Ghost Stories

E. F. Benson was a prolific writer of both novels and short stories, but he’s perhaps most famous for his ghost stories. These stories range widely in tone, from the quietly atmospheric country road in “The Dust-Cloud,” to the slick gruesome body horror in “Caterpillars,” to the chuckles elicited in the satirical “Mr. Tilly’s Séance,” to the Gothic terror in what might be Benson’s most famous ghost story, “The Room in the Tower.” These stories were all largely published as one-offs in various magazines before later being compiled into a series of collections by his publisher. Today they from a foundation of the genre, having influenced writers for decades.