Ghost Stories

Behind the shuttered houses of Newsome Terrace, a London narrator discovers how little quiet appearances reveal. His old schoolfriend Sir James Horton lives at the end of the terrace, absorbed in experiments that challenge familiar ideas about life. Their evening talks bring the narrator close to investigations he can scarcely understand. Benson builds unease through domestic routine, scientific explanation and the suggestion that an ordinary house may contain unsettling forces.

Another passage centres on Roderick’s wish to revisit a house where Margaret Alton died. His recognition of its garden and bedroom draws out memories of love, ambition and an unhappy marriage. Across these excerpts, private histories give places an emotional charge before their mysteries are fully disclosed. Readers of supernatural short fiction will find patient scene-setting, conversational narrators and a close connection between remembered suffering and the atmosphere of rooms that seem peaceful.