Lynd Ward’s Haunted Omnibus

“The Haunted Omnibus” is a title that suggests some form of public transport filled with spooks, but all the spectres here are lodged in the pages of a story collection from 1937, edited by Alexander Laing and later reprinted in a truncated edition as Great Ghost Stories of the World. Both books were collections for American readers, with at least half the stories in The Haunted Omnibus originating in Europe. Many of the selections feature no ghosts at all; “weird tales” would be a better descriptor for any collection that includes entries as diverse as Guy de Maupassant’s The Horla, Arthur Machen’s The White People, Algernon Blackwood’s The Wendigo and an extract from Beowulf. Grendel aside, if you’re familiar with 20th-century weird fiction there are few surprises, the main attraction is Lynd Ward’s copious illustrations which, for the longer stories, run to two illustrations a piece: a title vignette and a full page. With 42 stories in total that’s a lot of artwork; what you see…