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They return at evening : $b A book of ghost stories
- Language
- EN
- Format
- EPUB
- Size
- 796 KB
Description
Set in England during the early 20th century, Herbert Russell Wakefield's collection comprises ghost stories that focus on supernatural phenomena and moral complications. The stories feature characters such as a reclusive baronet, a loyal butler, and a perceptive barrister, each encountering unsettling occurrences rooted in domestic and social settings. The narratives depict situations where genteel appearances are gradually compromised by guilt, spectral manifestations, and other uncanny events, often linked to past actions or hidden secrets. The collection exemplifies the era's interest in psychological horror and the supernatural, blending elements of the Victorian ghost story tradition with modern sensibilities.
The stories are characterised by a restrained narrative style that emphasizes atmosphere and character psychology, reflecting the period's literary conventions. Themes include retribution, moral ambiguity, and the persistence of the past in the present. Wakefield's work is representative of early 20th-century British ghost fiction, highlighting the tension between civilisation and the supernatural, often set within familiar rural or urban environments.
The stories are characterised by a restrained narrative style that emphasizes atmosphere and character psychology, reflecting the period's literary conventions. Themes include retribution, moral ambiguity, and the persistence of the past in the present. Wakefield's work is representative of early 20th-century British ghost fiction, highlighting the tension between civilisation and the supernatural, often set within familiar rural or urban environments.
From the opening pages
with her beauty and her sexlessness and her unscrupulousness to get what she wanted from men and to keep her from ever repaying the debt. What a way to think about one’s wife! Humbug! There was no other way to think about her. No, there would be no co-respondent to encourage and supplicate! And I could do nothing, unless I refused to fill my fountain pen, and I could not do that, for I had only myself to blame, and I was ready to blame myself. At present I could see no hope. I lived a life of extreme asceticism, feeling feebly that by so doing I was defying and rejecting Ethel. Once I had been fool enough to regard women as mentally almost indistinguishable, and it had been merely by the physical criterion I had separated one from another in my mind. Now that I had been taught to despise the dangerous deceptiveness of eyes and breasts, colouring and curves and all those superficial stimulants which excite the featherless biped man to idealise the featherless biped woman, I realised what I should have known a year before—that I could only love someone with a mind I could respect. “What care I how fair she be, if she’s naught but fair to me?” Ethel came down at the end of October, her waist heavy with social scalps. A title had the same effect on her as the sound of a hunting horn on a pack of hounds. It gave her a delicious sense of excitement and well-being. When on one occasion she was addressed by a Minor Royalty for one thrilling moment, I believed she was about to die of joy. And, bitterly as she learned to loathe me, I am certain the fact she was loathing the current number of one of the oldest baronetcies in England gave her a soothing sense of social pride. I had been working very hard on a delicate and highly contentious section of my book, and was inclined to be irritable and “on edge.” Luckily at first Ethel was fairly amenable. For one thing, she had the Riviera to which to look forward, for another she was learning to ride, an art which she had been instructed was a necessary accomplishment for an English Gentlewoman. She learned quickly, and looked as nearly palatable as any Gentlewoman can when topped by a silk hat.…
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