Essays20 September 2026
On reading ghost stories in winter
Why the long nights are made for stories told round the fire, and five to start with.
There is a reason The Turn of the Screw opens on Christmas Eve, with a circle of listeners round the fire. Ghost stories are a winter form: they need the dark outside the window.
- The Turn of the Screw, Henry James
- Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
- Carmilla, J. Sheridan Le Fanu
- The Raven and Other Poems, Edgar Allan Poe
- Goblin Market, Christina Rossetti