Why do people love ghost stories, even if they don’t believe (or say they don’t believe) in ghosts? Is it simply the adrenaline rush that comes from being mesmerized and terrified by a great storyteller, or do these tales yield deeper meanings—telling us things about our own inner shadows?
Stephen Johnson brings together some of the most memorable encounters with ghosts in world literature, from Europe, Russia, the United States, and China. Recurring themes and imagery are noted, interpretations suggested—but only suggested, since ambiguity and resistance to rational interpretation are key elements in the best ghost stories.
As the writer Robert Aickman observed, often the decisive moment comes when someone, somehow, makes a “wrong turning”—literally, perhaps, but at the same time psychologically, even morally—and some mysterious nemesis takes over.
Old favorites by M. R. James, Ambrose Bierce, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman are interlaced with extracts from longer works by Emily Brontë, Henry James, and Alexander Pushkin,, along with slightly left-field apparitions from Tove Jansson and Flann O’Brien.
With such expert guides, who knows what we will be led to encounter in the haunted chambers of our minds?

'This attempt to illustrate that there’s more to the ghost story tradition than some readers might assume compliments Johnson’s selection of old and new, canonical and marginal, works. Together, these make the book especially suited to uninitiated readers eager to enter and explore a haunted house with many, many rooms.'

Stephen Johnson has taken part in several hundred radio programs and documentaries, including Radio 3's weekly series Discovering Music. He is also a presenter on the Classic Arts podcast series Archive Classics. Johnson has made numerous appearances on TV, contributing as a guest on BBC4's coverage of The Proms, ITV's The South Bank Show, and BBC1's The One Show. He is the author of several books, including The Eighth: Mahler and the World in 1910 and the Notting Hill Editions title How Shostakovich Changed My Mind.