



Produced by David Edwards, Chuck Greif and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
book was produced from scanned images of public domain
material from the Google Books project.) Twenty-Five Ghost Stories. COMPILED AND EDITED

                                  BY

                            W. BOB HOLLAND. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
              Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
                              --_Hamlet._

                          COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY
                   J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY. NEW YORK:

                   J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
                            57 ROSE STREET. CONTENTS. PAGE

Preface                                                                5

The Black Cat                                                          7

The Flayed Hand                                                       28

The Vengeance of a Tree                                               37

The Parlor-Car Ghost                                                  44

Ghost of Buckstown Inn                                                51

The Burglar’s Ghost                                                   59

A Phantom Toe                                                         76

Mrs. Davenport’s Ghost                                                81

The Phantom Woman                                                     90

The Phantom Hag                                                      100

From the Tomb                                                        105

Sandy’s Ghost                                                        114

The Ghosts of Red Creek                                              123

The Spectre Bride                                                    128

How He Caught the Ghost                                              134

Grand-Dame’s Ghost Story                                             144

A Fight with a Ghost                                                 153

Colonel Halifax’s Ghost Story                                        168

The Ghost of the Count                                               190

The Old Mansion                                                      202

A Misfit Ghost                                                       210

An Unbidden Guest                                                    215

The Dead Woman’s Photograph                                          220

The Ghost of a Live Man                                              228

The Ghost of Washington                                              236




PREFACE


This collection of ghost stories owes its publication to an interest
that I have long felt in the supernatural and in works of the
imagination. As a child I was deeply concerned in tales of spooks,
haunted houses, wraiths and specters and stories of weird experiences,
clanking chains, ghostly sights and gruesome sounds always held me
spellbound and breathless. Experiences in editorial offices taught me that I was not alone in
liking stories of mystery. The desire to know something of that
existence that is veiled by Death is equally potent in old age and in
youth, and men, women and children like to be thrilled and to have a
“creepy” feeling along the spinal column as the result of reading of a
visitor from beyond the grave. This volume contains the most famous of the weird stories of Edgar Allan
Poe, that master of this form of literature. “The Black Cat” contains
all the needed element of mystery and supernatural, and yet the feline
acts in a natural manner all of the time, and the story is quite
possibly true. It is only in the manner of its telling that the tale
becomes one that fittingly finds its place in this collection. Guy de Maupassant, the clever Frenchman, is also represented by two
effective bits of work, and other less widely known writers have also
contributed stories that are worth reading, and when once read will be
remembered. There is not a story among the twenty-five that is not
worthy of close reading. There has recently been a revival in interest in ghost stories. Many of
the high-class magazines have within a few months printed stories with
supernatural incidents, and writers whose names are known to all who
read have turned their attention to this form of literature. Whether or not the reader believe in ghosts, he cannot fail to be
interested in this little book. Without venturing to express a positive
opinion either way, I will only say with Hamlet: “There are more things
in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

W. BOB HOLLAND. Twenty-Five Ghost Stories




THE BLACK CAT. BY EDGAR ALLAN POE. For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I
neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it,
in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I
not--and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I
would unburden my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the
world, plainly, succinctly and without comment a series of mere
household events. In their consequences, these events have
terrified--have tortured--have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to
expound them. To me they have presented little but horror, to many they
will seem less terrible than baroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some
intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the
commonplace--some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less
excitable than my own, which will perceive in the circumstances I detail
with awe nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes
and effects. From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my
disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make
me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was
indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent
most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing
them. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and in my
manhood I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To
those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog,
I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the
intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the
unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to
the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry
friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man. I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not
uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets she
lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We
had birds, goldfish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey and a cat. This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black,
and sagacious to an astonishing degree.