Ghosts of Christmas Past

While it would be difficult to pinpoint the birth of Victorian interest in the supernatural, one could make a case for 1823, and Edgar Taylor's first English language translation of Grimm's Fairy Tales. These stories inspired the fairy and fantasy stories of Charles Kingsley, Christina Rossetti and Lewis Carroll. Charles Dickens wrote arguably the most famous Christmas ghost story, A Christmas Carol (1843), and the Christmas fairy story, The Cricket on the Hearth (1846), intended to be read aloud on cold winter evenings.

M. R. James began writing his ghostly tales as stories to be read to friends on Christmas Eve. The frame story in Henry James' The Turn of the Screw finds friends sitting around the hearth on Christmas Eve, and the classic carol "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" includes the line "There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago."

As with M.R. James, Canadian author Robertson Davies (Fifth Business) began writing ghostly tales to be read aloud at Christmas.

"Although I have read tales of ghosts and the Supernatural eagerly all my life, I never thought of writing one until I went to Massey College in the University of Toronto, in 1963. The college had a Christmas party for all its members and their friends, and some sort of entertainment was needed. There were lots of gifted people to call on - poets and musicians - but I was expected to make a contribution, and I decided on a ghost story...For eighteen years I was at the college a story was called for every Christmas..."


Robertson Davies collected these tales in High Spirits: A Collection of Ghost Stories (1982), "in the hope that other enthusiasts for this sort of tale will enjoy them."

In honor of Davies, James, Dickens and all who have contributed ghosts to Christmases past, I've listed a few of my favorite short stories and collections - tales I would highly recommend this Christmas Eve, whether before the hearth or beneath a warm blanket:

The Man in the Picture - Susan Hill
Curfew & Other Eerie Tales - Lucy M. Boston
Isis - Douglas Clegg
Mrs. Midnight and Other Stories - Reggie Oliver
A Warning to the Curious - M.R. James
Ghost Stories - Edited by Peter Washington
Hauntings: Tales of the Supernatural - Edited by Henry Mazzeo
The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories - Edited by Michael Cox & R.A. Gilbert
The Virago Book of Ghost Stories - Edited by Richard Dalby
The Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood - Edited by E.F. Bleiler

And for a collection of truly brilliant tales, my personal favorite is The Bleeding Horse and Other Ghost Stories by Brian J. Showers. This book demonstrates precisely how ghost stories should be told.

However it began, wherever it began, the telling of ghostly tales at Christmas is a wonderful tradition, one worth adopting (if you haven't already). I wish each and every one of you a merry Christmas!