Editing Ghost (section)

===Victorian/Edwardian (1840 to 1920)===
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| caption1 = [[Ghost of Christmas Present]] from [[Charles Dickens]]' novella ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'' (1843)
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The "classic" ghost story arose during the Victorian period, and included authors such as [[M. R. James]], [[Sheridan Le Fanu]], [[Violet Hunt]], and [[Henry James]]. Classic ghost stories were influenced by the gothic fiction tradition, and contain elements of folklore and psychology. M. R. James summed up the essential elements of a ghost story as, "Malevolence and terror, the glare of evil faces, 'the stony grin of unearthly malice', pursuing forms in darkness, and 'long-drawn, distant screams', are all in place, and so is a modicum of blood, shed with deliberation and carefully husbanded...".<ref>James, M. R. "Some Remarks on Ghost Stories", The Bookman, December 1929.</ref> One of the key early appearances by ghosts was ''[[The Castle of Otranto]]'' by [[Horace Walpole]] in 1764, considered to be the first [[gothic novel]].{{Sfn|Darrell Schweitzer|2005|p=338-340}}<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30313775 "The Castle of Otranto: The creepy tale that launched gothic fiction"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190703063419/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30313775 |date=2019-07-03 }}. BBC. Retrieved October 7, 2017</ref><ref name="Newman, pg. 135">Newman, Kim (ed.) ''BFI Companion to Horror'', Cassell: London, 1996, {{ISBN|0-304-33216-X}}, p. 135.</ref>

Famous literary apparitions from this period are the ghosts of ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'', in which [[Ebenezer Scrooge]] is helped to see the error of his ways by the ghost of his former colleague [[Jacob Marley]], and the ghosts of [[Ghost of Christmas Past|Christmas Past]], [[Ghost of Christmas Present|Christmas Present]], and Christmas Yet to Come.