Charles Dickens' fascination with ghosts and the macabre is traced to his childhood, to the grim and goulish stories told him by his nursemaid, Mary Weller, whom he referred to as Mercy, "though she had none on me." Along with the horrors of the "penny dreadful" magazine, The Terrific Register -- a publication which made Dickens' "unspeakably miserable and frightened the very wits out of my head" -- the stories recounted by Weller were so powerful as to color Dickens' imagination and shape much of the enduring fiction he created.

In this collection, Peter Haining brings together all Dickens' ghost stories -- 20 in all -- including several long tales. Here are chilling histories of coincidence, insanity and revenge.