In March 1904, the Book Review published a brief appreciation of Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw”, calling it “one of the best ghost stories ever written” and complaining that it had been “generally neglected by the public”. Perhaps, the Book Review speculated, it was because “there are periods when imaginary tales laden with supernatural horror are more popular than merry tales of love and adventure” and times when such tales don’t sell at all.
A few days later, “Librarian” wrote a letter that matched the Book Review’s assessment of the James novella: “It’s the best ghost story I’ve ever read, and the only one that ever scared me of the dark.” ‘Librarian’ then asked for more recommendations, preferably with ‘some old ghosts dragging chains down hallways or showing his slit throat’.
For months, fellow readers were obliged, flooding the Letter Page of Book Reviews with their favorite tales of terror – “The Severed Hand,” “What Did Mrs. Harrington See?”, “The Watcher,” “The Middle Teen of the Right Foot,” Witch of Prague”, “The Damned Thing” and “The Monkey’s Paw”, just to name a few.
Some made no recommendations, instead prescribing where to consume scary books. “The real place to read a ghost story is in a lonely country house on a stormy winter night, when the wind howls and howls outside; and the wood fire in the hearth burns restlessly; now blazing, now fading to a faint glow,” wrote ML Johnson. A reader identified only as HFL added, “Reading a ghost story to a group of merry people on a clear day is like eating an egg without salt.” And Eugenia Elise Blain shared her own experience reading Bulwer Lytton’s ‘A Strange Story’ in a remote cottage by the sea: ‘The sky was cloudy and there were no stars. Only the red gleam of a lighthouse lit up the darkness and cast a sinister reflection on the water. The moaning of the wind and the swell and splash of the waves proved to be an appropriate accompaniment.”
Other readers wrote not to recommend, but to admonish. “An outright greed for horror is not something to cherish,” lamented WH Babcock (proposing to draw the line at “cannibal vampires and worshipers of the devil”). He added somewhat piously: “Good people have eaten clay and taken up snuff baths, but we do not recommend snuff and clay as a normal diet, let alone toads and rattlesnakes.” NA Parker agreed: “A sick imagination, like a sick body, is a source of infection for others.”
But nearly everyone echoed Roy M. Grover, who wrote, “If only this ghost bibliography goes on…how happy we’ll all be—lovers of pale, evil ghosts and vengeful ghosts.”
Tina Jordan is the deputy editor of The Book Review.