This truly is a "Mammoth book of haunted house stories"......there's over 40 stories by some of the most well known in the genre.....689 pages. This includes a short story/poem by Ray Bradbury and Elizabeth Albright, a foreword by Hainan, and and an index.

The stories are broken into different sections...Avenging spirits, Shadowy corners, Phantom lovers, etc. Each story starts with a prospectus, as though you are viewing the real estate associated with each story....it contains info about the property, the date the story was published, and a short bio of the writer. I really enjoyed this aspect and found it entertaining. In the first section, Haunted places (fact and fiction), these stories are associated with actual real life properties and I enjoyed being able to look up each on the internet.

Theres a wide range of stories included from many time periods...the 1800s to modern....and a diverse range of story types.

The stories are mostly good....many great stories here, only a few duds....the rest are pretty good to decent. One of the stories included is Ghost Hunter by James Herbert, this is an excerpt from the book, which I've read and enjoyed seeing here. I've listed the standouts, in my opinion, below:

The considerate host: Thorp McClusky 5 🌟
The grey house: Basil Copper 5 🌟
Watching me, watching you : Fay Weldon 5 🌟
The house of the hatchet : Robert Bloch 5 🌟
The shadowy third: Ellen Glasgow 5 🌟
The boogeyman: Stephen King 5 🌟
Ghost hunt : H. Russell Wakefield 4 🌟
Feet foremost: L.P Hartley 4 🌟
The real and the counterfeit: Louisa Baldwin 4 🌟
A night at the cottage: Richard Hughes 4 🌟
Bagnell terrace: E.F. Benson 4 🌟
The companion: Joan Aiken 4 🌟
The storm: McKnight Malmar 4 🌟
The waxwork: A.M. Burrage 4 🌟

This is, without a doubt, one of the best books of shorts I've ever read. It's unusual for me to love this many stories in one compilation.

My one gripe....the section I was most looking forward to...Little terrors ( ghost and children....was the shortest section and had only one stand out.

I would definitely recommend this for anyone who loves short stories and/or ghost and haunted house stories. Beautifully done Peter Haining!! ( )

I love ghost stories. I particularly like haunted house stories. Hell House, The Canterville Ghost and The Shunned House being among my favorites. This is a great collection of haunted house stories. There are a few bad tales in here but they are easily out numbered by the well written stories. Really recommend this book. ( )

I am not a fan of short stories, but saw this in the library and thought I would try it. I enjoy spending a lot of time with characters. Having to learn new names and situations as the case when starting a new short story is not enjoyable to me. This book had four stories I would rate one star; 10 stories I would rate two and three stars (total 20); and then six stories I would rate four stars. I was not excited about the book and after six weeks there were four or five more short stories left. I returned the book to the library. Maybe I will get it again. The four star stories were Eavesdropping by Algernon Blackwood, Ghost Hunt by H. Russell Wakefield; Feet Foremost by L.P. Hartley; House Hatchet by Robert Block; The Patter of Tiny Feet by Nigel Kneale, and Playing with Fire by Sir Arthur Canon Doyle.
190 members; 3.58 average rating; 11/4/2016 ( )

From Amazon:

xpanded and with great new stories, this is the biggest and best anthology of ghostly hauntings ever. Over 40 tales of visitation by the undead - from vengeful and violent spirits, set on causing harm to innocent people tucked up in their homes, to rarer and more kindly ghosts, returning from the grave to reach out across the other side. Yet others entertain desires of a more sinister bent, including the erotic. This new edition includes a selection of favourite haunted house tales chosen by famous screen stars Boris Karloff, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Plus a top ranking list of contributors that includes Stephen King, Bram Stoker, Ruth Rendell, and James Herbert - all brought together by an anthologist who himself lives in a haunted house. Stories include: Something unspeakable lurks in a Connecticut apartment closet, in Stephen King's 'The Boogeyman'; An Irish castle holds something truly horrifying in wait, in 'The Whistling Room' by William Hope Hodgson; The lecherous old ghost of a Georgian country house eyes up his latest tenant, in Norah Lofts' 'Mr Edward'; An ancient mansion on a shelf of rock previously occupied by a doomed castle, in 'In Letters of Fire' by Gaston Le Roux; The hunter is hunted in James Herbert's tale of nineteenth-century country mansion, 'The Ghost Hunter'; Psychic phenomena and poltergeists, avenging spirits and phantom lovers - curl up and read on, but never imagine you are safe from a visit.

My Thoughts:

I picked up this huge book for the Stephen King entry but found myself paging through some of the others. I will admit that I dd not read the ENTIRE book but what I did read was entertaining and very enjoyable especially for those that really love a well told/written ghost story. The book is divided up into categories, which was nice. Example: Haunted Places; Avenging Spirits; Little Terrors (ghost and children)...you get the idea. Other than Stephen Kings offereing, "The Boogeyman" some others that were very good were James Herbert's "The Ghost Hunter", Penelope Lively's "Uninvited Ghosts", Ramsey Campbell's "Napier Court", and Charlotte Riddell's "The Old House In Vauxhall Walk". I'm going to get the book again when I have a bit more time to read it...it's almost 700 pages of fairly small print... but I believe any true ghost story lover will find ample goosebump material in these pages. ( )

The beauty of this substantial anthology is that Peter Haining has deliberately chosen stories that not many readers would have come across before, introducing a whole host of previously unknown authors and a wide variety of styles and time periods, thereby allowing us to dip in and out at leisure and being rewarded with a very entertaining way to pass the time, preferably at night, and some genuine chills, notably Stephen Kings "The Boogeyman", H. Russell Wakefield's "Ghost Hunt", W. W. Jacobs' "The Toll-House", Basil Copper's "The Grey House" and Bram Stoker's "The Judge's House"; the sense of menace and impending doom is almost palpable. There are some gentler examples too, Penelope Lively's comic "Uninvited Ghosts" and Hugh Walpole's touching "A Little Ghost". The stories are categorised and divided into different sections: Haunted Places, Avenging Spirits, Shadowy Corners, Phantom Lovers, Little Terrors, Psychic Phenomena and Houses of Horror, and each is preceded by a brief introduction by Peter Haining, giving the reader some information about the author and the time period it is set in, as well as a mock estate agent's summary about the property. Some work better than others but that is only to be expected when covering such a wide range. Thoroughly recommended. ( )