Vintage books Ghost Stories Benson E. F

Malignant forces and supernatural visitors haunt this selection of superbly spooky tales selected and introduced by Ruth Rendell • M. R. James wrote his ghost stories to entertain friends on Christmas Eve, and they went on to both transform and modernise a genre. James harnesses the power of suggestion to move from a recognisable world to one that is indefinably strange, and then unforgettably terrifying. Sheets, pictures, carvings, a dolls house, a lonely beach, a branch tapping on a window - ordinary things take on more than a tinge of dread in the hands of the original master of suspense

M.R. James wrote his ghost stories to entertain friends on Christmas Eve, and they went on to both transform and modernise a genre. James harnesses the power of suggestion to move from a recognisable world to one that is indefinably strange, and then unforgettably terrifying. Sheets, pictures, carvings, a dolls house, a lonely beach, a branch tapping on a window - ordinary things take on more than a tinge of dread in the hands of the original master of suspense

Celebrated for her much-admired novels, including The Heat of the Day and The Death of the Heart, Bowen established herself in the front rank of the century's writers equally through her short fiction • WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY A. N. WILSON • Throughout these seventy-nine stories - love stories, ghost stories, stories of childhood, of English middle-class life in the twenties and thirties, of London during the Blitz - Elizabeth Bowen combines social comedy and reportage, perception and vision in an oeuvre which reveals, as Angus Wilson affirms in his introduction, that 'the instinctive artist is there at the very heart of her work'

Covering the first half of Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro's career, these are some of the best, most touching and powerful short stories ever written • This first-ever selection of Alice Munro's stories sums up her genius. Her territory is the secrets that cackle beneath the facade of everyday lives, the pain and promises, loves and fears of apparently ordinary men and women whom she renders extraordinary and unforgettable • This volume brings together the best of Munro's stories, from 1968 through to 1994. The second selected volume of her stories, 1995-2009 is also published by Vintage Classics

Covering the second half of Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro's career, these are some of the best, most touching and powerful short stories ever written • 'Munro is still one of our most fearless explorers of the human being' • The Times • Spanning her last five collections and bringing together her finest work from the past fifteen years, this new selection of Alice Munro's stories infuses everyday lives with a wealth of nuance and insight • Beautifully observed and remarkably crafted, written with emotion and empathy, these stories are nothing short of perfection. A masterclass in the genre, from an author who deservedly lays claim to being one of the major fiction writers of our time

Comprising stories from her debut collection, Blood, and the critically acclaimed Where You Find It - this collection presents some of the best known and most loved works by one of Scotland's 'most gifted and original writers' (Times Literary Supplement) • Each sharply observed, savagely accurate and brilliantly realised - the stories offer revelatory glimpses into everyday lives - from an unwelcome act of kindness at a bus stop, an evening walk across a London bridge, a welcome but uncomfortable summer break to a brutal lesson in trust • Here also are unflinching portrayals of relationships: the struggle to love against the odds, the overpowering yearning to communicate, and the extraordinary epiphanies where the world falls away leaving only the lovers

Melding his native Irish sensibilities to those of his adopted west-coast Scotland, these tales attend to life’s big events: love and loss, separation and violence, death and betrayal. But the stories teem with smaller significant moments too – private epiphanies, chilling exchanges, intimate encounters. Each of these extraordinary stories – with their wry, self-deprecating humour, their elegance and subtle wisdom – gets to the very heart of life

Selected and with a New Introduction by Tessa Hadley • A girl shares her secret den. A couple stroll through a ruined city. A man walks into a ladies' hat shop. A teacher dreams of killing her pupil • Spanning the 1920s to the post-war years, this new selection brings Elizabeth Bowen's finest short stories together for the first time. Elegant and subtle, they showcase Bowen's ability to evoke ineffable emotions - grief, nostalgia, self-consciousness, dread - and combine remarkable psychological insight with vivid settings, from the countryside of Bowen's native Ireland to the streets of her London home after the Blitz • Encompassing characters from many walks of life and a vast array of moods, these are intricate journeys of domesticity and discovery, of the homely and uncanny, of the mind and body

A girl shares her secret den. A couple stroll through a ruined city. A man walks into a ladies' hat shop. A teacher dreams of killing her pupil • Spanning the 1920s to the post-war years, this new selection brings Elizabeth Bowen's finest short stories together for the first time. Elegant and subtle, they showcase Bowen's ability to evoke ineffable emotions - grief, nostalgia, self-consciousness, dread - and combine remarkable psychological insight with vivid settings, from the countryside of Bowen's native Ireland to the streets of her London home after the Blitz • Encompassing characters from many walks of life and a vast array of moods, these are intricate journeys of domesticity and discovery, of the homely and uncanny, of the mind and body

Эдгар Аллан По был необычайно талантливым писателем. Его рассказ «Убийство на улице Морг» стал одной из первых детективных историй в литературе, а его тяга к поиску странностей человеческой натуры послужила вдохновением для многих видных людей, от Фрейда до Хичкока • В этот сборник вошли лучшие рассказы и новеллы Эдгара Аллана По, включая такие произведения, как «Колодец и маятник» и «Сердце-обличитель», а также некоторые скрытые бриллианты его творчества, полные интриги и напряжения • «Selected Stories», сборник избранных рассказов культового американского автора Эдгара Аллана По, станет отличным подарком для ценителей жанра хоррор • Книга на английском языке • Edgar Allan Рое was a writer of uncommon talent; in 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' he created the genre of detective fiction while his genius for finding the strangeness lurking within us all has been an influence on everyone from Freud to Hitchcock

Dublin, 1907. A young actress begins an affair with a damaged older man, the leading playwright at the theatre where she works • Outspoken and flirtatious, Molly Allgood is a Catholic girl from the slums of Dublin, dreaming of stardom in America. Her lover, John Synge, is a troubled genius, whose life is hampered by convention and by the austere and God-fearing mother with whom he lives. Their affair, sternly opposed by friends and family, is quarrelsome, affectionate and tender • Many years later, Molly, now a poverty-stricken old woman, makes her way through London's bomb-scarred city streets, alone but for a snowdrift of memories. Her once dazzling career has faded but her unquenchable passion for life has kept her afloat

Richard Yates was acclaimed as one of the most powerful, compassionate and accomplished writers of America's post-war generation. Whether addressing the smothered desire of suburban housewives, the white-collar despair of Manhattan office workers or the heartbreak of a single mother with artistic pretensions, Yates ruthlessly examines the hopes and disappointments of ordinary people with empathy and humour