The Dead of Night: The Ghost Stories of Oliver Onions (Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural)

Okay, don't get me wrong, for $2.62 this is a good deal, but there are a few problems:1. No Table of Contents. Well there is one, actually. I can see it now on Kindle for PC, but try finding it on your Kindle Fire. You're going to have to do the old phrase search to find your favorite Onion story. Remember to bookmark it then!2. Wait what happened to my book? Oh, you want to read it in X-ray mode so you don't keep the spouse awake, its not happening my friend. Its plain old black text on white, or "cream" as they say.3. Typo mania. Unless you like playing "Where's Waldo" with your text, you might want to invest in a physical copy of the book. Anyway it still can be fun to find the random "0" where the comma should be. Unfortunately these sorts of things are rampant in these cheap machine to text ebooks, and for $2.62 don't expect anyone except someone in the Third World with English as a fourth language to proofread the thing.However, if you can get past all this, the contents are marvelous, but you could find the entire thing in the public domain if you wanted to work that hard but for $2.62 my time is too valuable.

For aficionados of ghost stories, this Wordsworth (U.K.) edition is cause for celebration. While Oliver Onions was a master of the genre, many of his tales have not been as well anthologized as those of M. R. James or E. F. Benson. Perhaps that is due to their length: his most famous story, "The Beckoning Fair One," is a novella. Collected and introduced here by David Stuart Davies are the stories comprised in "Widdershins" (1911), "Ghosts in Daylight" (1924), and "The Painted Face" (1929): twenty-seven in all, at an affordable price. Recurrent in these tales are Onions's favorite themes: the weird pressures of the past on the present, unreliability of perspective, and the membrane between creativity and madness. If you have never read Onions, be prepared: because these are stories that unfold in their own good time, depending much on the creation of mood, atmosphere, and a certain resonance with developed characters, they are not "fast reads." They are meant to be savored, not gulped. In that respect they remind me of Henry James, although Onions's literate prose is not as labored and rococo as is James's. Onions's stories are like those of no one else: original, eerie, and satisfying.

If you have the slightest interest in English ghost stories mostly written in the early 20th century. They are some of the best ever. He is an equal to M.R. James, E.F. Benson and Blackwood all of whom w rote some of the best supernatural and ghost story tales ever put to paper. And Oliver Onions wrote one of the greatest ever called "The Beckening Fair One". No blood or gore in these stories, just great atmosphere, suspense and in there own right, truly scary. He even wrote a werewolf tale called "The Master of the House" which is included here. This is a great collection of 657 pages (27 stories) of all the ghost stories written by one of the best, OLIVER ONIONS.

Finally, a generous 700+ page collection of Oliver Onions ghost stories."The Fair Beckoning One" has to be one of the greatest ghost stories.What makes the story so unsettling is that the haunting is about a spirit that slowly creeps into the victim's mind and takes over his will and personality. I wonder if Stephen King was inspired by this story when he wrote the Shining. The main character's descent into madness in the Shining, is similar to Olinver Onions' story. However, Onions style is less violent and the reader doesn't relize what is actually happening until the possesion of the protagonist is complete and irretrievable. The other stories also have that subtle but unnerving style the Oliver Onions does so well.

The authors name attracted me, his writing proved I had made the right choice. Just the kind of old fashioned ghost stories that you read before bedtime. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

To fans of the sort of ghost story that ends badly and sometimes vaguely, these tales are perfect. They run in the Joseph Le Fanu mold, with leisurely build-up of storyline that perfectly creates tension and unease and usually tie up with the sort of incomplete or suggestive endings that were popular for the time written. In that way, they're excellent examples of the style. I myself like a little more clarity and a nice pat ending so I prefer M.R. James, who was a huge fan of Onions. Still, this collection is a good size and has a lot of excellent reading for the dark seasons.

Everything about this book is terrific -- he's a master of the genre, and much more than that -- except the bloody Kindle edition lacks a contents page. The upside is that you just read straight through Mr O's wonderfully creepy and atmospheric tales, but still... a TOC would be great. Maybe in future eidtions the gods of amazon.com will provide? We mere mortals can but pray.

Stories are of excellent craftsmanship, as one would expect of Oliver Onions. "The Beckoning Fair One " is still my favorite and has withstood the decades beautifully. But...Ladies and gentlemen who read them when they were written seem to have had much more time to kill; No work, Television, Internet, etc. They are Looong--so be prepared!

I bought this because I had read and been fascinated by * The Beckoning Fair One ", a very subtle and beguiling mood piece rather than a ghost story. I wasn't expecting cheap chills or a shock fest but I was dissapointed to be so bored by the majority of these stories. They were so whimsical and light as to all but float off in the ether. Walter De La Mare does this genre much better, also teetering on the edge of whimsy at times but with so much more resonance and depth to his characters The only other story which had any impact on me and was worth the 3 star rating ,was the tragic " Rope In The Rafters " An insightful story in to what it is to be the haunter as opposed to the haunted. In this very original tale we see the poor disfigured and shunned war veteran's growing sympathy with the supposed ghost and his sad awareness of what will be his own posthumus fate as local boogey man.

Having acquired a Kindle Fire, I downloaded a number of titles by 19th or early 20th century authors who specialised in ghost and horror stories. While you have to appreciate the style of writing, which might sound a bit antiquated to some readers, I loved the atmospheres conjured in these stories and the fact that they don't rely on the shock tactics of gore and violence, so often the staple of modern horror. The first story in this collection, 'The Beckoning Fair One', was a tale I've wanted to read again for decades. I'd come across it in an anthology years ago but couldn't remember who'd written it. There was a TV adaptation of it a long time ago too. These old stories won't be to everyone's taste, but I recommend them fully to readers who enjoy the work of M R James and his contemporaries.

The book was in somewhat tatty paperback condition, but I' more into content than format. Onions should be rated with Sheridan Le Fanu and MR James as a writer of the uncanny, not so much ghost stories per se. His imagination puts me in mind of HG Wells. I don't think I can say much more to recommend this book.

Ok but some stories a bit hard going however at price paid still good value

Brilliant stories! Really original.