E.F. Benson

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection The Outcast and Other Dark Tales by E.F. Benson. It’s Christmas in the Chandler household and as the party gather around the fire, their host Everard recalls a ghostly tale from the...

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection The Outcast and Other Dark Tales by E.F. Benson. An early exploration of electronic voice phenomena, ‘Billy Comes Through’ sees a widowed writer recall the curious phenomena that her...

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection The Outcast and Other Dark Tales by E.F. Benson. Thomas Oulton has worked for a London banking house for 30 years and is widely respected by his colleagues, so when he seemingly...

The unnamed narrator had planned the perfect getaway, at a charming Italian villa. But the moment he crosses its threshold, he senses something’s amiss. When a bout of insomnia robs him of sleep one night, and he goes exploring, he stumbles across a...

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection The Outcast and Other Dark Tales by E.F. Benson. Concerned for their recently widowed friend Harry, Vincent and Tom join him in Egypt for a boat trip along the Nile. Whilst the...

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection The Outcast and Other Dark Tales by E.F. Benson. Set in the remote Yorkshire Valleys, the narrator in this story returns to the holiday home of his childhood. He has inherited the...

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection The Outcast and Other Dark Tales by E.F. Benson. A positive spin on the supernatural, ‘Pirates’ sees aging industrialist Peter Graham return to his former family home in Cornwall...

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection The Outcast and Other Dark Tales by E.F. Benson. ‘The Bath-Chair’ tells the story of the Faraday siblings. Edmund is a shrewd businessman, priding himself on his impeccable health....

Sharply observant and wickedly funny, E.F. Benson’s six ‘Mapp and Lucia’ novels satirize the upper-middle-class social climbers in 1920s and ’30s rural England. Games of bridge and cups of tea fuel hilarious gossip and vindictive plots a-plenty. It is...

Sharply observant and wickedly funny, E.F. Benson’s six ‘Mapp and Lucia’ novels satirise the upper-middle-class social climbers in 1920s and ’30s rural England. Games of bridge and cups of tea fuel hilarious gossip and vindictive plots a-plenty. It is...

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection The Outcast and Other Dark Tales by E.F. Benson. In the remote town of Firham-By-Sea, two holidaymakers are curious about the derelict Corner House and its mysterious owners. Upon...

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection The Outcast and Other Dark Tales by E.F. Benson. When Philip Hope discovers that his wife Sybil is having an affair with his secretary Julian, he takes great delight in thwarting...

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection The Outcast and Other Dark Tales by E.F. Benson. Hester Ward is blessed with youth, health, beauty, a husband and two adorable children, but she is being tormented by a face in her...

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection The Outcast and Other Dark Tales by E.F. Benson. ‘The Flint Knife’ is the fictional story that was inspired by E.F. Benson’s own haunting, as described in ‘The Secret Garden’. Harry...

The titular short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection The Outcast and Other Dark Tales by E.F. Benson. ‘The Outcast’ tells the story of Mrs Bertha Acres, who is handsome and charming company, but inspires horror and dread in...

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection The Outcast and Other Dark Tales by E.F. Benson. A grisly spirit turns travelling companion for an unwitting traveller on the top deck of a London bus one bleak winter’s night in...

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection The Outcast and Other Dark Tales by E.F. Benson. Reported to be an account of a real haunting experienced by the author at a house in Rye, this story features fleeting glimpses of an...

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection The Outcast and Other Dark Tales by E.F. Benson. Brain surgeon Dr Francis Assheton is sceptical when one of his oldest friends holds a séance to show him ‘The Thing’ that has been...

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection The Outcast and Other Dark Tales by E.F. Benson. Keen to escape London to work on their respective music scores and novel, two cousins stumble across a rural holiday let that is well...

A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection Glimpses of the Unknown. When a Londoner retreats to the Cornish Coast for a break, he encounters a veiled woman. Could it be the ghost of intrepid explorer Miss Alice Trellings, who...