Johnny Kelly’s Christmas Ghost

It’s Christmas Eve, and today I have a sentimental little ghost story from 1927.

Little Johnny faces a lean Christmas, with no toys, no cheer, hardly enough food. Then, from some unseen world, comes—-John Kelly’s Christmas Ghost.

Santa Claus stands on a table, looking down at a young boy in bed, who is sitting up looking at him.
“Come, come, Johnny. You’re not afraid of Santa Claus, are you?”

Antionette Gregory spends Christmas Eve distributing charitable gifts through the poorer neighborhoods of New York City. At the end of the day, she realizes that she’s forgotten a family: single mother Bridget Kelly, and her son, John. One last Christmas Eve mission!

Turns out, someone else is watching out for Bridget and John, too… someone unearthly….

You can read “John Kelly’s Christmas Ghost” here. (Link to Dark Tales Sleuth)

This tale appeared in Ghost Stories Magazine, January 1927; it purports to be an actual event told by the woman who experienced it. In actuality, the story was written by one Edwin A. Goewey, who is primarily remembered today as a comic strip artist.

Rather than sharing this as a PDF, I’ve posted it to my literary sleuthing blog, Dark Tales Sleuth, because I’m planning to do a project on Ghost Stories in the coming year. I’ve also included the photo-illustrations that went with the story, since they are part of the magazine’s charm.

So please, enjoy this heartwarming tale as we move into tomorrow’s festivities. Here’s wishing a Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it, and a joyous day to all who don’t.

A list (with links) of the winter tales I’ve shared in previous years is on my Winter Tales page.

Image: Photo-illustration for the story from Ghost Stories Magazine, January 1927. Source: Internet Archive.

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My “First-Class” Ghost Story

It’s Christmas Week, and, as is my custom, I’m sharing some lighter tales with you: one today, and another on Christmas Eve. Today’s tale is a “double Christmas Eve” story from 1871.

Illustration for My 'First-Class' ghost.
“I started back with a look of horror on my face.”

In “My ‘First-Class’ Ghost Story,” the narrator travels from London to spend the holiday with his relatives and his sweetheart Bessie. When he boards the express train to Nettleton, a strange, skeletal man enters his carriage.

His face was very long and painfully white; his eye was bright and restless; his hands, encased in black kid gloves, had the appearance of possessing a good deal of bone; his legs were awkwardly long; and to add to his eccentricity, his head was quite bald, and shone like a plain white billiard-ball.

Creepy! Subsequent events put an eerie, unsettling spin on the stranger’s appearance. Imagine our hero’s unease when the same scenario plays out the following year… .

You can read “My ‘First-Class’ Ghost Story” here.

The earliest publication of this story that I could find is January 14, 1871, in Harper’s Weekly, a New York periodical. It subsequently appeared in the New York Albion in February of the same year (this is the version Roy Glanshan posted, and which I’m reproducing). Since the story is set in England, I do wonder if it was yoinked from a British periodical, but I couldn’t find any such version online.

In any case, it’s a rather fun story! Do enjoy.

A list (with links) of the winter tales I’ve shared in previous years is on my Winter Tales page.

Image: Illustration for the story from Harper’s Weekly, January 14, 1871. Source: HathiTrust.

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The Shadowy Third

This week I’m sharing a short story by Pulitzer Prize winning novelist1 Ellen Glasgow (1873-1945), known in her lifetime primarily for realistic novels set in the contemporary American South. These days, however, her best known work is probably her sole short fiction collection, The Shadowy Third and Other Stories (1923).

Illustration for "The Shadowy Third": A woman draped in a shawl stands near a window, embracing a young girl.

Today’s winter tale is the title story from that collection, first published in Scribner’s Magazine, December 1916.

Margaret, a young and idealistic nurse, is hired by the famous surgeon Dr. Maradick to be the live-in nurse for his sickly wife. Margaret finds herself finds herself torn: on one side, her genuine affection for her patient; on the other, her hero-worship and attraction to her handsome, charming employer. And who is that little girl who flits around the house?

You can read “The Shadowy Third” here..

Ms. Glasgow’s only forays into the supernatural were in the short fiction form; while I’m not sure she would have called these tales “Southern Gothic,” they feel that way, to me. “The Shadowy Third” is one of the few stories in the collection that isn’t set in the South; it takes place in New York, but both Margaret and Mrs. Maradick are Southern transplants. With its eerie melancholy, and its atmosphere of hidden secrets, it certainly has a gothic tone. I hope you like it.

You can read more about Ellen Glasgow and her short fiction at Wormwoodiana’s post to commemorate the centenary of the The Shadowy Third and Other Stories.

1 : For her 1942 novel This is Our Life.↩

A list (with links) of the winter tales I’ve shared in previous years is on my Winter Tales page.

Image: Elenore Plaisted Abbot, frontispiece for The Shadowy Third and Other Stories (1923). Source: Project Gutenberg.

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Exactly As It Happened

Today’s Winter Tale is from E.C. Bentley (1875-1956), best known for his 1913 detective novel Trent’s Last Case. He was also president of the Detection Club from 1936 until 1949.

Edmund Clerihew Bentley (The Bookman, 1913).
E.C. Bentley, 1913. Source: Wikimedia

“Exactly As It Happened” is a haunted house story, first published in Cassell’s Magazine of Fiction, December 1926. While it’s not actually set in the winter, I’ll count it as a Christmas ghost story because of the December publication date.

Everyone clears out of James Ringrose’s house once a year, on the death anniversary of the house’s first owner, “the Captain.” The previous owners refused to stay, and Mr. Ringrose’s servants won’t either. Nonsense, says Ringrose. He resolves to spend the night at home on that fearful date. His old friend Dr. Verrill offers to keep him company. What can go wrong?

You can read “Exactly As it Happened” here.

Bentley evidently had a playful sense of humor; he’s also the inventor of a light, biographical verse form called the clerihew (named after him: Edmund Clerihew Bentley). That sense of humor evinces itself in this tale as well. It’s good fun! I hope that you enjoy it.

A list (with links) of the winter tales I’ve shared in previous years is on my Winter Tales page.

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Winter Tales 2024! The Bright Room of Cranmore

It’s Winter Tales time! As I have done every year for over a decade, I’ll be sharing winter-themed, Christmas-y ghost stories for all of December, up until Epiphany. This year, I hope to share a story every Sunday, plus one on Christmas Eve. As always, I invite you to curl up under a blanket with a warm drink and enjoy this yearly ritual with me.

I’ll start the season with a traditional Victorian Christmas ghost story — doubly so, in fact: it’s a tale within a tale, both set around Christmas.

  • The Bright Room of Cranmore: What is the secret of the beautiful house of Cranmore? A brave widow and her equally brave servants try to find out.

This story first appeared anonymously in Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country, January 1850. It’s a bit slow to get going; there’s at least a page and a half of the “literary throat clearing” that the writing from that period tends to have. But stick with it! I promise it’s worth it.

Continue reading →

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A Winter Tales Pre-Treat

Today’s the Friday after Thanksgiving, the start of the Christmas shopping season here in the United States. So it seems like the perfect day to give you a Winter Tales amuse-bouche, if you will….

Detail from a Mulready Envelope: Woman standing above a reclining lion, arms open. Cherubs flying from either side of her.

I don’t have a theme for this year; it’s going to be a combination of traditional Victorian ghost stories, a North American winter-themed goody that I couldn’t fit in last year, and some cool, slightly more “modern” pieces from both sides of the Atlantic. I hope you’ll enjoy it!

To whet your appetite, here’s a story that I just shared fairly recently, but I’ll bring it back, in case you missed it the first time—or in case you liked it enough to read again.

  • A Dead Letter: On Christmas Eve, a tale of moaning ghosts, spectral envelopes, and old wrongs finally redressed.

“A Dead Letter” is by British author, poet, and former British Post Office investigator Austin Philips. I’ve got an ongoing project to collect and share his post office-themed ghost and detective stories. You’ll be seeing a bit more from him in the New Year, as well.

Enjoy!

Images: 1840 Mulready Envelope, designed by William Mulready. Source Wikimedia

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Austin Philips’ The Murder at Silchester Post Office

I’m slipping in another Austin Philips story before Winter Tales season begins.

“The Murder at Silchester Post Office” is a fictional reconstruction of the real-life case of George Fell, the caretaker of the Birkenhead Post Office, in Merseyside, England. Fell was brutally murdered on the job in September, 1900. The killer was never found.

Philips had written extensively about the case in a previous article for The Strand, called “Crime in the Post Office.” In this story, which is from Philips’ 1910 collection Red Tape, he imagines just how the crime might have taken place, and proposes a solution.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Philips’ solution is correct in general outline, though of course he couldn’t name any specific person. Note that—as in real life—this murder is investigated by the local police, not by Post Office detectives.

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Classic Ghosts Stories V: And the Bones Come Together

We’ve reached the fifth and final installment of our read-and-watch-alongs for the Kino Cult Blu-Ray release The Classic Ghosts.

Source: DVD Beaver

This one is really just a “watch-along,” because this episode does not seem to be based on any previously existing short story.

And The Bones Come Together

The teleplay was written by Sholomo Keil, who, as far as I can tell, has no other writing credits. It was directed by Henry Kaplan, another veteran soap opera director who directed almost 300 episodes of Dark Shadows.

Elderly widowed Maimonides Shim (Herbet Berghof: Harry and Tonto; husband of Uta Hagen) is being evicted (bought out, really) from his tenement apartment building. The building has been eminent-domained, and the city plans to tear it down and replace it with more modern housing—low income or affordable housing, I think. Shim takes out his wrath on Robert Cooper (Laurence Luckinbill: Star Trek V) the long-suffering Housing Authority employee tasked with managing the project.

And when I say wrath, I do mean wrath. “Eradicate his name off the face of the earth” wrath.

Continue reading →

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Classic Ghost Stories IV: The House and the Brain

On to the fourth in a series of read-and-watch-alongs for the Kino Cult Blu-Ray release The Classic Ghosts. We’re on the home stretch.

Classic Ghosts Blu Ray
Source: DVD Beaver

After a temporary dip, we’ve returned to form with installment 4:

The House and the Brain

This is ostensibly an adaptation of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s “The Haunted and the Haunters; Or, The House and the Brain”, but it bears absolutely no resemblance to Bulwer-Lytton’s tale. Which is probably just as well, since the original story is largely an excuse for lengthy metaphysical theorizing.

Recently discharged Major David Vaughn (Keith Charles) rents a room in a lovely old gothic mansion in New Orleans. He meets the owner’s lovely ward Marianna (Carol Willard), who bears a startling resemblance to the portrait of her great-grandmother in his room, and who doesn’t seem to want him around. There’s also the creepy owner himself, Constantine St. Mal (Hurd Hatfield: The Portrait of Dorian Gray), and the mysterious housekeeper, Mrs. Bolton (Maryce Carter).

Of course, Vaughn becomes attracted to lovely, apparently agoraphobic Marianna. Vaughn’s friend Kate (Gretchen Corbett: The Rockford Files) has concerns.

Continue reading →

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Classic Ghost Stories III: The Deadly Visitor

Here’s the third in a series of read-and-watch-alongs for the Kino Cult Blu-Ray release The Classic Ghosts.

Source: DVD Beaver

After two excellent entries, we’ve come to one that’s still good, but not to the level of what came before….

The Deadly Visitor

“The Deadly Visitor,” directed by Lela Swift, is a loose adaptation of what is probably Fitz-James O’Brien’s most famous short story: “What Was It? A Mystery.” An aspiring writer must contend both with a mysterious invisible visitation, and a lovelorn landlady.

The adaptation has all new characters, although the landlady, Mrs. Moffat, has the same name in both versions. In the adaptation, young “country bumpkin” Jaime (Perry King: Riptide), comes to the city to pursue his writing career. He goes to the boarding house of Mrs. Moffat (Gwen Verdon: Damn Yankees) to visit his childhood friend Virgil (James Keach: The Long Riders; Stacy Keach’s brother), a sculptor who rooms with Mrs. Moffat.

Jaime manages to get a room there for an absurdly low price, mostly because the house has a bad reputation of being haunted. There are only two other boarders: Virgil, who’s always broke and can’t move, and Dr. Mulvaney (Stephen Macht: Knots Landing, Cagney & Lacey), who’s probably in a similar situation. But it’s also partly because lonely, older Mrs. Moffat has taken a fancy to him.

Mrs. Moffat (Gwen Verdon) and Jaime (Perry King). Source: DVD Beaver

Then strange things begin happening to Jaime, possibly relating to a tragedy that he left behind in the village… .

Continue reading →

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