INTRODUCTION SUPERNATURAL TALES Stories narrating supernatural or mysterious events became very popular in English and American literature in the period between the mid-19th century and World War II. The interest in ghosts and mystery stories developed from the previous gothic tradition. Gothic fiction had produced novels set in dark abbeys or isolated castles, based on complicated plots revolving around supernatural or mysterious events, where a virtuous hero (more often a heroine) was persecuted by a villain and where an atmosphere of oppression and terror dominated. Unlike gothic novels, supernatural stories are rarely complex: their plot is usually linear, leading the reader from the initial situation (a single circumstance or event in the life of the character) to the climax and finally to the conclusion, where a solution of some kind to the situation presented is given; their setting is often realistic and their characters are usually ordinary people, who, for some reason, come into contact with the world of the supernatural. THE PLOT Let s start from the plot. In all the stories collected in this book the plot is based on a mysterious circumstance and the climax (that is to say, the supernatural event that comes to upset a pre-existing balance and allows the passage from the initial to the final situation) is built up by a series of elements that contribute to rouse expectation and to create suspense in the reader. So we have a grinning skeleton, moving objects, disquieting dreams, strange telephone calls, an inexplicable illness. The only story in this book where a ghost appears suddenly, with no premonition at all, is the one by J.G. Lang. The supernatural element itself differs in the stories. While the apparition in The Ghost upon the Rail is taken for granted (a trial is even started on the basis of the vision), in other stories the mysterious presence can be interpreted as the result of coincidences (Bone to his Bone) or as the product of an overexcited or troubled imagination: the scientist in A Ghost Story is oppressed by a sense of guilt; the lady in The Rose Garden might be influenced by the tale of an old friend; Ligeia s husband might be hallucinated by his obsessions and by drugs; 5