I write ghost stories and bow down... Edith Wharton is the queen of the macabre and understated. ( )

I seem to love all things Wharton, but I must say she outdoes herself with these strange and eerie tales of ghostly happenings. They are all quite well done, but there are a few that are beyond excellent. What makes most of them work is the lack of surety that they could not all be explained away with a little logical and clear thinking. Of course, here in the real world, that is how ghostly encounters always are, inexplicable phenomena or explained away--and those of us who have them are never truly sure what we have seen, and doubt our own senses.

The Lady’s Maid’s Bell gets one immediately into the gothic feel and atmosphere that carries over into all the other stories. Perhaps my least favorite, but still, very well done.

The Eyes This made me think of Poe’s Tell Tale Heart and the way the narrator there feels the old man staring at him, for this is a tale more about what is going on internally than externally.

Afterward Really loved this one, perhaps because the setting was so well pictured that I felt as if I were inside this story participating. There is a building sense of doom approaching that begins with a chance comment from a minor character and intensifies as soon as the main action of the story begins. This is a true ghost story, in that I never asked myself if the ghost was real.

Kerfol This is an very atypical ghost tale; the ghost is not human. Enough said, but another tale that is fraught with the gothic setting and mood.

The Triumph of Night What if you could see what no one else in the room saw and it spelled doom for someone else? What would you do? Wharton deals with that situation with a bit of mystery and a touch of terror.

Miss Mary Pask This one almost felt more lighthearted to me, as it was more about perceptions than realities.

Bewitched My hands down favorite of the bunch; five-plus stars. This story put me in mind of the Salem Witch Trials because, while it operates on two levels, it might well just be about ignorance and a willingness to ascribe to the occult what is done by man. Superstition can be a very dangerous thing.

Mr. Jones The most straightforward of the tales, but set in a masterfully spooky environment.

Pomegranate Seed More than one new wife has been haunted by her predecessor, but few quite like this.

The Looking Glass A bit about vanity and creating ghosts. Liked the ending and the ambiguity it provided.

All Souls’ This one felt like a classic horror film--don’t open the door!

( )

Excellent stories by Edith Wharton–most of them are ghost stories or feature other supernatural events but a few are more realistic, although they tend to have an uncanny or hallucinatory atmosphere. Wharton’s dense prose is a highlight and made all the stories enjoyable – there weren’t really any bad ones, although “The Triumph of Night” seemed longer than necessary and “The Fulness of Life” was a somewhat strange way of addressing her unsatisfactory relationship with her husband.

Wharton tends to hint at things rather than outright showing them, especially in the first story, “The Lady’s Maid’s Bell”. This one is a classic haunted house story, as a new maid in an isolated country house sees her deceased predecessor and tries to decipher her messages. I have to admit that this one had me confused–I read it a couple times and then took to the Internet to see what everyone else thought of it. This story, along with “Kerfol” and “The Duchess at Prayer”, deals with adultery, and Wharton is highly sympathetic to possibly wayward wives. She shows the isolation and unhappiness of the wives, who have to endure their husbands leaving them for long periods of time (likely cheating themselves), and some relationships that cross over into abuse. Adultery on the male side is also a theme in “Bewitched” and “Pomegranate Seed”, although the supernatural events make these rather strange stories. Some of the other stories deal with the sad lot of various women–”Miss Mary Pask” is a lonely unmarried woman who is treated as an afterthought by her sister (this one managed to surprise me), “The Looking Glass” features an aging woman who becomes desperate as she loses her beauty, and “All Souls” is about an active, no-nonsense widow who has an eerie experience in her isolated house when she finds herself all alone. "Mr Jones" is another haunted house story, with the new owner of the house investigating the past and finding another horrible marriage. Even happy marriages are no protection: “Afterward” has a happily married woman moving to her dream house with her husband; she never pays attention to his business concerns, and eventually, some of his actions come to haunt them. Highly recommended. ( )

I've read some reviews which felt the need to defend Wharton for having "lowered" herself to the ghost-story genre. I don't feel that need. Her ghost stories are some of the best of her short stories, and are in a class with MR James, Algernon Blackwood, and other "classic" ghost story writers. ( )

If you like the quiet ghost stories of Henry James but could do without the run-on sentences that you have to scan three times before they become comprehensible, this collection is exactly what you're looking for. Edith Wharton was a writer of great depth and subtlety, but because she strove for clarity, she's also readable. Here you'll find masterpieces of atmosphere ("All Souls'") and of characterization ("The Triumph of Night"), as well as the occasional novelty ("Kerfol"); if you're anything like me, you'll gladly read each of them multiple times. My personal favorites are "Afterward" (generally considered Wharton's best ghost story) and "Pomegranate Seed." Laszlo Kubinyi's illustrations are eerily beautiful accompaniments to the tales.

Frankly, I've never understood why people are surprised that Wharton wrote ghost stories. Many authors of the first rank (Ivan Turgenev, D.H. Lawrence, F. Scott Fitzgerald) have engaged in at least a passing flirtation with the macabre, and for some--like James and Wharton--it was an abiding interest. The perception of ghost and horror stories as illegitimate or disreputable originated with small-minded literary critics, and can now be dispensed with. ( )