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Introduction
G
hosts by Gaslight.
hose three words neaty summarize a great paradox of the victorian age.fter a, the time of Queen victoria (1837–1901) was by its own decaration an age of spreading enightenment—the growth of iteracy; therapid introduction of massmanufacturing technoogy; the propagation of humane aues; the termination of the sae trade; egisation to curb crueties inherent in industria abor; and, on a itera ee, the proision of eer more iumination to Britain’s (and merica’s) cities, rst by means of gas ighting, then with eectricity. let there be ight! nd yet een as thedarkness of the streets and of some forms of economic depriation wasaeiated, the ghosts imagined by the popuation mutipied. d fears,od phantoms and bogeys, od conceptions of bad uck and supernaturareenge combined with new wraiths and monsters born of the tormentsof socia change and ideoogica awakening; and from the far corners of the British Empire returning sodiers, administrators, traders, traeers,and missionaries imported foreign narraties of yet more apprehension: accounts of rabian Nights djinns, ransyanian ampires, accursed rajahs,Chinese phantasms, West ndian duppies, and frican totems. Reaifeterrors ike the depredations of Jack the Ripper minged in the popuarfancy with these improbabe but direy potent materias; and in response,een as some victorian ction described hopefu or apocayptic technoogica adance, many other taes brooded on the fantastic and the ominousyirrationa. he purposefu ight of extrapoation competed with the ooming darkness of the horrid.his anthoogy pays innoatie tribute to both of those streams of victorian storyteing: the scientic romance and the cassic ghost story, as
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they matured through the Great White Mother’s reign and in that of herrotund and jocuar son Edward v, before the outbreak of Word War in1914 brought shattering disiusionments. fter a, a century ater, specuatie ction continues to honor the two forms: steampunk noes andstories reguary recapture (and recompicate) the gadgetencrusted earyscience ction of Jues verne and . G. Wes, whie eading horror anddark fantasy authors (many of them represented in this book) pay recurrent homage to the ghosty tae. o . . .Why not a feast of ne new stories, ed with the peasurabe disquietof things that go bump in the night and, at times, the thris of sinister,arcane machinery as we? erhaps the paradox of victorian superstitionamidstenightenment can be resoed by way of this mixture; and anyway,the resuts are bound to be extremey entertaining. hus
Ghosts by Gas-light,
in which seenteen of the best contemporary writers of supernaturaction reisit the word of fog and fear that our ancestors knew ony toowe, on both sides of the tantic.
As you’ll see
reected in many of the stories in the present oume, thevictorian/Edwardian period’s ction of the fantastic and the ominousyirrationa sometimes went far beyond instiing simpe fright and awe.During the heyday of the cassic ghost story in the nineteenth and earytwentieth centuries, there were penty of sensationaistic (and ephemera)writers whose contributions to the many ction magazines were a aboutcheap, garish effects; but their efforts were counterweighed by more profound, psychoogicay penetrating taes from such major iterary namesas Edgar an oe, Nathanie awthorne, Chares Dickens, WikieCoins, Mrs. Gaske, Rudyard Kiping, enry James, Edith Wharton,Robert louis teenson, Water de a Mare, Mrs. iphant, and mbroseBierce—and many writing in anguages other than Engish. hese authors were not summing in a supercia popuar genre; they had quiteserious intent. nd they were joined in this by inspired speciaists in thesupernatura, some of whom remain we known today for their spookybriiance: J. heridan le Fanu, M. R. James, Bram toker, vernon lee,rthur Machen, gernon Backwood, Wiiam ope odgson. enryand M. R. James (no reations), in their ery different efforts ike “heurn of the crew” and “h, Whiste, and ’ Come to You, My lad,”empoyed ghosts and other phantoms of the nocturna hours to cast ighton the interior of the human psyche; this was the coectie goa. n thehands of a these practitioners, ghosts signied aspects of the mentaities
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