“I'm delighted to announce a new series of ghost story readings from E F Benson and other authors. Search YouTube for Ghost Stories read by Richard Crowest.”

“I woke again with the sense that there was something creeping up to the house, like the fog that was now thick outside my window, and seeking admittance.”

“With a sudden sinking of his heart, he heard behind him the step which he thought he had silenced for ever.”

“I went to sleep at once, and from dreamlessness awoke suddenly to a consciousness of terror and imminent peril.”

“Terror, that was slowly becoming a little more definite, terror of some dark and violent deed that was momently drawing nearer to me held me in its vice.”

“At that moment I saw the face of Fear; my mouth went dry, and I heard my heart leaping and cracking in my throat.”

“All was not well with the house: in some strange manner the shadow that had come between her closed eyes and the sun as she sat on the garden-bench had entered, and was establishing itself more firmly day by day.”

“I could not stir, I could not speak. I could only strain my ears for the inaudible and my eyes for the unseen, while the cold wind from the very valley of the shadow of death streamed over me.” (Note: this story features a suicide.)

“Then suddenly I saw something black move in the dimness in front of me, and against the grey foam rose up first the head, then the shoulders, and finally the whole figure of a woman…”

“I am sure that no phantom of the dead that die not could have evoked so unnerving a terror.”

“I tell you that vampirism is by no means extinct now. An outbreak of it certainly occurred in India a year or two ago.”