78. Edith Wharton - Ghosts

October 29, 2018 John Mitchinson

In this special Hallowe’en episode Andy & John are joined by Lissa Evans, writer, producer, director and author of three children’s book and five novels, including most recently, Old Baggage, a book which Andy recently praised here. This is Lissa’s third Backlisted appearance - she was on the very first episode discussing J.L. Carr’s A Month in the Country and later on the episode featuring Patrick Hamilton’s The Slaves of Solitude. She is joined by Andrew Male, senior associate editor of Mojo magazine who writes about film, radio and TV for Sight and Sound and Sunday Times ‘Culture’. If Backlisted had a resident ghost it would surely be Andrew – this is his fourth time of haunting: as well as the episode on Raymond Chandler’s The High Window, he featured on both previous Hallowe’en editions discussing Robert Aickman and Shirley Jackson. The book under discussion in this episode is Edith Wharton’s Ghosts, a collection she selected and introduced herself and which was published posthumously in 1934. Before that, Andy is puzzled and amused by Daphne Du Maurier’s last and weirdly prophetic ‘Brexit’ novel Rule Britannia and John enjoys Alan Garner’s recently published memoir, Where Shall We Run To? (published by Fourth Estate).

Books mentioned:

Daphne Du Maurier - Rule Britannia; I’ll Never Be Young Again
Alan Garner – Where Shall We Run To?; The Stone Book Quartet; The Voice That Thunders
Edith Wharton – Ghost Stories (Wordsworth); Ghost Stories (Virago); The Stories of Edith Wharton (selected and introduced by Anita Brookner); The Age of Innocence (introduced by Penelope Lively); The Custom of the Country; The House of Mirth; Ethan Frome; A Backward Glance (memoir)
Richard Dalby (ed) – The Virago Book of Ghost Stories
Sarah Perry - Melmoth
William Peter Blatty - The Exorcist
M.R. James – Ghost Stories (edited by Roger Luckhurst)
Christopher Ricks - Keats & Embarrasment; T.S. Eliot & Prejudice
J.B. Priestley - An Inspector Calls