THEY RETURN AT EVENING

The decomposing ghost of a murdered wife; the spectre of a dog, which answers to the most terrifying of whistles; evil in the tradition of M. R. James's 'Casting the Runes', as a lawyer seeks to avenge the death of a friend . . . These, and many more, are the ghosts which H. R. Wakefield has set to haunt us in his first book of supernatural stories—a landmark collection first published in 1928. Wakefield's ghost stories have been compared to those of M. R. James, but this is an over-simplification. Wakefield's particular brand of terror is unique. But Wakefield agreed with James as to the need for malevolence, as shown by this wording from the dust-wrapper of the book's first edition: 'The Author of "The Ghost Stories of an Antiquary" in the preface to one of his books expressed his lively distaste for benevolent ghosts, and ghosts with nice minds. The author profoundly agrees with this sentiment of the master, and, furthermore, he abominates the "natural" explanation, a poisonous anti-climax. So this much can be said for his tales, that those Who Return therein are animated by undiluted malevolence, and no iconoclastic materialist has been allowed to cast a doubt on their credentials as genuine apparitions.'

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