Best Ghost Stories 1800-1850 Scary Story 34 of the Countdown

It's time to get back to my countdown of the Top 40 scary ghost stories from 1800-1849. Some of you may be wondering when Edgar Allan Poe will make in appearance in the countdown. Well, you do not have to wait any longer. At spot 34 in the countdown is Poe's best ghost story--Ligeia. The tale was first published in the September 1838 issue of the American Museum. In two volumes of the Broadway Journal that Poe gave to Sarah Helen Whitman, one of his fiancés, he noted a reference to “Ligeia” and “To Helen”: The poem which I sent you contained all the events of a dream which occurred to me soon after I knew you. Ligeia was also suggest by a dream. Observe the eyes in both tale & poem. 

Poe gained ownership of the Broadway Journal for a three-month period (Oct. 25, 1845 – Jan. 3, 1846). It closed given financial troubles. As Poe proved time and time again throughout his life, he was a great literary artist and poor businessman. “Ligeia” is Poe at the height of his gothic powers. The narrator indulges in opium, the beautiful Ligeia dabbles in alchemy and her room is shaped like a pentagon. Best of all for our countdown, this tale ends in ghostly twist. Poe thought highly of it. You will be surprised to hear me say that (omitting one or two of my first efforts) I do not consider any one of my stories better than another. There is a vast variety of kinds and, in degree of value, these kinds vary–but each tale is equally good of its kind. The loftiest kind is that of the highest imagination– and, for this reason only, “Ligeia” may be called my best tale. In my view it was Edgar Allan Poe's best ghost story and perhaps his only ghost story. I argue that "Morella" is not a ghost story and neither is the creature in "The Masque of the Red Death," but rather a monster foretelling doom.

  

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The 40th Best Ghost Story 1800-1849

Welcome to my countdown of the Top 40 ghost stories from 1800-1849. These are not just any ghost stories, mind you. They are the scariest ghost stories, ones that will keep you up at night. So let's get started. The first story was published anonymously. Little happens in the first ten pages, but then it gets wild (and a bit gruesome if you are squeamish). It is a ghost story set on the sea, as a lot of them were during this nautical period. It is called The Bloody Bread Bag. The ghost story is chapter VIII of "The-Man-of-War's-Man" published in Blackwood's during 1823. Enjoy.

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Coffee with Poe Has Advanced to the Second Round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

Coffee with Poe, my novel about the life of Edgar Allan Poe, has advanced to the second round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

Like one of his Gothic stories, I have brought Poe to life in the pages of Coffee with Poe. Orphaned at the age of two, Poe is raised by John Allan—his abusive foster father—who refuses to adopt him until he becomes straight-laced and businesslike. Poe, however, fancies poetry and young women. He becomes engaged to Elmira Royster as a teenager, but the engagement is broken after her father intercepts Poe’s letters. The contentious relationship with John Allan culminates in a violent altercation, which causes Poe to leave his wealthy foster father’s home to make it as a writer.

Poe tries desperately to get established. The Raven subsequently gains Poe renown in America yet he slips deeper into poverty without the support of John Allan, only making $15 off the poem’s entire publication history. Poe marries his first cousin who is only thirteen. John Allan has remarried by this time and when Poe visits his deathbed, Poe is refused an interview because his second wife believes Poe is after an inheritance. Poe lives his last years in abject poverty while suffering through the deaths of his foster mother, grandmother, and young wife. Poe’s health begins failing and he has bouts of paranoid delusions. In a cemetery Poe becomes engaged to Helen Whitman, a dark poet who is addicted to ether and conducts séances in her home. Her mother thinks the impoverished poet is after her money and demands that Poe sign a prenuptial agreement. The engagement is soon broken off because of Poe’s drinking. In his final months Poe is again engaged to Elmira Royster after a joyful reunion, yet his health is in a downward spiral. Just before their marriage Poe is found delirious and wearing another person’s clothes. He dies days later, calling: "God help my poor soul."

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Andrew's Thoughts on "The Man in the Bell" Horror Short Story by William Maginn

First published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine of 1821, The Man in the Bell was printed in subsequent collections and well received; except by an author named Edgar Allan Poe in America. It's not that Poe was against describing sensations, which he did so well in The Pit and the Pendulum, and A Descent into the Maelstrom, etc., rather he made fun of the way the protagonists in these Blackwood articles logged their sensations, many while they were about to die as if that was normal.

 

Poe listed The Man in the Bell in How to Write a Blackwood Article of 1838 where he punned the magazine, Margaret Fuller (Psyche Zenobia), Waldo Emerson (Dr. Moneypenny) and tales of sensation. There is more background in Edgar Allan Poe Annotated and Illustrated Entire Stories and Poems. 

And then there was 'The Man in the Bell,' a paper by-the-by, Miss Zenobia, which I cannot sufficiently recommend to your attention. It is the history of a young man who goes to sleep under the clapper of a church bell, and is awakened for a tolling of a funeral. The sound drives him mad, and, accordingly, pulling out his tablets, he gives a record of his sensations. Sensations are the great things after all. Should you ever be drowned or hung, be sure and make a note of your sensations . . ..

I agree with Poe, but point out that parallels can be drawn between the descriptions of the passing of the bell in this story and the pendulum in Poe's story of 1843 that was printed 22 years after Maginn's. The Man in the Bell, however, pales in comparison to nearly every Poe horror short story. This is not because William Maginn was a bad horror short story writer, it was because Poe was so good. Consider this delectable passage:

The roaring of the bell confused my intellect, and my fancy soon began to teem with all sorts of strange and terrifying ideas. The bell pealing above, and opening its jaws with a hideous clamour, seemed to me at one time a ravening monster, raging to devour me; at another, a whirlpool ready to suck me into its bellowing abyss. As I gazed on it, it assumed all shapes; it was a flying eagle, or rather a roc of the Arabian story-tellers, clapping its wings and screaming over me. As I looked upward into it, it would appear sometimes to lengthen into indefinite extent, or to be twisted at the end into the spiral folds of the tail of a flying-dragon. Nor was the flaming breath or fiery glance of that fabled animal wanting to complete the picture. My eyes, inflamed, bloodshot, and glaring, invested the supposed monster with a full proportion of unholy light.

Unfortunately William Maginn did not write more horror tales and this is the only story of his that makes the countdown of the Top 40 horror short stories from 1800-1849.

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The 34th Best Classic Horror Short Story 1800-1849 is "Confessions of a Ribbonman" by William Carleton

The next story in the countdown is a devilish tale of vengeance titled: Confessions of a Reformed Ribbonman. This classic horror story was penned by Irish author, William Carleton in 1830. It is the only story of Carleton's that makes an appearance on this classic horror story countdown. In my next post I will give my thoughts on why it made the list.

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