She was flawless. A model of grace and stillness, prized by every artist who worked with her. But beneath the surface of the painter’s studio—amid the heat, the charcoal dust, and the careful posing—something else lingered.
“Rose Rose” by Barry Pain was first published in Stories in Grey (T. Werner Laurie, 1911). It is now in the public domain.
Barry Eric Odell Pain (1864–1928) was a British humorist and writer of uncanny fiction. H.P. Lovecraft cited him as an influence, and Robert Louis Stevenson compared him to Maupassant.
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The Clock by W F Harvey
A letter arrives—calm in tone, almost conversational. But beneath its surface, something unsettles. A favour once done, a house long locked, a memory that won’t quite settle. There are impressions that can’t be explained, and a sense—quiet, persistent—that something was not as it should have been.
The Clock first appeared in W. F. Harvey’s 1928 collection The Beast with Five Fingers, published by J. M. Dent & Sons. It has since been reprinted in several major ghost story anthologies.
William Fryer Harvey (1885–1937) was a Yorkshire-born writer and Quaker, best known for his concise and unsettling tales of the supernatural. A former naval surgeon, he was awarded the Albert Medal for Lifesaving during the First World War.
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The Lost Ghost (1903) by Mary E Wilkins
A quiet conversation between two women over tea. A rented house. A memory long buried. In *The Lost Ghost*, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman offers no gothic castles or howling winds—only the hush of a parlour, the rustle of a child’s dress, and a voice repeating the same, simple question. It is not horror that lingers here, but something colder, something closer. A presence that never left.
*The Lost Ghost* was first published in *The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural* in 1903.
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1852–1930) was an American writer known for her psychologically rich stories of New England life. Though acclaimed for her realist fiction, she also wrote some of the most quietly devastating supernatural tales of her age.
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Squire Toby's Will by J S Le Fanu
Seen from a passing stagecoach, you might think that Gylingden Hall is not the sort of place where the dead rest easily. The chimneys are cold, the gallery echoes with no human tread, and the great trees that line the avenue whisper of old wrongs and buried fury. In the shadow of the ruined chapel and beneath the rot-black timbers of the house, something lingers—a grief curdled into malice, a legacy neither signed nor forgotten. Squire Toby’s Will is not a tale of ghosts who startle, but of the slow, relentless suffocation of guilt, and of the strange things a man will refuse to see, even when they’re clawing at the door.
Published anonymously in Temple Bar magazine, Volume XXII, in 1868. Later attributed to Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and often compared to his novel The Wyvern Mystery, written around the same time.
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814–1873) was an Irish writer of Gothic fiction and supernatural tales, widely praised for his subtle and psychologically charged ghost stories. A master of atmosphere and ambiguity, he was admired by M. R. James and influenced the shape of modern horror fiction.
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The Confession of Charles Linkworth by E F Benson
A man waits in silence. The law has spoken, the doctors have done their work. But something does not rest. In the quiet rooms and corridors of the prison, a sound is heard—faint, deliberate, and not easily explained. What follows is noted calmly, professionally. Still, it leaves a mark.
*The Confession of Charles Linkworth* was first published in 1912 in *The Room in the Tower and Other Stories* by Mills & Boon, London.
E. F. Benson was a British author best known for his *Mapp and Lucia* novels and his ghost stories. He came from a clerical family deeply involved in both religion and early psychical research.
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Go here for a library of ad-free stories, a monthly members only story and early access to the regular stories I put out.
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Or, if you'd just like to make a one-off gesture of thanks for my work
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A weekly podcast that reads out ghost stories, horror stories, and weird tales every week. Classic stories from the pens of the masters Occasionally, we feature living authors, but the majority are dead. Some perhaps are undead.
We go from cosy Edwardian ghost stories (E. F. Benson, Walter De La Mare) to Victorian supernatural mysteries (M. R. James, Elizabeth Gaskell, Bram Stoker, and Charles Dickens) to 20th-century Weird Tales (Robert Aickman, Fritz Lieber, Clark Ashton-Smith, and H. P. Lovecraft) and wander from the Gothic to the Odd, even to the Literary, and then back again.
Each episode is followed by Tony's take on the story, its author, its content and any literary considerations, which may be useful to students!
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