Well, technically, the Christmas Annual edition! As all good Victorianists know, the proper season for ghost stories was Christmas, so this year, I bring ghost stories published in Victorian periodicals' Christmas numbers.
- Anon., "Catherine's Quest" (Tinsley's Magazine, 1868). A young woman has a very detailed dream about the intrigues (and murders) committed by her ancestors. Also, there's a chest with human remains.
- ---, "Experiences of Farthing Lodge" (Chambers' Journal, 1864). Renters discover that on the fifteenth of each month, they share their lodgings with...something else.
- Charles Collins, "No. 3 Branch Line. The Compensation House" (All the Year Round, 1866). A man has a very strange aversion to mirrors.
- W. W. Fenn, "The Steel Mirror: A Christmas Dream" (Routledge's Christmas Annual, 1867). Prophetic mirrors are always aggravating, especially when somebody misreads the prophecy.
- Eliza Lynn Linton, "Christmas Eve in Beach House" (Routledge's Christmas Annual, 1870). An artist's wife has a very bad feeling about one of the locals. Scandalous revelations eventually ensue. This annual also includes a comic (and not well-executed) story about a young clerk obsessed with his employer's money, with what one presumes are ultimately fatal results, and another one about a tyrannical ship's captain who gets his comeuppance.
- ---, "The Legend of Lady House" (Routledge's Christmas Annual, 1869). Women with dubious pasts, poisoning, curses, etc.
- W. E. Norris, "The Specter of Strathannan" (Unwin's, 1887). Apparently, a ghost appears to anyone who has terrible deeds upon their conscience. Or does it?
- John Oxenford, "His Umbrella" (All the Year Round, 1862). A gentleman finds himself stuck with an aggravatingly persistent umbrella.
- Robert Reece, "The Ghost in the Green Room" (Routledge's Christmas Annual, 1880). The ghost of a failed actor decides it's finally time to get onstage.