Temptation with the FF button

[Luciaphile]

Yes, Luciaphil.....if you're referring to his ghost stories.  I haven't read the "Mapp and Lucia" novels.

I have the 1992 Carol and Graf publication of "The Collected Ghost Stories" (in paperback, edited by Richard Dalby).  I've read it through several times in the last 10 years....all 600 plus pages of it....the stories are so perfectly crafted for effect!

Should I begin searching for the "Mapp and Lucia" novels?

Rainey

Well, I may be somewhat biased (the Mapp and Lucia novels would be from where I take my handle), but I personally love them--not a lot of plot, in fact very little, but great characters, and very, very, funny.

The ghost stories are wonderful too, very creepy.  He wrote quite a few of them and I don't know how many are in your anthology, so if you liked those, you might want to go hunting for the others.

Luciaphil

[Raineypark]

Thanks Luciaphil.....

I can't imagine (now) how I never recognized E.F. Benson's name in your signature!!!?

This anthology includes all the works he published in his four collections of ghost stories (54 of them) plus an essay he wrote on the Clonmell Witch-Burning ( a true incident in Ireland in which the family and neighbors of a young woman tortured her to death in order to drive out an "evil spirit").  

Mr. Benson's essay prompted the Crown prosecutor to reduce the charges from murder to man-slaughter because he argued the relevance of their pagan beliefs so successfully. Quite the writer indeed!!

I shall now make on-line inquiries into the availability of the "Mapp and Lucia" novels!

The rest of you DS Fans who happen to love a good old-fashioned ghost story (the kind that requires a fine-tuned imagination) should look up Mr. Benson's works.  

Rainey

[hooked]

Deron that would be like throwing grandma down the stairs everytime she tells you the story you have heard for the tenth time!  Be nice and find something else to appreciate in the story and be good to grandma AND Dark Shadows.