Nazareth Hill (1996) is a mildly interesting
haunted house variation. Pacts of the Fathers(2001)
similarly reexamines the deal-with-the-devil plot.
Although his novels have moved toward psy-
chological horror, most of Campbell’s short fiction
involves the supernatural, and he is one of the few
contemporary writers still producing ghost stories
with any regularity. Almost all of his large output
of short stories are enjoyable, and some are excel-
lent. Among the best of these are “The Inhabitant
of the Lake” (1964), “THE CHIMNEY” (1977),
“Mackintosh Willy” (1980), the last two of which
won the World Fantasy Award, “The Faces at Pine
Dunes” (1980), “The Missed Connection” (1986),
and “Needing Ghosts” (1990). The best of his
many collections are Cold Print(1985), Scared Stiff
(1987), which contains several successful blends of
horror and eroticism, Fine Frights(1988), Waking
Nightmares(1991), Alone with the Horrors(1993),
and Ghosts and Grisly Things(2000). Alone With
the Horrorswon both the World Fantasy and Bram
Stoker Awards as best collection of the year. He is
also the author of Ramsey Campbell, Probably
(2002), a collection of essays and columns he has
written on various subjects within the horror
genre. He coedited several volumes of the “Best
New Horror” series of reprint anthologies with
Stephen Jones during the early 1990s as well as
two volumes of the “New Terrors” series in 1980,
and the shared universe horror anthology, Death-
port,in 1993.
The Canterville Ghost Oscar Wilde(1887)
In addition to writing one of the greatest classics of
horror fiction, THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
(1891), Oscar Wilde wrote a considerable body of
short fantasy, almost all for younger readers and
much of it collected in The Happy Prince and Other
Stories(1888). His most famous work in that vein
is this humorous ghost story, actually a short novel,
which places a very traditional English ghost at the
mercy of the extremely pragmatic new residents of
the stately home to which he is bound. Rather
than running in terror when he attempts to scare
them off, they are fascinated by his existence and
his antics, and eventually the living and dead find
common cause thanks in part to the innocence
and openness of the children. For the first time it
appears that there is hope that the curse might be
lifted.
The original short novel has been filmed sev-
eral times, although almost always in different set-
tings. The details of the plot have also varied
considerably, but the basic situation has been pre-
served in all of them. After many generations of his
descendants have been scared out of Canterville
Castle by the cursed ghost, his solitude is disturbed
by an American branch of the family who are not
so easily run off, either new tenants or temporary
visitors, who eventually learn his secret and find a
way to release him. The partnership between the
living and an agreeable if somewhat gruff ghost has
been imitated many times since, almost always in
the form of comedy, as in Topper(1926) by Thorne
SMITHand The Ghost and Mrs. Muir(1968) by
Alice Denham, both of which also were eventually
made into motion pictures. Ghost stories had tra-
ditionally been grim, and even the relatively
benevolent ghosts of A CHRISTMAS CAROL(1843)
by Charles Dickens were rather daunting. Wilde’s
short novel was a reaction against the tradition of
Gothic horror that was prevalent at the time but
which was soon to give way to more diverse forms
of horror fiction. The marriage of humor and the
supernatural has rarely worked well, but Wilde
proved that it was possible to blend the two and
still produce a masterpiece.CarmillaJ. Sheridan Le Fanu(1871)
Although the Irish newspaper publisher J. Sheridan
LE FANUwrote several supernatural short stories
and more than a dozen nonfantastic novels, he is
best remembered for Carmilla,one of the earliest
books about vampires and the first to hint openly
at a link between vampirism and lesbianism. Le
Fanu employed Bram STOKERas a theater reviewer
from time to time, and he was obviously a strong
influence on Stoker’s creation of DRACULAseveral
years later.
Laura is a dignified, somewhat retiring young
woman living on the family estate in Styria. The
family is hosting young Carmilla, a beautiful but
mysterious girl who was slightly injured in an acci-
dent and who seems particularly fond of Laura. As46 The Canterville Ghost