Ghosts and l'écriture-femme

The Library Window

by Margaret Oliphant

Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] The Library Window

Hello all Today we start our read of the last ghost story in our Christmas sub-group, Margaret Oliphant's "The Library Window".

Here's a reminder on the etext link:

http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/libraryw.htm

I must say I found this story very chilling and compelling - it's a difficult one to put down, and I was interested to see that it was published very near to the end of the author's life.

A footnote in the edition I've been reading (Selected Short Stories of the Supernatural by Margaret Oliphant) says:

"First published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in January 1896. 'The Library Window' was the last of Mrs Oliphant's tales of the supernatural to deal with a spirit who is 'earthbound', but it stands apart from her other stories in the genre in that it is not religious in subject or tone. In her fiction Mrs Oliphant often utilised people and places she knew well, and nowhere is this more clearly demonstrated than in 'The Library Window'. The 'St Rule's' of the story is plainly St Andrews, a town she visited often throughout her life. For example, St Rule's Tower is a well-known St Andrews landmark; and by tradition a fair is held in summer in the street outside the old library in St Andrews, as in 'St Rule's'. 'The Library Window' has proved to be one of the most popular of Mrs Oliphant's short stories and it has been reprinted on numerous occasions."

Once again, the ghost is glimpsed through glass, as in "The Old Nurse's Story" - here the young heroine sees the figure of the man through two layers of glass, both through her own window and the strange library window which (as it seems at first) may or may not be imaginary.

She feels kinship with the ghost, who at first reminds her of her father, also a writer, and then becomes an ideal lover.

The "doubling" theme which is so important in Gothic stories is here again - she becomes convinced that she belongs with the stranger and is linked to him in some strange way.

There is also a feeling that the ghost is luring her towards her death, just as the little girl in Gaskell's tale is trying to lure young Rosamond and the spectre in "The Signalman" is tempting the title character towards his doom. Margaret Gray suggests in her introduction to the short story collection that Oliphant's ghosts have a "mission to help mortals" - but I just can't see this in the case of this chilling tale. Surely the ghost is gradually sapping the life away from the young heroine, (who has already been ill before the story starts) making her grow increasingly pale, wan and big-eyed, and taking away all her interest in the real life around her, as she becomes obsessed with the "next room".

Again, as in "The Old Nurse's Story", there is a feeling of a curse being passed down to subsequent generations - at the end of the story the heroine learns the story of the man she saw in the library, and that other "women of our blood," including her Aunt Mary, have also seen the spectre.

Through most of the story, the ambiguity Dickens liked has been maintained - we don't know whether the girl can really see anything through the painted window or is just imagining it. But at the end we learn that others have seen the figure too, and it seems definite that there is "really" a wandering spirit.

One of the most haunting lines in the story comes when Aunt Mary tells the girl: "It is a longing all your life after - it is a looking - for what never comes." She knows that the girl is now doomed to wait all her life for a dream lover who will never come, just as she herself and earlier generations have also waited.

I think in some ways I find this the creepiest of the ghost stories we've read, and wouldn't fancy reading it last thing at night! What does anybody else think of it?

Judy Geater

Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2000
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] The Library Window

Judy, thanks for all the great information on The Library Window. I found the locale information especially interesting.

In the opening of the story, it is so easy to relate to the narrator. Which one of us hasn't longed to have the time to sit in a window seat like that, reading all day long. I actually have a window seat. It faces south which is the best view, but unfortunately it is all too often too sunny to enjoy sitting there. At least it does not face another building with windows!

Will post more later--I haven't finished reading the story yet.

Dagny

From Judy Geater in response:

I also found it interesting to know that the author was thinking of a particular location in Scotland, even though sadly I have never been to St Andrews, so don't know how closely it corresponds to the fictional St Rule's.

I've noticed another footnote on this in my edition which is also interesting -

"In the Upper Hall of the old St Andrews University Library in South Street, the windows that face the street were blocked off in the early nineteenth century by bookcases running the whole length of the wall."

Margaret Gray, who wrote these notes, says Oliphant clearly had this in mind.

In the opening of the story, it is so easy to relate to the narrator. Which one of us hasn't longed to have the time to sit in a window seat like that, reading all day long. I actually have a window seat. It faces south which is the best view, but unfortunately it is all too often too sunny to enjoy sitting there. At least it does not face another building with windows!

When I was a child I was often able to sit on a window seat at my grandmother's house, with a book, just as the heroine does - but, sadly, unlike you, I'm not lucky enough to have a window seat nowadays!

A little more info... it seems as if Oliphant carefully chose the time of year as a suitable one for ghosts, as well as the location. Another footnote says: "In folklore, Midsummer Eve (St John's Eve) is a time when supernatural beings of all kinds, both good and evil, are especially active. All magic is particularly potent at this time, and the festival is regarded as being especially for lovers."

Another inspiration is apparently a story about Sir Walter Scott, Oliphant's literary idol. At one point the heroine refers to Sir Walter, and yet another footnote says: "The reference is to Lockhart's famous anecdote about Sir Walter Scott, 'the Great Unknown', in which Scott is seen from a library window, working indefatigably at his desk, in his Edinburgh study. See JG Lockhart, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart, 7 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1837-38)." Sounds like a hefty read!

Will post more later--I haven't finished reading the story yet.

Hope you enjoy it! If anybody wants a translation of any of the Scottish dialect words, I have a glossary in the back of my book - let me know if anybody needs this! Cheers
Judy Geater

Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2001
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com Subject: [trollope-l] The Library Window

Hello Judy and Dagny and all,

I've never read anything by Margaret Oliphant before and if this is typical, now must read some more of her work.

What is the truth?

Is the narrator telling the truth? Does she see the figure in the room when she also sees the stone thrown against the false window. The women are 'uncanny', so have they second sight...is the hidden diamond directed from the half closed hand of lady Carnbee like the directing of the 'evil eye' at an innocent narrator.

The images of light and shade are powerful, particularly the long twilight of the northern mid-summer evenings.Then there are instances of things half hidden (apart from the window), the narrator in her window seat, the ring in the old woman's hand, people in the street below, lace is itself something which half hides, half reveals and the old woman wears it. The aunt cannot see well enough to continue her work, another instance of fading or failing light.

The gradual revelation of the room's contents builds up expectations and suspense very well, I think.

The young girl wears white, the old wears black...and yet the whiteness of the girl and her clothing are possible indicators of sickness not innocence.

Although I find reading from the screen difficult, I did note one or two things that particularly struck me, the description of the old woman's hand, the phrase 'it is not a window to give light', and the window is 'dead'. I liked to the contrast of "my youngness with their oldness' instead of the usual 'my youth with their age'..it is stronger somehow.

It is also about things lost and found, or playing hide and seek, perhaps...the scene at the dock at the very end is an unusual in its reality and sadness.

I enjoyed it very much.

bye
Marion Hall

Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] The Library Window

I found this a benign and rather wonderful story. I too particularly loved the descriptions of the long summer twilight. But what was the role of the diamond? What have I missed here?

Angela

I'm not reading along on these stories, due to pressure of time - I'm currently in the 12th/13th century working on a paper. For those who would like to read more Oliphant, "Miss Marjoribanks" is an enjoyable book (Penguin), rather like a later version of Jane Austen's Emma.

Rory O'Farrell

Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com Subject: [trollope-l] The Library Window

I was also confused by the diamond in this story. The explanation given in the introduction in the OUP version that I've just read by Merryn Williams is "The diamond which bites and stings is not merely a stone but also an emblem of sexual passion; the light which goes on and on may reveal things (like a dead man and a vanished room) which cannot normally be seen. Most of the time, the author feels, we see 'through a glass darkly'. A poet or a mystic can, perhaps, see a little further, but even this power is highly iunpredictable."

I'm still working on this myself. Otherwise I liked the story, the dreamy quality really caught my fancy. I'm not about to embark on "A Beleaguered City", another of the stories in my edition.

Joan

Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com
Subject: [trollope-l] The Library Window

Angela wrote:

I found this a benign and rather wonderful story. I too particularly loved the descriptions of the long summer twilight. But what was the role of the diamond? What have I missed here?

I wasn't clear either, except that it seemed significant, and I can't face reading the piece on screen again.

I wondered if the narrator had inherited a capacity to conjure up images or people because she was 'uncanny' and that the diamond, which she inherited later (but kept hidden), was some form of 'witch stone' or 'seeing eye'. It was directed 'at' her at one stage in the story. There was also that intriguing piece where the narrator said that in daylight it wasn't possible to see anything 'even in people's eyes'..I didn't note the exact quotation.

IThe diamond also pricked her..or the claw setting did. Pricking a witch was a test, wasn't it? A numb area was diagnostic...however, the narrator felt the pricks.

IPerhaps I'm reading too much into all this. The story doesn't seem to be evil, but as you say, benign.

IBut, on the other hand! the narrator said right at the beginning that if her mother had been around she would not have been allowed to sit reading, but would have been made to get up and run errands. This idea that women/girls mustn't be allowed to sit still comes from the medieval notion that the devil would 'make work for idle hands' .

'...a longing all your life after - it is a looking - for what never comes.'

bye
Marion
P.S. Rory, thank you for the suggestion..another book to order:-)

From Judy Geater:

Thanks for this, Joan. I do find the diamond difficult to understand, I must confess, though this helps - and I am also puzzled by the whole role of the sinister and witch-like Lady Carnbee.

Taking things on a more literal level, I suppose, I wondered if the man had tried to give the diamond to the woman he loved - but that wouldn't explain how Lady C ever came by it.

I also noticed that the heroine is left with a "mark on her shoulder", which reminded me of the wound on the child's shoulder in Gaskell's "Old Nurse's Tale" - but, again, I'm confused. I wonder if there is some significance to the shoulder which is escaping me somewhere.

Another point about the story which struck me is the way in which the heroine constantly draws comparisons between the stranger whom she glimpses through the mysterious window and her own father, apparently an acclaimed writer who seems to keep himself distant from her.

It seems as if the ghost's appearance is somehow bringing out the way she feels about her own family - although this identification with her father becomes confused when she becomes increasingly sexually attracted to the ghost.

Anyway, I do find it a very powerful story, even if I don't fully understand it - perhaps *because* I don't fully understand it.

Thanks to Rory for recommending "Miss Marjoribanks" - I'm wondering, is this one of Oliphant's Chronicles of Carlingford which are influenced by Trollope?

All I have read by Oliphant are the six tales included in Selected Short Stories of the Supernatural, edited by Margaret K Gray. This includes "Old Lady Mary", "The Secret Chamber", "The Portrait" and "Earthbound", which I'd say are all excellent - most of them have the same generic title "A Story of the Seen and the Unseen" which she also gave to "The Library Window". However I'm not so enthusiastic about a really peculiar and incredibly depressing Apocalyptic story called "The Land of Darkness" - the footnotes say this one is heavily influenced by Dante, so possibly I'm being let down here by my lack of knowledge of his poetry. Yet another author to add to the list of intentions for 2001!

Cheers
Judy Geater

Re: 'The Library Window'

I can offer an explanation for 'the whole role of the sinister and witch-like Lady Carnbee' and the concluding scene of a sad return from a far-away place.

On Lady Carnbee: Judy mentioned the story behind the ghost's isolated: the narrator's Aunt Mary tells her that the ghost was a scholar whom

'one of us, that must have been a light woman, not like you and me --- But maybe it was just for innocence; for who can tell? She waved to him and waved to him to come over; and yon ring was the token: but he would not come. But still she sat at her window and waved and waved -- till at last her brothers heard of it, that were stirring men; and then -- oh my honey, let us speak of it no more.

"They killed him!" I cried, carried away. (Selected Ghost Stories of MO, edited Margaret Gray, pp. 245-46).

The woman who sat at the window was Lady Carnbee; that's why she flashes that diamond. The ghost does not haunt only the niece. Throughout the story we hear continual hints that the other women in the aunt's house see or have seen the ghost; everyone seems to know the story. Lady Carnbee both derides the looking into the window while she lures the girl to look, and there are a number of tantalizing references to her knowledge of what happened and her connection to it, e.g., 'I was fascinated by the look on her face, which was a curious scornful look as of one who knew more than she chose to say". She clutches her diamond ring; she is a figure of death in her black lace. Shades of Dickens's Miss Haversham? Sex has been refused, thwarted, partly because the young man was of lower status, would make no money as a scholar.

The violence of the embedded story is not unreal. If you read old Italian and other European chronicles of the behavior or male aristocrats they were liable to murder a young man who had sex with or aspired to marry a sister they intended for someone else. Famously, Isabella di Morra was murdered by her brothers for yielding to such a man (she was a poet). This material would have been known to Oliphant who lived in Italy with her husband for a stretch: this terrible time included to his painful death from TB; she travelled to Italy repeatedly. It is used by Elizabeth Gaskell in a ghost story which ought to be better known, "The Grey Woman" (reprinted in a paperback Oxford World Classics edited by Suzanne Lewis, A Dark Night's Work and Other Stories). What ghost stories permitted women to do was tell of such things: in the probable chaste world of the realistic novel, they would have been lambasted for suggesting focussing on such material; the realm of the supernatural permits them to speak of the kinds of violence and sex that lay underneath the daylight world of middle class Victorian England.

Margaret Oliphant is one of these unjustly neglected writers who is unjustly neglected because the little that is in print is an occasional realistic novel of manners, of which Miss Marjoribanks is typical. By putting the buzz words, "in the manner of Jane Austen", they sell for a while, and the Carlingford Chronicles have real interest in the way Oliphant portrays the insidious politics of the dissenting church society. Still anyone who goes to the novels after the ghost stories is bound to be disappointed. Precisely what makes a story like "The Library Window" or "Old Lady Mary" or "The Open Door" so effective is omitted from the realistic novel. And it's not just truths about sex, violence, the irrational longings of people -- the little girl, socially unacceptable as it is to say this, recalls the "The Signalman" -- the ghost has somehow sensed she has a longing towards death, what Freud called the Thanatos impulse in us all. We are told that she has been sent to her aunt because she was ill before she came. The ghost is now luring her into a forbidden world of the mind which she enjoys but her society would try to banish in favor of upbeat social interaction. Her mother's behavior though -- the strictures to be doing things even if they are meaningless -- did not seem to be helpful; why else, was she sent to her aunt who is, we see, very kind to the child. Oliphant can pour into these ghost stories material which the calmness and orthodox demands of rational and social portraiture in the novel forbids.

I agree with everyone that the story is ultimately benign -- or at least the ghost does not feel like a malignant spirit in the way the child ghost in 'The Old Nurse's Story' feels. Like Old Lady Mary, this "Sir Walter" seems to be reaching out to a kindred soul in the 'seen' world. Remember the subtitle: the seen and unseen worlds. By thrusting us forward in time we do feel that continuity and some hopes in life must have been achieved. It is suggested the heroine did marry, had children, knew some happiness. (This is very like the use of thrusting forward in Trollope's La Vendee). However, the narrator says she came back in deep sorrow when she returned a widow with children from India:

'when I came home a widow from India, very sad, with my little children: I am certain I saw him there among all the people coming to welcome their friends. There was nobody to welcome me, -- for I was not expected: and very sad was I, without a face I knew when all at once I saw him, and he waved his hand to me. My heart leaped up again: I had forgotten who he was ,but only that it was a face I knew, and I landed almost cheerfully ..." (Selected Ghost Stories, p. 248).

If you read Oliphant's depiction of her return home from Italy, just after her husband died, with her two children, broke (no money whatsoever), desolate, with no one to turn to, no one waiting there at the station for her, you see that this is, as is so often true of the best fictions, a moment which has roots in the deepest emotional currents and memories of Oliphant's life. She wished that someone were there.

Now I will be daring: the supernatural is a realm contiguous with religious belief. There is no barrier between the two. Until the 19th century many people saw witches and ghosts as simply part of an 'unseen' world they religiously believed in. Oliphant's life has, like many of us, some very hard moments. Her husband and younger daugher died in Italy (the last death very bad, the child was around 7 or 8 or something like that); her two sons and a nephew she brought up before her - by 1896 when she wrote "A Library Window" all these people were dead. She longed to reach them; she moves into a world she more than half- believes in and probably conjured up for comfort beyond the time sitting there writing away -- just like Mr Trollope, endlessly losing herself in her fictional worlds. Who is this young man? He resembles her husband who was a sensitive painter type (never made any money); he resembles her father (also died well before Oliphant reached maturity), a less sympathetic weak man who her mother supported. The heroine associates him with her 'Papa' in her musings.

He may also be an amalgam of her love of literature: Margaret Oliphant is slowing coming back into print in editions like this one Judy and I own -- I found mine on the Net as I did Oliphant's _Autobiography_. Thus naming him, albeit slyly, as Sir Walter, names the leading spirit of Scots literature between the time of Robert Burns and the time of Robert Louis Stevenson. As Gaskell was Cousin Phyllis stirring the pot while she studied Dante, so this perhaps unnamed (does she have a name?) narrator is Margaret herself lured by Sir Walter into the world of Scots imagination. Many of her non-realistic stories are set in Edinburgh -- also her more romantic ones. These latter are, according to some critics, embarrassingly autobiographical as we find in them Oliphant lambasting her husband, showing she had a very cool appreciation the failings of the two sons whom she nonetheless desperately loved. She also had a brother who became an alcoholic and at 16 was in London trying to help him. (He also predeceased her.) She spent her life supporting men.

A hearty welcome to Marion Hall who I hope stays on. We do run subgroups of Victorian writers and Margaret Oliphant's work is certainly one we should consider. Go to bookfinder.com or Alibris and you can come up with editions of the ghost stories -- ah, 'The Beleaguered City' is one of the greatest of all ghost stories; some are as good, but none better. 'The Land of Darkness' is Oliphant's Commedia, an Inferno and Purgatorio with no Paradisio.

Maybe begin with her Autobiography which is available. It includes a long narrative broken off in the middle of the book; the second half is made up of fascinating business-friendship letters between Oliphant and Blackwood. He was her publisher and one of the few men who supported her in times of real hardship -- which she had. Here's a full citation: The Autobiography and Letters of Mrs M. O. Oliphant, arranged and edited by Mrs Harry Coghill (Oliphant's cousin); my edition is New York: Dodd and Mead, 1899.

There is a biography by the Colbys, and Vineta Colby's book, The Singular Anomaly includes a full portrait of Oliphant among other Victorian women who were forced to expend themselves on realistic novels when their real bent was elsewhere (Mary Ward aka Mrs Humphy; Violet Paget). Oliphant was a strong scholar-critic-biographer, and I own a couple of histories of literature she wrote which are still marvels. She wrote incessantly for magazines, and one of the few bitter remarks she allows herself in her letters about men concern the fact that she longed to be an editor or to get a permanent place on some staff and couldn't -- she felt it was because she was a woman, and says that people told her they wouldn't give her the job because, forsooth, this man or that had a family to support. So did she, and it was an extended one -- she sent her nephew and nieces to school and tried to set them up in life too. Her history of the publishing house of Blackwood's is said to be very interesting, and also a biography of a near-relative named Oliphant, someone also linked to the religious-politics of the time which fascinated her as someone who was disillusioned, intelligent, and yet needed to believe. The best of the Carlingford Chronicles is said to be Salem Chapel; The Perpetual Curate is consciously modelled on Trollope's presentation of Josiah Crawley.

Still neither Trollope nor Jane Austen (about whom Margaret Oliphant's essay is very very good; she gets Austen's coolness, her distaste for many of her characters), neither the trajectory of Trollope or Austen allows Oliphant to delve into the realms that most intensely concerned Oliphant and set her spirit deeply stirring. 'The Beleaguered City' does closely resemble a couple of 20th century novels -- by Albert Camus, La Peste is one and The Myth of Sisphyus the other.

It's common for gothics never to name the narrator -- or name the narrator but once and not again. Did anyone catch the nurse's name in the 'Old Nurses's Story'. She is given one. Is the narrator of 'The Signalman' named? What is his name? Do you remember it easily?

Cheers to all,
Ellen Moody

Re: Miss Marjoribanks

Thanks to Rory for recommending "Miss Marjoribanks" - I'm wondering, is this one of Oliphant's Chronicles of Carlingford which are influenced by Trollope?

Yes, it is set in Carlingford, and I think fairly late in the series (which I haven't read, and don't think is easily available). The references to the series are relatively trivial, and I doubt that they would interfere with later reading of the earlier works. I found it to be a very good read - as I said, I thought it similar to Emma, but with a maturer heroine.

Rory O'Farrell

Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001
Reply-To: trollope-l@egroups.com Subject: [trollope-l] The Library Window

From: Judy Geater

I think in some ways I find this the creepiest of the ghost stories we've read, and wouldn't fancy reading it last thing at night! What does anybody else think of it?

Of all the Christmas stories we read this year I enjoyed this one the most. The most part of it is chilling, yes, but by the end I got the impression that the ghost had forgiven the family and instead of haunting them was watching over them--this impression gathered from the second-last paragraph of the story. Our narrator did find love and have children, although she did turn out a widow .

I found that last bit of the story, the ghost's waving to her on her return from India, very moving or cathartic--after the tension built up from wondering if our narrator has lost her mind, or if her constant peering at the ghost would forever ruin her health, we find that she turned out fine and the ghost has, perhaps, found his peace. There is that last fearful reminder of the diamond ring, however.

In the couple of Oliphant stories I've read she does a marvelous job with description and setting the scene. There are so many things about "The Library Window" that, two weeks after reading it, still remain vivid in my mind. It's a shame so little of her work remains in print--one novel and one collection of short stories, the last I checked online.

Beth.

Re: The Library Window

Judy wrote:

Margaret Gray suggests in her introduction to the short story collection that Oliphant's ghosts have a "mission to help mortals" - but I just can't see this in the case of this chilling tale. Surely the ghost is gradually sapping the life away from the young heroine, (who has already been ill before the story starts) making her grow increasingly pale, wan and big-eyed, and taking away all her interest in the real life around her, as she becomes obsessed with the "next room".

I agree Judy. Early in the story, before the window/room obsession, the girl was aware of all that went on around her. Even while reading it says that she heard, comprehended, and remembered the conversations in the room. Then later she doesn't; sometimes she even has to be called several times as she becomes more and more absorbed in watching the room and its occupant.

I noticed references to the eyes. At one point the girl thinks: "you can never see into a place from outside, whether it is an empty room or a looking-glass, or people's eyes, or anything else that is mysterious, in the day." Lady Carnbee said to the girl: ""The eye is deceitful as well as the heart."

I enjoyed this story immensely. I believe it is the first work of hers I have read, unless I happened to read a short story in a collection before. Thanks for picking it for us, Judy.

Dagny

To Trollope-l

Re: Oliphant's Library Window: Reading Ghost Stories

Dear Judy and Trollope-l friends,

It makes sense that a ghost story about a highly imaginative sensitive girl who loves to sit in a window seat and dream over books, one named "The Library Window" would make such a use of books. Probably this is self-reflexive: Oliphant's brilliance with ghost stories comes from reading them. She is aware of many of the devices of the genre. Ghost stories as an art form emerged in the 19th century and they were very popular. She would sat around a fire on Christmas eve reading them too. We are told that her aunt wants to pull her away from her absorption in the world of her imagination.

I did find a good etext of "The Beleaguered City" on the Net:

http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/blgctymn.htm

You can also try:

http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/blgctyx5.htm

The first was a text in which each chapter was set out on a separate document and the typing clear and accurate. They are both Gaslight texts, that is, prepared by Steven Davis who goes to a great deal of trouble with his texts. In the second of the above he bothers to tell you it's the 1900 edition, not the original 1879. That suggests care.

There are also said to be some notes on it, but I couldn't manage to make them come onto my computer (I should say I am not very good at computers):

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~d-lena/MargaretOliphantNotes.html

I'll be teaching a course in the summer which I am going to call Gothics and Ghosts, the Supernatural and Romance' and know of all sorts of volumes, both for the 19th and 20th century, originally in French or English. The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories has texts from a variety of (Western) countries. There are not many ghost novels: it seems our time is not one for delicate tastes or subtlety so what is preferred is the novel of horror (the Dracula type) or terror (the sort of thing Edgar Allen Poe began). The intriguing fascination of the ghost story when done well is one is always left doubtful whether it was a projection of the mind or a ghost: in this hesitation, or suspense of judgement lies its finest moments because the storyteller can use this double-way of looking at what's happening. But you can't go overboard into bloody scenes (for example), for then you would have to say that it cannot be just a projection of the psyche under trauma. It takes taste and tact to put it across: the use of the first person narrator is also important.

There have been some ghost novels, though, and I can cite one short one which was made into a quietly badly frightening picture: Susan Hill's The Woman in Black. It was published in the later 1980s or early 1990s and the film adaptation (1993) is often praised. The director was Herbert Wise, the actors included Bernard Hepton, Adrian Rawlins, Pauline Moran. The I bought a copy from Amazon. What is remarkable is you don't realise quite how haunting and downright horrible (one key scene especially) it is until after it's over and you find yourself remembering some the images of the ghost's face.

I hope we do in future have a group read like this again: stories themselves work well. You don't have to worry about breaking the reverie, but read onto the end and get the whole of it. When we read Trollope's short stories on this list, the read went well because it was just reading one or two stories a week. If you missed a week, well it didn't matter. And ghost stories are neglected or dismissed as silly or trivial because they are not susceptible of the kinds of sociological analysis people like to do: you can use them in cultural studies unless you are studying religion or the mind, and most cultural studies are more about oppressed groups, sex, money and tangible things.

Cheers to all,
Ellen Moody