Winter Whispers: A Collection of Christmas Ghosts Stories

A fun tradition in the United Kingdom that I wish was more common in the United States is telling ghost stories around Christmas time. Probably the greatest writer of ghost stories, M. R. James, wrote many of them to be read aloud to others on Christmas Eve.

In 2000, the BBC hired Christopher Lee to recreate this atmosphere, reading several of his stories, including “A Warning to the Curious” and “The Ash Tree” to a group of students at King’s College, lit by candlelight. You can still see some of them on YouTube. The BBC has also at various times produced dramatizations of James’ stories, usually under the series title “A Ghost Story for Christmas” including two separate versions of perhaps his best-known story “Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad.”

My personal favorite James story “The Mezzotint,” about a strange and menacing figure on an engraving of an old house which gets closer every time the narrator looks at it, has recently been less successfully adapted.

Carmilla

As great as James was, he was only one of many writers of classic ghost stories and I’d like to recommend others to anyone interested. One of James’ favorite writers was Sheridan Le Fanu, an Irish writer best known today for the novella “Carmilla,” an early vampire story whose female monster surely influenced later characters in “Dracula” and “an interview with a vampire. “ Fanu wrote many ghost stories, my favorite being “The Watcher” as collected in the anthology “Green Tea and Other Stories.”

“The Watcher” concerns a slightly priggish naval captain who has returned home to Dublin, and whose courtship of a young lady is interrupted by a strange someone who begins following him on his nightly walks home. Fanu excellently sets the scene of mid-19th century Dublin, an under-lit city undergoing rapid expansion yet simultaneously full of empty lots awaiting construction. The perfect setting for a story about being followed.

Seven Gothic Tales

Isak Dinesin, a Danish writer best known for her memoir “Out of Africa” also wrote the excellent collection of stories “Seven Gothic Tales.” A highlight of these is “A Supper at Elsinore” about a pair of middle-aged sisters, former society beauties living in the past, and their long-lost brother. Dinesin’s heavily atmospheric writing comes to a fantastic head when the brother, who had been assumed dead, is reported to have been seen at their ancestral mansion, and the sisters go to investigate.

The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton

Another writer you might not associate with the supernatural but who wrote several excellent ghost stories is Edith Wharton. Ghost stories were wildly popular around the turn of the last century, and established literary authors like Henry James wrote classics like “a turn of the screw.” Wharton’s ghost stories are lesser known, but are much more straightforward as thrillers than the often excessively prolix James, and are collected under the less than imaginative title “The ghost stories of Edith Wharton.” In “The Eyes,” a man recounts the story of his life and failures towards people who relied on him and a spectral pair of eyes that appear to him, seemingly judging him for these failures.

“All Souls,” though technically not a ghost story, is the best of the collection. In it, a wealthy woman who has broken her ankle in a riding accident wakes up one day to realize all of her servants have abandoned her. As she crawls through the house looking for help, she reaches the telephone only to hear strange murmurings coming from the other end. Spooky.

Strange Tales

If you’re looking for a less Anglo-American type of story, the collection “Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio” by Pu Songling and translated by John Milford is an excellent place to start. These often very short stories written in the 17th century cover a wide variety of supernatural tales, some funny, some horrifying, some simply strange, and a surprising number featuring sexy fox demons. In “Biting a Ghost”, a napping man is visited by a ghostly woman who climbs through his window and begins sniffing his face like a dog, and his only recourse is to bite her in the face, her ghostly blood leaving behind a foul-smelling water. In “The Haunted House” a parade of tiny visitors terrifies a resident scholar. There are so many short stories in this collection that you can simply open the book to any page and read a few stories at random.

Yuki-Onna

Lafcadio Hearn, an Irish-Greek writer who moved to Japan in the 1890’s produced a collection of ghost stories called “Kwaidan” based on traditional Japanese tales. The best of these is “Yuki-Onna” in which a wood-cutter is spared by a murderous spirit on the condition that he tell no one of the encounter. When he later meets a mysterious and beautiful woman, his ability to keep a secret fails him.

Ghosts: A Natural History

If fiction just isn’t your thing, Roger Clarke’s excellent book “Ghosts: A Natural History” can still provide you with ghostly entertainment. Spanning 500 years, Clarke investigates everything from the most famous haunted locations in England, the history of Ghost hunting, the difference between ghosts and poltergeists, the rise and fall of seances as a public craze in the 19th century, and the surprising emphasis of ghostly haunting stories on the early development of Methodism and its founder John Wesley. Though fascinated by them, Clarke admits that he’s never actually seen a ghost, and throughout the book, he maintains a skeptical but never dismissive attitude when recounting historical hauntings.

The Empty House

Finally, I’ll end with a couple of recommendations of stories by Algernon Blackwood. First, One of the best haunted house stories ever written, “The Empty House.” In it, A man and his aunt spend the night in a house in which a brutal murder took place a century before. As they explore the house, supernatural threats escalate until they encounter the killer himself. It’s a simple story, but perfectly effective at what it sets out to do. Blackwood also wrote the classic story “The Wendigo” about a group of moose hunters who encounter a terrifying creature in the Canadian wilderness. The snowy setting and survival themes provide for very effective horror.

Wrapping Up

Hopefully, you’ll have found something that piques your interest in these recommendations, but if you have your own favorite ghost story, please let us know in the comments. If you have any spooky holiday stories you want us to cover, feel free to let us know down below! Happy holidays to everyone.