>>891Only read two stories by Swain, I think,
The Man With the Roller, which was covered on A Podcast to the Curious, and
Bone to His Bone. The first was too much like James' story
The Mezzotint, but without the weird ghostly figure and a rather blant climax.
After James I think I have enjoyed Benson & Malden's ghost stories the most. Malden in particular is very close to James in tone, subjects and climax. Benson has some very fine stories as well, though he has written so many stories you are found to come across some bland ones as well.
I would recommend seven of Malden's ghost stories;
The Coxswain of the Lifeboat &
The Priest's Brass did nothing for me, but the other stories are great. In particular I enjoyed
The Dining-room Fireplace &
The Sundial.
As for Benson, I would probably rate these the highest:
The Room in the Tower,
Caterpillars,
The Thing in the Hall,
The Outcast,
Negotium Perambulans,
"And No Bird Sing",
The Temple &
The Sanctuary.
Not typically associated with the typical ghost story, but John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, wrote some eerie weird stories as well, and H. P. Lovecraft spoke highly of these in his essay
Supernatural Horror in Literature:
<In the novel Witch Wood John Buchan depicts with tremendous force a survival of the evil Sabbat in a lonely district of Scotland. The description of the black forest with the evil stone, and of the terrible cosmic adumbrations when the horror is finally extripated, will repay one for wading though the very gradual action and plenthora of Scottish dialect. Some of Mr. Buchan's short stories are also very vivid in their spectral intimations; "The Green Wildebeest", a tale of African witchcraft, "The Wind in the Portico", with its awakening of dead Britanno-Roman horrors, and "Skule Skerry", with its touches of sub-arctic fright, being especially remarkable.The Wind in the Portico: http://archive.vn/8KTgl#c04 /
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