An Adventure Near Granville Scary Short Story by George Soane

 

An Adventure Near Granville is one of the best ghost stories you have never read and it weighs in at spot 31 in my review of the Top 40 scary stories from 1800-1849. It was published in George Soane's (1789-1860) collection of short stories The Last Ball and Other Stories in 1843. "An Adventure Near Granville" (more aptly titled "A Horror Near Granville") is a warning for anyone moving into a foreign old house. I hope you enjoy it.

When considering scary ghost stories, I am convinced that George Soane is one of the most underrated ghost writers for the first half of the nineteenth century. Who on earth is George Soane? He was the son of the famous English architect, John Soane (1753-1837). George was the black sheep of the family. Much like Edgar Allan Poe, he shunned business and followed the arts. His family disowned him as a result. Yet George turned out to be an excellent short story writer. I picked his "Lucy Ellis" (also called "The Lighthouse") as one of the top dozen horror stories in The Best Horror Short Stories 1800-1849: A Classic Horror Anthology. Any of his stories in The Last Ball is worth your time.

#ScaryShortStories #GeorgeSoane #oldhousestory #AdventureNearGranville #scarystories

Part II of The Best Horror Short Stories Interview by Andrew Barger

This is part II of the ten question  interview I did for The Best Horror Short Stories 1800-1849: A Classic Horror Anthology. I hope you find it interesting.

Q6: Did you find any obscure horror story from these periodicals that made your list of the best horror stories? Sort of a one-hit wonder?

A6: There is one unknown horror story: The Lighthouse by George Soane. I included it in the collection. It is the best lighthouse horror story to come out of this period. I say this knowing that Poe never got a chance to finish his horror story titled The Lighthouse. George Soane, the son of the famous architect John Soane, is the most underrated writer of short horror stories to come out of this fifty year period. He is not a one-hit wonder.

Q7: Edgar Allan Poe wrote his horror short stories during this time period and you edited Edgar Allan Poe Annotated and Illustrated Entire Stories and Poems. How many of his made the list?

A7: Four. It my view he penned one third of the best horror short stories from 1800-1849. That is amazing. 

Q8: How many horror stories are in the book?

A8: Twelve: The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar by Edgar Allan Poe; The Severed Hand by Wilhelm Hauff; The Thunder-Struck and the Boxer by Samuel Warren; The Deserted House by Ernst T. A. Hoffmann; The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe; El Verdugo (The Executioner) by Honoré de Balzac; The Minister’s Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne; The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe; The Mysterious Mansion by Honoré de Balzac; The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe; The Old Man’s Tale About the Queer Client by Charles Dickens; and The Lighthouse by George Soane.

Q9: What is your favorite horror story from the anthology?

A9: That’s tough. They are all great in their own devious ways. If I have to pick, I would say The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe. The story has some of Poe's best character generation and is rife with fear. The horror story builds to a crescendo and still maintains a high literary quality. The writing is top notch. For this period it is tough to top this story on almost any level.

Q10: Where can a person buy this book assuming they want to be scared out of their mind?

A10: The best place to start is by clicking on this best horror short stories path to the book’s page on my Website where I provide links to buy the book (or ebook) online. It can be purchased at all major online retailers including The Best Horror Short Stories 1800-1849 at Amazon.com and The Best Horror Short Stories 1800-1849 at Barnes & Noble.

Andrew's Thoughts on the Scary Short Story A Scots Mummy by James Hogg

A Scots Mummy first appeared in the August 1823 issue of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Questions remain as to how much of the scary short story was fact and how much was fiction--or at least Hogg's exaggeration of the truth. "A  Scots Mummy" is based on the suicide of a boy in Scotland. When Hogg sent it to William Blackwood for consideration in the magazine in a letter dated August 7th, he called it "a curious incident that has excited great interest . . .." James Hogg, like Edgar Allan Poe and others of this period, were no strangers to literary hoaxes. Some believe that the event of the story never happened and was a figment of Hogg's imagination. Evidence of this is the shepard who appears in the horror story and is supposed to be Hogg (the Ettrick Sheppard) himself. He would later publish "A Scots Mummy" in the pages of his novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. As further evidence consider the described fashion in which the suicide hangs himself:

[T]he unfortunate young man had hanged himself after the man with the lambs came in view. He was, however, quite dead when he cut him down. He had fastened two of the old hay ropes at the bottom of the rick on one side, (indeed they are all fastened so when first laid on,) so that he had nothing to do but to loosen two of the ends on the other side; and these he tied in a knot round his neck, and then, slackening his knees, and letting himself lean down gradually till the hay rope bore all his weight, he contrived to put an end to his existence in that way. Now the fact is, that if you try all the ropes that are thrown over all the outfield hay ricks in Scotland, there is not one among a thousand of them will hang a colley dog—so that the manner of this wretch's death was rather a singular circumstance.

One hundred and five years later, when the suicide is dug up, his body is almost perfectly preserved. The lack of gruesomeness in the corpse is somehow gruesome in itself. Hogg published "A Scots Mummy" at the time when reanimation was taking center stage on the Gothic-romantic literary scene. The only fault of this story is that it lacks a certain complexity that would have placed it higher on my countdown of the best scary shortsstories from 1800-1849.

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The 20th Best Scary Short Story 1800-1849 is A Scots Mummy by James Hogg

This is a link to A Scots Mummy by James Hogg. I have picked it as the 20th best scary short story for the first half of the nineteenth century. Enjoy!

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Author of the 20th Best Scary Short Story 1800-1849 is James Hogg

James Hogg (1770-1835) is no stranger to this countdown of the Top 40 scary short stories for the first half of the nineteenth century. He appeared at week 32 with his excellent scary story titled The Fords of Callum. Tomorrow I will post a link to an even better tale by the Ettrick Shepard.

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List of Scary Short Stories 40 Thru 21 from 1800-1849

Below is a rundown of scary short stories 40 through 21 that I have posted so far in my countdown of the Top 40 scary short stories from 1800 to 1849. You will notice some familiar names and some that may be new. With so many fine scary short stories that have appeared on the countdown already, it is hard to believe that much better ones await. I will start early next week with a post of the 20 best scary short story from 1800-1849. If you want to read any of these stories, simply scroll back through my blog. Have a great weekend!

40.     1839 Running the Gauntlet by Anonymous

39.     1823 The Mutiny by William Harrison Ainsworth

38.     1836 The Wedding Knell by Nathaniel Hawthorne

37.     1842 Ben Blower's Story; or How to Relish a Julep by Charles Feno Hoffman

36.     1827 The Bohemian by Anonymous

35.     1831 Singular Passage in the Life of the Late Henry Harris, Doctor in Divinity by Richard Harris Barham

34.     1830 Confessions of a Reformed Ribbonman by William Carleton

33.     1820 The Field of Terror by Baron Friedrich Heinrich Karl De la Motte Fouquâe

32.     1837 Cousin Mattie by James Hogg

31.     1844 Rappaccini’s Daughter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

30.     1821  The Man in the Bell by William Maginn

29.     1836 The Legend of the Bell Rock by Captain Frederick Marryat

28.     1849 Hop-Frog by Edgar Allan Poe

27.     1832 Gabriel Lindsay by William Mudford

26.     1835 The Fiery Vault by Reithra

25.     1837 The Involuntary Experimentalist by Samuel Ferguson

24.     1831 The Lonely Man of the Ocean by Anonymous

23.     1843 Ko-rea-ran-neh-neh; or, The Flying Head by Charles Feno Hoffman

22.     1846 The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe

21.     1837 Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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