Synopses & Reviews
As a genre, children's ghost writing is a relative newcomer to the literary field. While children's literature has flourished for over 200 years, supernatural fiction for the young has really only come into its own in the twentieth century.
Dread and Delight, a spine-tingling collection of 40 ghost stories written for children over the course of the present century, charts its development from its roots in the writings of authors such as M. R. James, A. C. Benson and Walter de la Mare, to renowned modern authors including Isaac Bashevis Singer, Jan Mark, Leon Garfield, and Penelope Lively.
Compiled by the award-winning novelist Phillipa Pearce, author of the classic children's book Tom's Midnight Garden, these stories will captivate adults and children alike. Pearce includes two previously unpublished stories by Lucy Boston and Robert Westall, and a full introduction and lively notes on the authors. The collected stories represent an engaging variety--drawn from all over the English-speaking world, including America, India, and the Caribbean as well as Great Britain. Treating the supernatural with humor and whimsy, as well as with a proper respect, the tales all succeed brilliantly in creating an atmosphere of suspense or unease in order to produce the pleasurable tingle of anticipation that children relish as much as adults. As Phillip Pearce writes in her introduction, 'fear becomes awe and wonder...the delight is in the dread'.
About the Author
About the Editor: Philippa Pearce is the author of numerous influential children's books--several of which have been broadcast on television and radio. Her best-known include Tom's Midnight Garden (which won the Carnegie Medal in 1958), Minnow in the Say, The Shadow Cage and other Tales of the Supernatural and Who's Afraid?.
Table of Contents
A School Story, M. R. James
Out of the Sea, A. C. Benson
Manfred's Three Wishes, H. F. W. Tatham
The Light in the Dormitory, William J. Wintle
Miss Jemima, Walter de la Mare
Johnny Double, Arthur Machen
Elsie Piddock Skips on her Sleep, Eleanor Farjeon
The Tiger-Skin Rug, Lucy Boston
Elisabeth the Cow Ghost, William Pene du Bois
Georgie, Robert Bright
All in the Night's Work, David Severn
Richard, Christopher Woodforde
The Wee Ghostie, Alison Uttley
The Haunted Trailer, Robert Arthur
The House that Lacked a Bogle, Sorche Nic Leodhas
The January Queen, Pamela Ropner
Brownie, R. Chetwynd-Hayes
The Ghost of Top Wood, Michael Kenyon
The Old White Ghost and the Old Grey Grandad, Dorothy Edwards
Looking for a Ghost, Margaret Mahy
At the River-Gates, Philippa Pearce
Sombody lives in the Nobody House, Ruth Park
The Ghostly Goat of Glaramara, J. S. Leatherbarrow
She was Afraid of Upstairs, Joan Aiken
The Extinguished Lights, Isaac Bashevis Singer
Who's a Pretty Boy, Then?, Jan Mark
Uninvited Ghosts, Penelope Lively
The Bride, Farrukh Dhondy
Ivor, George Mackay Brown
Siren Song, Vivien Alcock
The Tower, Adidan Chambers
The Guitarist, Grace Hallworth
A Grave Misunderstanding, Leon Garfield
Ghost Trouble, Ruskin Bond
Spirits of the Railway, Paul Yee
Many Happy Returns!, Barbara Griffiths
The Beach, Robert Westall
Across the Fields, Susan Price
The Clearing, Tim Wynne-Jones
The Burning Baby, John Gordon