COMPULSORY READING
''Ghost Stories''
RETOLD BY Rosemary Border
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
A. M. BURRAGE
Alfred McLellan Burrage (1889-1956) was a well-known English novelist. He enjoyed writing about ghosts and horror, and produced two novels and many short stories in this genre. ''Smee'' comes from his collection entitled ''Someone in the Room''.
BRAM STOKER
Stoker (1847-1912) has been called ''one of the least-known authors of the one of the best-known books''. As a child, he enjoyed listening to and writing ghost stories, and predicted that one day his writing would make him famous. He worked as a lawyer, editor, and theatre manager, and wrote novels, short stories and non-fiction. His most famous work is ''Dracula'', which has appeared in six film versions, on television, as a play, and as a comic. ''Dracula'' has never been out of print since it was published in 1899.
A. N. L. MUNBY
Alan Noel Latimer Munby was born in England in 1913 and died in 1974.
BENSON TUPOU
WAYN_AN001_1910_0014
M. R. James, scholar and ghost-story writerThe son of an architect, he studied history, then trained as a librarian, later becoming librarian at King's College, Cambridge, where he had studied. Munby was inspired by the writer M. R. James, who was famous for his ghost stories (for example ''The Unquiet Grave''). Munby wrote all his ghost stories between 1943 and 1945, while he was a prisoner of war in Eichstätt camp in Germany.
E. F. BENSON
Edward Frederic Benson was born in 1867 to a distinguished English family; his father was to become Archbishop of Canterbury. He first worked as an archaeologist, and later became a full-time writer. He is best known for his ''Lucia'' stories, which gave an amusing view of English village life, full of jealousy, plots, whispers and gossip. These stories were later very popular as a television series. Benson was also...