Mrs Molesworth's Ghost Stories

Unlike most ghost story writers, Mary Louisa Molesworth does not want to make you wake up screaming in the middle of the night. You may wake up with a shiver, but you'll also wake wake up feeling thoughtful, musing on how the mysteries of love, compassion, and memory can extend themselves into the realm of the supernatural.

In this set of "Uncanny Tales," Mary Louisa Molesworth deftly makes us feel the shiver of ghostly mystery without actually giving us a ghost! Or, to put it another way, she's interested in a different kind of ghostly presence. In "The Man with the Cough", it is the ghostly presence of a secret agent, and the ghostly experience of events that seem like a dream, but have real-world consequences. In "Halfway Between the Stiles", it is the ghostly presence of old memories of love that will not die away, and again, the real world responds. In "Will Not Take Place", it is a man who almost becomes a ghost.