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by: Russell Kirk
List Price: $18.00Amazon.com's Price: $12.24 You Save: $5.76 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780802839381
ISBN: 080283938X
Label: ISI Distributed Titles
Manufacturer: ISI Distributed Titles
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 410
Publication Date: April 01, 2004
Publisher: ISI Distributed Titles
Sales Rank: 210567
Studio: ISI Distributed Titles
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Product Description:
Foreword by Vigen Guroian
Widely regarded as the founder of the modern conservative movement, Russell Kirk was a noted man of letters whose prodigious literary career included a syndicated newspaper column and a regular page in National Review. This volume demonstrates another compelling side of Kirk — the imaginative author who could communicate his powerful vision through the dramatic genre of the ghost story.
Ancestral Shadows collects nineteen of Kirk's best ghostly tales from periodicals and anthologies published throughout his life. In the tradition of Defoe, Stevenson, Hawthorne, Coleridge, Poe, and other master writers, these frightful stories conjure the creaks and shadows of the very places where they came to life through Kirk's pen: haunted St. Andrews, the Isle of Eigg, Kellie Castle, Balcarres House, Durie House ('which has the most persistent of all country-house specters'), and Kirk's own ancestral spooky house in Mecosta, Michigan.
The volume ends with 'A Cautionary Note on the Ghostly Tale,' an incisive piece in which Kirk reflects on why he writes such stories.' All important literature has some ethical end,' Kirk says, 'and the tale of the preternatural — as written by George Macdonald, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and other masters — can be an instrument for the recovery of moral order.'
Masterfully crafted, Kirk's Ancestral Shadows will enthrall and delight all lovers of ghost stories.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Ghosts, Thrills , Chills And Redemption For A Lonely Drifter!!!
This is an excellent compilation from the very talented but now sadly deceased Russell Kirk. Dr. Kirk writes about ghosts but there is Hope and Joy to be found in his stories. The story which stands out most in my mind is "There's A Long, Long Trail A'Winding " which is about a drifter's search for some meaning and sense in his life. If you have ever spent a long, lonely night in a big deserted mansion then you wil realize that things are not always what they appear to be.There is true Joy and ... Read More
Rating: - Ghost stories to live by
Russell Kirk was not only an exceptional historian, moralist, cultural critic, and man of letters. He was also a superb prose stylist, as anyone who has read The Conservative Mind or The Sword of the Imagination knows. In Ancestral Shadows, a collection of ghostly tales written over a period of roughly twenty-five years, Dr. Kirk displays his mastery of the English language as he weaves startling and often stirring "tales of the preternatural." Eerdmans Publishing has done the reading public a real ... Read More
Rating: - Among the best authors of the literary supernatural tale
The publication of "Ancestral Shadows" is a major event for fans of the ghost story genre and Russell Kirk but also for the reputation of the literary supernatural tale. Russell Kirk (along with the recently deceased Jack Cady) ranks as one of the few top-notch, modern American ghost story writers, and for far too long Kirk's stories have been out of print. This book collects all but a very few of Kirk's lesser tales (which are available for die-hards and completists in the pricey but gorgeous recent ... Read More
Rating:  - The Hollow Lord of the Dark
This collection of Russell Kirk's supernatural fiction ranges in quality from simply lordly and brilliant("What Shadows We Pursue") to utterly hollow and bombastic ("The Last God's Dream"). And too many of these stories are predictable. In other words, there aren't many chills here but the ones you will find are first-class. I think the reason for this is because Kirk put too much of himself into these stories. If you ever read at his autobiography, "The Sword of Imagaination" (written in the third ... Read More
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