray Bradbury

6. CHRISTMAS SPIRITS: Festive Season Chillers

ONLY A DREAM . . .

Rider Haggard

THE HAUNTED HOUSE

Edith Nesbit

THE LIGHT IN THE GARDEN

E. F. Benson

THE PRESCRIPTION

Marjorie Bowen

CHRISTMAS HONEYMOON

Howard Spring

SOUTH SEA BUBBLE

Hammond Innes

RINGING IN THE GOOD NEWS

Peter Ackroyd

7. HAUNTING TIMES: Tales of Unease

SMOKE GHOST

Fritz Leiber

THE GHOST

A. E. Van Vogt

THE PARTY

William F. Nolan

UNDERGROUND

J. B. Priestley

HAUNTED

Joyce Carol Oates

VIDEO NASTY

Philip Pullman

MY BEAUTIFUL HOUSE

Louis de Bernières

APPENDIX: A Century of Ghost Novels 1900–2000

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgment is made to the following authors, agents and publishers for permission to reprint the stories in this collection.

“Ringing in the Good News” by Peter Ackroyd © 1985. Originally published in The Times, 24 December 1985. Reprinted by permission of Sheil Land Associates Ltd.

“Who or What was It?” by Kingsley Amis © 1972. Originally published in Playboy magazine, November 1972. Reprinted by permission of PFD.

“A Gremlin in the Beer” by Derek Barnes © 1942. Originally published in The Spectator, June 1942 and reprinted by permission of the magazine.

“The Light in the Garden” by E. F. Benson © 1921. Originally published in Eve, December 1921. Reprinted by permission of the Executors of K. S. P. MacDowall.

“Vengeance is Mine” by Algernon Blackwood © 1921. Originally published in Wolves of God, 1921. Reprinted by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd.

“Pink May” by Elizabeth Bowen © 1945. Originally published in The Demon Lover, 1945. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd.

“The Prescription” by Marjorie Bowen © 1928. Originally published in the London Magazine, December 1928. Reprinted by permission of the Penguin Group.

“Another Fine Mess” by Ray Bradbury © 1995. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1995. Reprinted by permission of Abner Stein.

“My Beautiful House” by Louis de Bernières © 2004. Originally published in The Times, 18 December 2004. Reprinted by permission of Lavinia Trevor Agency.

“The Pool” by Daphne du Maurier © 1959. Originally published in Breaking Point, 1959. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd.

“The Punishment” by Lord Dunsany © 1918. Originally published in Tales of War, 1918. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd.

“A Spot of Gothic” by Jane Gardam © 1980. Originally published in The Sidmouth Letters, 1980. Reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates.

“The Everlasting Club” by Arthur Gray © 1919. Originally published in Tedious Brief Tales of Granta and Gramarye, 1919. Reprinted by permission of W. Heffer & Sons.

“Money for Jam” by Alec Guinness © 1945. Originally published in Penguin New Writing, 1945 and reprinted by permission of Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson.

“South Sea Bubble” by Hammond Innes © 1973. Originally published in Punch magazine, December 1973. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Ralph Hammond Innes.

“Sir Tristram Goes West” by Eric Keown © 1935. Originally published in Punch magazine, May 1935. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Eric Keown.

“Smoke Ghost” by Fritz Leiber © 1941. Originally published in Unknown Worlds, October 1941. Reprinted by permission of Arkham House.

“The Duenna” by Marie Belloc Lowndes © 1926. Originally published in The Ghost Book, 1926. Reprinted by permission of the Executors of M. B. Lowndes.

“The Bowmen” by Arthur Machen © 1914. Originally published in London Evening News, 29 September, 1914. Reprinted by permission of A. M. Heath Ltd.

“A Man From Glasgow” by Somerset Maugham © 1944. Originally published in Creatures of Circumstance, 1944. Reprinted by permission of William Heinemann.

“The Ghost of U65” by George Minto © 1962. Originally published in Blackwood’s Magazine, July 1962. Reprinted by permission of William Blackwood & Sons.

“Number Seventy-Nine” by A. N. L. Munby © 1949. Originally published in The Alabaster Hand, 1949. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of A. N. L. Munby.