Best Ghost and Horror Stories

Copyright

Copyright @ 1997 by Dover Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Bibliographical Note

Best Ghost and Horror Stories is a new compilation from standard sources, first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 1997.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stoker, Bram, 1847-1912.

Best ghost and horror stories / Bram Stoker ; edited by Richard Dalby, Stefan Dziemianowicz, and S. T. Joshi.

p. cm.—(Dover horror classics)

9780486143217

1. Ghost stories, English. 2. Horror tales, English. I. Dalby, Richard. II. Dziemianowicz, Stefan R. III. Joshi, S. T., 1958- . IV. Title. V Series.

PR6037.T617A6 1997

823’.8—dc21

97—6954
CIP

Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation
29716004
www.doverpublications.com

Table of Contents

Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
The Crystal Cup
The Chain of Destiny
The Castle of the King
The Dualitists; or, the Death Doom of the Double Born
The Burial of the Rats
The Judge’s House
The Secret of the Growing Gold
The Coming of Abel Behenna
The Squaw
A Dream of Red Hands
Crooken Sands
Dracula’s Guest
A Star Trap
A Gipsy Prophecy
A CATALOG OF SELECTED DOVER BOOKS IN ALL FIELDS OF INTEREST

Introduction

In this centenary year of literature’s greatest, most popular, and best-known vampire novel, Dracula, the superlative short stories of Bram Stoker should not be overlooked. These stories cover an enthrallingly wide range of subject matter, not confined to the ghostly and supernatural, but always bizarre, and some—like “The Squaw” and “The Burial of the Rats”—equal to Poe at his best.

Abraham Stoker (as Bram was christened, after his father, who worked as a government clerk at Dublin Castle) was born on November 8, 1847, at Clontarf, on the eastern side of Dublin. Confined to bed by a debilitating illness during his early childhood, he gradually recovered and grew up to excel in all athletic and academic pursuits, becoming Athletic Champion at Dublin University when he was twenty.

From his youngest days, Stoker always enjoyed writing, and he had some early verses published in Beeton’s Boy’s Own Magazine while he was still in school. His obsession with the preternatural and the gothic dates back to these early years, when he was enthralled by the Irish myths and legends related by his mother, Charlotte, together with stirring accounts from her own childhood.

During the 1870s Stoker spent ten tedious years working for the civil service, and in his spare time he occupied himself as a writer, teacher, and journalist. He submitted several pieces of short fiction to the main London periodicals, but only one was accepted and published at that time: “The Crystal Cup” in London Society for September 1872.

It is tempting to wonder whether this story was admired and recommended directly to the editor by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, whose novella “The Room in the Dragon Volant” had just been serialized in the same magazine from February to June, 1872.

Stoker must have read Le Fanu’s vampire masterpiece, “Carmilla,” as well as “The Haunted House in Westminster,” when they first appeared in Dark Blue (December 1871 to February 1872) and Belgravia (January 1872), respectively; and I am sure that the two must have been acquainted in Dublin while Stoker was both a very active journalist and enthusiastically writing his own short stories—some of which he might have shown to the veteran Irish author. “The Haunted House in Westminster” was retitled “Mr. Justice Harbottle” when it appeared alongside “Green Tea,” “The Familiar,” “The Room in the Dragon Volant,” and “Carmilla” in In a Glass Darkly in 1872, and nearly twenty years later it would directly inspire Stoker’s own greatest ghost story, “The Judge’s House.”