Ghost Stories for Your Christmas Reading

by Donna Huber

During the Victorian Era, it was tradition to tell ghost stories during Christmas. Probably the most famous Christmas ghost story is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (check out my deep dive into A Christmas Carol). Last year, one of my local libraries hosted a night of Victorian ghost stories and it was a lot of fun with storytellers sharing stories. Light a fire, dim the lights, grab a cozy blanket, and curl up with one of these books of Christmas ghost stories. If you are just now joining up for our 25 Days of Christmas Reading, be sure to check out the previous days.

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The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories vol. 1 edited by Tara Moore

November 2016; Valancourt Books; 978-1943910564
 ebook, print (291 pages); ghost stories

The first-ever collection of Victorian Christmas ghost stories, culled from rare 19th-century periodicals

During the Victorian era, it became traditional for publishers of newspapers and magazines to print ghost stories during the Christmas season for chilling winter reading by the fireside or candlelight. Now for the first time thirteen of these tales are collected here, including a wide range of stories from a diverse group of authors, some well-known, others anonymous or forgotten. Readers whose only previous experience with Victorian Christmas ghost stories has been Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol will be surprised and delighted at the astonishing variety of ghostly tales in this volume.

“In the sickly light I saw it lying on the bed, with its grim head on the pillow. A man? Or a corpse arisen from its unhallowed grave, and awaiting the demon that animated it?” - John Berwick Harwood, Horror: A True Tale

“Suddenly I aroused with a start and as ghostly a thrill of horror as ever I remember to have felt in my life. Something—what, I knew not—seemed near, something nameless, but unutterably awful.” - Ada Buisson, The Ghost’s Summons

“There was no longer any question what she was, or any thought of her being a living being. Upon a face which wore the fixed features of a corpse were imprinted the traces of the vilest and most hideous passions which had animated her while she lived.” - Walter Scott, The Tapestried Chamber (Goodreads)

Buy The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories at Amazon

Ghosts of Christmas Past: A chilling collection of modern and classic Christmas ghost stories

October 2018; John Murray; 978-1473663466
ebook, print (304 pages); ghost stories

A present contains a monstrous secret.

An uninvited guest haunts a Christmas party.

A shadow slips across the floor by firelight.

A festive entertainment ends in darkness and screams.

Who knows what haunts the night at the dark point of the year? This collection of seasonal chillers looks beneath Christmas cheer to a world of ghosts and horrors, mixing terrifying modern fiction with classic stories by masters of the macabre. From Neil Gaiman and M. R. James to Muriel Spark and E. Nesbit, there are stories here to make the hardiest soul quail - so find a comfy chair, lock the door, ignore the cold breath on your neck and get ready to welcome in the real spirits of Christmas. (Goodreads)

Buy Ghosts of Christmas Past at Amazon

Spirits of the Seasons: Christmas Hauntings by Tanya Kirk

August 2019; British Library Publishing; 978-0712352529
print (320 pages); ghost stories

Festive cheer turns to maddening fear in this new collection of seasonal hauntings, which includes the best Christmas ghost stories from the 1860s to the 1940s.

The traditional trappings of the holiday are turned upside down as restless spirits disrupt the merry games of the living, Christmas trees teem with spiteful pagan presences and the Devil himself treads the boards at the village pantomime.

As the cold night of winter closes in and the glow of the hearth begins to flicker and fade, the uninvited visitors gather in the dark in this distinctive assortment of Yuletide chillers.

Buy Spirits of the Season at Amazon

Donna Huber is an avid reader and natural encourager. She is the founder of Girl Who Reads and the author of how-to marketing book Secrets to a Successful Blog Tour.

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