Psychological ghost story
The psychological ghost story is a type of ghost story which is particularly told from the protagonist's point of view, and in a way that suggests the protagonist may be an unreliable narrator -- mad or deluded.
Perhaps one of the most famous examples is Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper (1892).
Other examples and writers include (women in bold):
- Charles Dickens, The Signalman (1866)
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper (1892)
- Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (1898)
- Oliver Onions, The Beckoning Fair One (1911) [1]
- Robert Aickman
- Walter De La Mare
- Olivia Howard Dunbar
- L.P. Hartley
- Violet Hunt
- Vernon Lee
- Edith Wharton
- Modern examples / practitioners
Further reading
- Jessica Amanda Salmonson, ["The Psychological Ghost Stories of Olivia Howard Dunbar" (abridged introduction to The Shell of Sense, a collection of Dunbar's short stories)