Atmospheric and appropriately eerie, this story will give you the shivers. An American couple are seeking a retirement country house. The husband wants to have a ghost in his home, and this, I believe, falls into the category of “be careful what you wish for because you may get it.” It’s a classic Victorian ghost by the wonderful Edith Wharton. ( )

The rambles and seems disjointed for the most part, but somehow I had enough curiosity to get through it. By the time I got to the end I had an aha! moment, but I'm also still confused like maybe the story was meant to be vaguely conclusive but still largely keep you wondering. I appreciate that it had supernatural elements and wasn't just about paranoid people. ( )

The central theme of the work is interesting - the mounting of tension as a wife discovers and gradually learns more re a lawsuit against her husband arising from money gained from a mining investment. (No small matter as the earnings formed the basis for the couple's early retirement to a remote English villa).

However, I personally did not find the ghost aspects of the story either particularly interesting or unsettling. ( )