I've had this anthology on my bookshelf since I was a teen, and it has some pretty big names in literature (Isaac Asimov, Willa Cather, Henry James, H. P. Lovecraft, and many more).

Nearly thirty years later, I felt like re-reading it for the Halloween season.

It was a good distraction from the horrors of American politics, but the stories were a mixed bag, and I'll probably pass it along now.

Note that this whole book can be borrowed from the Internet Archive. I'll also include a few links to stories I especially liked that are in the public domain.

Since I haven't read any ghost stories or horror stories for a while, I steeled myself to be scared, but actually found it much harder as a 40-year-old to suspend my disbelief than when I was 13. I also felt more familiar with the genre tropes, so some things that would have amazed me or frightened me as a teenager felt tired to me now.

The stories are organized by U.S. region, starting with New England. I won't review every story, but I did have some favorites. In this section, "Victoria" by Ogden Nash stood out for its brevity and creepiness--a young lady at a girls' school dares to go read a witch's headstone. "The Romance of Certain Old Clothes" by Henry James is a bit of a flowery old story about love, sibling rivalry, and supernatural justice.

In The East, "The Girl with the Beckoning Eyes" by Bernhardt J. Hurwood had some uncomfortable truth in it--how a young person's obsession with a love interest, in this story's case an undead one, can go wrong. I read of a real case in the news recently of an AI bot associated with a young man's suicide, which had eerie parallels to this fictional story. "Artemisia's Mirror" by Bertha Runkle was another in a more Victorian style infused with romance, mystery, and family history--it remains one of my favorites in the collection.

The section on The South didn't yield any particular favorites for me, but I will say southern writers definitely have an edge on the creepiness factor. I don't know what all it is--maybe echoes of war, or the thought of driving around some of the emptier parts of the southern countryside.

Some of the stories under The West category, on the other hand, were in my opinion some of the best overall (although my opinion is biased, living in Washington state). "The Rider on the Pale Horse" (published elsewhere as "Mr. Death and the Redheaded Woman") by Helen Eustis had dialect done well (not easy to do) and a comical, yet moving story about a budding romance with Death. "Gibbler's Ghost" by William F. Nolan is the comedy of a megastar haunted by a ghost tied to a family tragedy who, hilariously, only appears when the star is trying to have sex. "They Bite" by Anthony Boucher is one of the most truly creepy stories in the collection--the protagonist deserves what he gets, but the horror of... weird brown mummy-things... little... with the teeth... you see them in the corner of your eye... (shivers). "Miracle at Chimayo" by Carole Buggé is a sad, gentle story taking place near the Sangre de Cristo mountains--another one related to family history and also faith (in a non-corny way) which I liked. Finally "Slaughter House" by Richard Matheson is a masterful story of two close brothers who buy a house on the cheap, followed by their discovery of its haunting that builds to a crescendo of horror.

In The Midwest section, "Dumb Supper" by Henderson Starke was the saddest and creepiest to me (I think there is something about girls, cliques, and witchcraft that especially creeps me out). A cruel group of girls convinces the new girl in town to perform a "dumb supper," in which she bakes cornbread with some backwards directions, serves it silently, and is supposed to see a living ghost that will reveal the face of her future husband. Instead, the process reveals something the girl feared, but did not expect...

Overall, the anthology is worth a read and is interesting in that it collects a lot of short stories that are hard to find anywhere else. I'm glad it's available through the Internet Archive. ( )

4/7/22