Anthologies of classic ghost stories -- especially including such spine-tingling tales as The Mezzotint by M.R. James, The Upper Berth by F. Marion Crawford, and Christmas Eve On A Haunted Hulk by Frank Cadogan Cowper -- have abounded since the late 19th century, proliferating as the 20th advanced and copyrights expired, and multiplying a thousand-fold with the advent of the Internet, when first anyone with a scanner could resurrect them out of a book and publish them on a web site; then still ever-increasing as people copied the text from their screens and re-posted it on other sites. So common has this become, that today anyone with Web access can read these stories free.
So. why should anyone want to pay for this anthology? Jess Mowry answers: "Aside from stubbornly clinging (despite all apparent contrary evidence) to the belief that a few decent people still think a living author deserves to be paid for their work -- even if, in this case, that work is merely compiling, copyediting and formatting the work of authors long dead -- one reason, I hope, is that my readers are interested in what I think makes a great and scary ghost tale." Mowry illustrates with anecdotes form his childhood: "Most (books) in our home were mouldy old junk-shop hard-backs, dusty and musty, their covers tattered, gnawed by rodents; their brittle and time-yellowed pages often perforated by... yes, book-worms do exist, and they're not the stereotypical nerds in high-water pants and 'Potter glasses. Squashed spiders, as well as other small, long-deceased life-forms -- not to mention interesting objects, ranging from pressed flowers and passionate love-letters, to Model-T Ford repair receipts, newspaper clippings about the Titanic, faded photographs of kids who looked like The Little Rascals. and locks of hair (presumably human) -- were also often found inside like Paleozoic Cracker-Jack prizes." As to where and how he acquired those books: "The (junk-shop's) dusty front window was cracked, held together by plywood patches, and displayed the usual crappy collection of tarnished trumpets, cheap and often inoperative switch-blades, and obsolete, sprung, and rusty tools. The shop's interior was dark and dank, and smelled like a million discarded dreams. A single small bulb dangled from wires, its yellow glow casting weirdly shaped shadows among the tottering labyrinth of shelves filling the high-ceilinged room. The cash register counter was shrouded in darkness as if the old proprietor -- the perfect model for an evil old wizard, complete with long gray beard -- had no use for light. Like Gandalf, he looked like he knew too much... too many dark things. In the uttermost gloom at the rear of that shop -- the darkness seemingly more annoyed than alleviated by a 25-watt bulb -- funereally shrouded in dust and cobwebs, were ramshackle rough plank book shelves reaching from the creaky board floor to the almost indiscernible ceiling." Mowry offers another enticement to investing in this anthology: "Regarding Internet incarnations of these stories, the quality, format, and integrity vary. Scanning machines make mistakes; and many people who've scanned and republished these stories online seem to have picked whatever book, magazine or anthology was convenient for the purpose, and in many cases have only published much later reprints with text omissions, abridgments and typos ...I have tried to present the stories here as closely as I could to their original, first-published incarnations -- as I as a kid read most of them -- rather than simply copy them from later reprints, recent anthologies, or Internet sites." In closing his Foreward -- itself perhaps an inducement to venturing a nominal sum -- Mowry says: "While I can't resurrect the atmosphere in which I first read these stories, either while perusing them in the dank and dark of that creepy old shop, or alone in my room in the dead of night in a spooky old Victorian house, nor conjure up the graveyard smell of those dusty, decomposing books; still I picture a modern-day me, face lit by the spectral glow of a screen, using my own imagination -- as opposed to being "told" what to see, how I should feel, and having my senses manipulated by a movie or video game -- discovering the shivers and frights of these thirteen scariest classic ghost tales."

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