Mystical Stories. Stories Told After Dinner

This collection includes mystical tales by British and American writers of the 19th–20th centuries. The literature of the Old and New Worlds has always shown an interest in the frightening and supernatural. The first place in the rich repertoire of such themes and plots is undoubtedly occupied by ghost stories, which became the main characters of this proposed book. Faint shadows in ancient chambers, haunting the new owners; invisible entities piercing through all elements of the visible world; restless souls of victims and murderers; spirits saving mortals and destroying overconfident braggarts; ghosts experiencing difficult times in an era of philosophical skepticism, the flourishing of science, and the triumph of technology; finally, ordinary people engaging in a clever "game of ghosts" with their neighbors—all this and much more the reader will find on the pages of this volume.

Among the authors of the book are world-renowned masters of words (N. Hawthorne, C. Dickens, H. James, J. K. Jerome, H. Wells, D. H. Lawrence), the luminaries of the gothic tale genre (A. Edwards, J. S. Le Fanu, M. R. James), and thoroughly forgotten writers (C. L. Young, R. Mulholland, R. Marsh).