The Project Gutenberg eBook, Famous Modern Ghost Stories, by Various,
Edited by Emily Dorothy Scarborough

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Title: Famous Modern Ghost Stories

Author: Various

Release Date: February 22, 2005 [eBook #15143]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS MODERN GHOST STORIES***

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FAMOUS MODERN GHOST STORIES

Selected, with an Introduction by

DOROTHY SCARBOROUGH, PH.D.

Lecturer in English, Columbia University

Author of _The Supernatural In Modern English Fiction_, _Fugitive
Verses_, _From A Southern Porch_, etc. Compiler of _Humorous Ghost
Stories_

G.P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press

1921

To

ASHLEY HORACE THORNDIKE, LITT. D.

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

WHO GUIDED MY EARLIER STUDIES IN THE SUPERNATURAL

The Imperishable Ghost

INTRODUCTION

Ghosts are the true immortals, and the dead grow more alive all the
time. Wraiths have a greater vitality to-day than ever before. They are
far more numerous than at any time in the past, and people are more
interested in them. There are persons that claim to be acquainted with
specific spirits, to speak with them, to carry on correspondence with
them, and even some who insist that they are private secretaries to the
dead. Others of us mortals, more reserved, are content to keep such
distance as we may from even the shadow of a shade. But there's no
getting away from ghosts nowadays, for even if you shut your eyes to
them in actual life, you stumble over them in the books you read, you
see them on the stage and on the screen, and you hear them on the
lecture platform. Even a Lodge in any vast wilderness would have the
company of spirits. Man's love for the supernatural, which is one of the
most natural things about him, was never more marked than at present.
You may go a-ghosting in any company to-day, and all aspects of
literature, novels, short stories, poetry, and drama alike, reflect the
shadeless spirit. The late