cover image Great Ghost Stories

Great Ghost Stories

. Little Simon, $6.95 (177pp) ISBN 978-0-671-60179-9

Geiger's drawings increase the hackle-raising effects created by the tales in Schwartz's collection. For instance, the reader is a witness to the ""wise precautions'' taken by Poe's narrator in ``The Tell-Tale Heart.'' There are 15 entries in the anthology, all except one worthy of the adjective great, as promised in the title. Strangely enough, the disappointment is by Woody Allen, whose genius seldom fails him. The premise, and most of the telling, in his ``Count Dracula'' is fast and funny: The vampire thinks night has fallen during an eclipse of the sun and he goes looking for victims, only to be undone when the sun shines again. The ending, however, lacks the famous Allen clout. Saki, Mark Twain, Dickens, Lafcadio Hearn, Ambrose Bierce, Lord Dunsany, Bram Stoker, H. G. Wells, Washington Irving, Gahan Wilson, Robert Arthur, A. M. Burrage and Al Sarrantonio are the other notable contributors. (10up)