MASTERPIECES OF MYSTERY

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NOTE

The Editor desires especially to acknowledge assistance in granting theuse of original material, and for helpful advice and suggestion, toProfessor Brander Matthews of Columbia University, to Mrs. AnnaKatherine Green Rohlfs, to Cleveland Moffett, to Arthur Reeve, creatorof "Craig Kennedy," to Wilbur Daniel Steele, to Ralph Adams Cram, toChester Bailey Fernald, to Brian Brown, to Mrs. Lillian M. Robins of thepublisher's office, and to Charles E. Farrington of the Brooklyn Public[Pg vi]Library.

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FOREWORD

The ghost story is as old as human speech,—and perhaps even antedatesit. A naïve acceptance of the supernatural was unquestionably one of theprimal attributes of human intelligence. The ghost story may thus quiteconceivably be the first form of tale ever invented. It makes itsappearance comparatively early in the annals of literature. Who that hasread it is likely to forget Pliny's account in a letter to an intimateof an apparition shortly after death to a mutual acquaintance? Old booksof tales and legends are full of the ghost story. It has persistedthroughout the ages. It began to attain some real standing inliterature,—to take its definite place,—a little more than a centuryago. Like the apparition it embodies it had always been—and is stillto-day even—more or less discredited. Mrs. Radcliffe gave it a newbeing and even a certain dignity in her "Castle of Otranto"; and afterher came Sir Walter Scott who frankly surrendered to the power and charmof the theme. The line of succession has been continuous. The ghost hasheld his own with his human fellow in fiction, and his tale has been[Pg viii]told with increasing skill as the art of the writer has developed.To-day the case for the ghost as an element in fiction is an exceedinglystrong one. There has indeed sprung into being within a couple ofdecades a new school of such writers. Nowadays almost every fictionistof account produces one good thriller at least of this sort. Thetemptation is irresistible for the simple reason that the theme imposesabsolutely no limit on the imagination.

The reader will find here a careful selection illustrating the growth inart of this exotic in literature during the past fifty years, and for acontrast, spanning the centuries, the naïve narration of Pliny theYounger.

Joseph Lewis French.

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CONTENTS