Wandering Ghosts

Crawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion), 1854-1909Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.9

Word count: 357K words
Chapters: 36

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Wandering Ghosts by F. Marion CrawfordAuthor: Crawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion), 1854-1909,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Aug 1, 2012

Editor's review

Wandering Ghosts is a collection of supernatural short stories in English by F. Marion Crawford, a public-domain eBook. Crawford excels at building atmosphere with an unhurried narrative pace, relying not on gore or sudden twists but on unease that slowly accumulates in everyday settings; the stories center on supernatural encounters and carry the flavor of late nineteenth-century Gothic fiction. Its value lies in experiencing the narrative techniques of early ghost stories: restrained point of view, dense environmental description, and suspense advanced through omission. For writers, it is a model for building atmosphere; for general readers, it suits slow reading story by story at night or in quiet hours, savoring the lingering resonance of old-fashioned tales. Note that this is the original English edition, with language that feels dated, and the stories vary in quality and length, so read by interest rather than forcing yourself through all of them.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English readers who enjoy late nineteenth-century Gothic and supernatural short stories
Writers interested in techniques of atmosphere and suspense through omission
Advanced learners needing short English texts for segmented reading
Readers who enjoy public-domain classic ghost stories and savor slow, careful reading

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer fast-paced modern horror and strong shocks
Beginners still struggling with English who are unused to nineteenth-century style
Readers expecting a long continuous plot rather than standalone stories

Reading tips

Read one or two stories first to confirm you can adapt to the old-fashioned narrative pace before continuing.
After each story, note in two or three sentences how the atmosphere was built and where the suspense resolved.
Don't look up every unfamiliar word; read through for the plot first, then revisit key passages.
Read at night or in a quiet setting to more easily enter the mood the stories create.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or English? How demanding is it?

This is the original English edition, a public-domain eBook. The language carries late nineteenth-century habits of expression, with long sentences and much description, suitable for those with some foundation in English reading. If you read little English, try a short story first with dictionary tools; you need not grasp every detail at once.

Are the stories connected? Must they be read in order?

This is a collection of supernatural short stories, each relatively independent with no continuous plot that must be followed. You can start with any story and choose by interest; to sense changes in the author's style, you may read in table-of-contents order, but order does not affect understanding.

How frightening are the stories? Are they suitable for bedtime reading?

The horror comes mainly from atmosphere and suggestion rather than gore, with the overall chilling resonance of old-fashioned ghost stories. Whether it suits bedtime reading varies: those sensitive to horror may feel uneasy afterward and should read in daytime; readers used to such material can enjoy the slowly accumulating unease.

Comments

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About the author

Crawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion), 1854-1909 Author

F. Marion Crawford (Francis Marion Crawford, 1854–1909) was a notably prolific English-language novelist. The library holds 46 of his works, spanning a wide range of subjects: long novels set in Italy, such as Saracinesca, Greifenstein and Fair Margaret: A Portrait; the two-volume Ave Roma Immortalis, which portrays the history and monuments of Rome; the Arabian tale Khaled, A Tale of Arabia; and atmospheric ghost stories including The Upper Berth and Wandering Ghosts. These works show a writer skilled at evoking foreign and historical settings, with clear narrative structure and steady plotting, accomplished both in popular long fiction and in tales of the strange. His supernatural stories in particular have been favored by later anthologies and have had some influence on the English ghost-story tradition. Because public information is limited, biographical details are not elaborated here; the outline above rests on the works in the library's holdings.