Wharton, Edith (1862 - 1937) - Edith Wharton (Essay Date 1973)
EDITH WHARTON (ESSAY DATE 1973)
SOURCE: Wharton, Edith. “Preface.” In The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton. 1973. Reprint edition, pp. 7-11. New York: Scribner, 1997.
In the following preface to her Ghosts, first published in 1937 (also published as The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton), Wharton discusses ghosts, belief in ghosts, and the various techniques employed by authors of ghost stories.
Do you believe in ghosts?” is the pointless question often addressed by those who are incapable of feeling ghostly influences to—I will not say the ghost-seer, always a rare bird, but—the ghost-feeler, the person sensible of invisible currents of being in certain places and at certain hours.
The celebrated reply (I forget whose): “No, I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’m afraid of them,” is much more than the cheap paradox it seems to many. To “believe,” in that...
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