The 3rd Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories

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There are perhaps two good reasons for selecting a ghost story to read; though several bad ones, of which the worst is the quest for a sadistic thrill, something that is better sought in a daily newspaper.

The first good reason is the need we all must feel for some degree of reconciliation with death. The second is vaguer but more continuously present in the consciousness of most of us: the need to escape, at least occasionally, from a mechanistic world, ever more definable, ever more predictable, and, therefore, ever more unsatisfying and frustrating. As an antidote to daily living in a compulsorily egalitarian society, a good ghost story, against all appearances, can bring real joy. The reader may actually depart from it singing.

In the Introduction to the first “Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories,” I remarked that the successful ghost story is akin to poetry and seems to emerge from the same strata of the unconscious. I reminded the reader of these things in the Introduction to the second collection, and now venture to do so once more, because this affinity and this origin are at the heart of ghost story writing, reading, choice, and criticism. The successful ghost story does not close a door and leave inside it still another definition, a still further solution. On the contrary, it must open a door, preferably where no one had previously noticed a door to exist; and, at the end, leave it open, or, possibly, ajar. A door ajar is often, of course, more teasing to the imagination (“worse,” as children put it) than a door wide open.

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