appeal is in the mystery.

The detective's case is solved at the end, however. But even at the end
of a ghost story, the underlying mystery remains. In the ghost story, we
have the very quintessence of mystery.

Authors, publishers, editors, dramatists, writers of motion pictures
tell us that never before has there been such an intense and wide
interest in mystery stories as there is to-day. That in itself explains
the interest in the super-mystery story of the ghost and ghostly doings.

Another element of mystery lies in such stories. Deeper and further
back, is the supreme mystery of life--after death--what?

"Impossible," scorns the non-psychic as he listens to some ghost story.

To which, doggedly replies the mind of the opposite type, "Not so.
I believe _because_ it is impossible."

The uncanny, the unhealthy--as in the master of such writing,
Poe--fascinates. Whether we will or no, the imp of the perverse lures us
on.

That is why we read with enthralled interest these excursions into the
eerie unknown, perhaps reading on till the mystic hour of midnight
increases the creepy pleasure.

One might write a volume of analysis and appreciation of this aptly
balanced anthology of ghost stories assembled here after years of
reading and study by Mr. J.L. French.