The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

RINGING IN THE GOOD NEWS

Peter Ackroyd

7. HAUNTING TIMES: Tales of Unease

SMOKE GHOST

Fritz Leiber

THE GHOST

A. E. Van Vogt

THE PARTY

William F. Nolan

UNDERGROUND

J. B. Priestley

HAUNTED

Joyce Carol Oates

VIDEO NASTY

Philip Pullman

MY BEAUTIFUL HOUSE

Louis de Bernieres

APPENDIX: A Century of Ghost Novels 1900–2000

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgment is made to the following authors, agents and publishers for permission to reprint the stories in this collection.

“Ringing in the Good News” by Peter Ackroyd © 1985. Originally published in The Times, 24 December 1985. Reprinted by permission of Sheil Land Associates Ltd.

“Who or What was It?” by Kingsley Amis © 1972. Originally published in Playboy magazine, November 1972. Reprinted by permission of PFD.

“A Gremlin in the Beer” by Derek Barnes © 1942. Originally published in The Spectator, June 1942 and reprinted by permission of the magazine.

“The Light in the Garden” by E. F. Benson © 1921. Originally published in Eve, December 1921. Reprinted by permission of the Executors of K. S. P. MacDowall.

“Vengeance is Mine” by Algernon Blackwood © 1921. Originally published in Wolves of God, 1921. Reprinted by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd.

“Pink May” by Elizabeth Bowen © 1945. Originally published in The Demon Lover, 1945. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd.

“The Prescription” by Marjorie Bowen © 1928. Originally published in the London Magazine, December 1928. Reprinted by permission of the Penguin Group.

“Another Fine Mess” by Ray Bradbury © 1995. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1995. Reprinted by permission of Abner Stein.

“My Beautiful House” by Louis de Bernieres © 2004. Originally published in The Times, 18 December 2004. Reprinted by permission of Lavinia Trevor Agency.

“The Pool” by Daphne du Maurier © 1959. Originally published in Breaking Point, 1959. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd.

“The Punishment” by Lord Dunsany © 1918. Originally published in Tales of War, 1918. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd.

“A Spot of Gothic” by Jane Gardam © 1980. Originally published in The Sidmouth Letters, 1980. Reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates.

“The Everlasting Club” by Arthur Gray © 1919. Originally published in Tedious Brief Tales of Granta and Gramarye, 1919. Reprinted by permission of W. Heffer & Sons.

“Money for Jam” by Alec Guinness © 1945. Originally published in Penguin New Writing, 1945 and reprinted by permission of Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson.

“South Sea Bubble” by Hammond Innes © 1973. Originally published in Punch magazine, December 1973. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Ralph Hammond Innes.

“Sir Tristram Goes West” by Eric Keown © 1935. Originally published in Punch magazine, May 1935. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Eric Keown.

“Smoke Ghost” by Fritz Leiber © 1941. Originally published in Unknown Worlds, October 1941. Reprinted by permission of Arkham House.

“The Duenna” by Marie Belloc Lowndes © 1926. Originally published in The Ghost Book, 1926. Reprinted by permission of the Executors of M. B. Lowndes.

“The Bowmen” by Arthur Machen © 1914. Originally published in London Evening News, 29 September, 1914. Reprinted by permission of A. M. Heath Ltd.

“A Man From Glasgow” by Somerset Maugham © 1944. Originally published in Creatures of Circumstance, 1944. Reprinted by permission of William Heinemann.

“The Ghost of U65” by George Minto © 1962. Originally published in Blackwood’s Magazine, July 1962. Reprinted by permission of William Blackwood & Sons.

“Number Seventy-Nine” by A. N. L. Munby © 1949. Originally published in The Alabaster Hand, 1949. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of A. N. L. Munby.

“A Visit to the Museum” by Vladimir Nabokov © 1963. Reprinted by permission of Esquire Publications Inc.

“The Party” by William F. Nolan © 1967. Originally published in Playboy, April 1967. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Haunted” by Joyce Carol Oates © 1987. Originally published in The Architecture of Fear, 1987. Reprinted by permission of Sara Menguc Literary Agency.

“Underground” by J. B. Priestley © 1974. Originally published in Collected Stories of J. B. Priestley, 1974. Reprinted by permission of PFD.

“Video Nasty” by Philip Pullman © 1985. Originally published in Cold Feet, 1985. Reprinted by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd.

“Christmas Honeymoon” by Howard Spring © 1940. Originally published in the London Evening Standard, December 1940. Reprinted by permission of PFD.

“The Richpins” by E. G. Swain © 1912. Originally published in The Stoneground Ghost Tales, 1912. Reprinted by permission of W. Heffer & Sons.

“The Night the Ghost Got In” by James Thurber © 1933. Originally published in the New Yorker, September 1933. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of James Thurber.

“The Inexperienced Ghost” by H. G. Wells © 1902. Originally published in the Strand magazine, March 1902. Reprinted by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd.

“The Ghost” by A. E. Van Vogt © 1942. Originally published in Unknown Worlds, October 1942. Reprinted by permission of Forrest J. Ackerman.

“Clytie” by Eudora Welty © 1941. Originally published in The Southern Review, Number 7, 1941. Reprinted by permission of the Penguin Group.

“The Haunted Chateau” by Dennis Wheatley © 1943. Originally published in Gunmen, Gallants and Ghosts, 1943. Reprinted by permission of Hutchinson Publishers and the Estate of Dennis Wheatley.

“Full Fathom Five” by Alexander Woollcott © 1938. Originally published in the New Yorker, October 1938. Reprinted by permission of the New Yorker.