In this collection I have attempted to include specimens of a few of the distinctive types of modern ghosts, as well as to show the art of individual stories. Examples of the humorous ghosts are omitted here, as a number of them will be brought together in _Humorous Ghost Stories_, the companion volume to this. The ghost lover who reads these pages will think of others that he would like to see included--for I believe that readers are more passionately attached to their own favorite ghost tales than to any other form of literature. But critics will admit the manifest impossibility of bringing together in one volume all the famous examples of the art. Some of the well-known tales, particularly the older ones on which copyright has expired, have been reprinted so often as to be almost hackneyed, while others have been of necessity omitted because of the limitations of space. D.S. NEW YORK, March, 1921. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: THE IMPERISHABLE GHOST THE WILLOWS BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD THE SHADOWS ON THE WALL BY MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN THE MESSENGER BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS LAZARUS BY LEONID ANDREYEV THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS BY W. F. HARVEY THE MASS OF SHADOWS BY ANATOLE FRANCE WHAT WAS IT? BY FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN THE MIDDLE TOE OF THE RIGHT FOOT BY AMBROSE BIERCE THE SHELL OF SENSE BY OLIVIA HOWARD DUNBAR THE WOMAN AT SEVEN BROTHERS BY WILBUR DANIEL STEELE AT THE GATE BY MYLA JO CLOSSER LIGEIA BY EDGAR ALLAN POE THE HAUNTED ORCHARD BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE THE BOWMEN BY ARTHUR MACHEN A GHOST BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT The Willows BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD From _The Listener_, by Algernon Blackwood. Published in America by E.P. Dutton, and in England by Everleigh Nash, Ltd. By permission of the publishers and Algernon Blackwood. I After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Buda-Pesth, the Danube enters a region of singular loneliness and desolation, where its waters spread away on all sides regardless of a main channel, and the country becomes a swamp for miles upon miles, covered by a vast sea of low willow-bushes. On the big maps this deserted area is painted in a fluffy blue, growing fainter in color as it leaves the banks, and across it may be seen in large straggling letters the word _Suempfe_, meaning marshes.