Christmas Ghost stories kick off with the classic and underrated Sir Walter Scott - The Tapestried Chamber The Keepsake Stories is the title given to three short stories by Sir Walter Scott which appeared in The Keepsake for MDCCCXXIX, a literary annual published for Christmas 1828. The short stories were entitled "My Aunt Margaret's Mirror", "The Tapestried Chamber, or The Lady in the Sacque", and "Death of the Laird's Jock". Charles Heath had originally planned for Scott to become the editor of the annual. Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, Waverley, Old Mortality, The Heart of Mid-Lothian, and The Bride of Lammermoor, along with the narrative poems Marmion and The Lady of the Lake. He greatly influenced European and American literature. As an advocate and legal administrator by profession, he combined writing and editing with his daily work as Clerk of Session and Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire.

In this richly layered and unsettling tale, Sheridan Le Fanu presents a haunting centered not around a traditional ghost, but around the eerie and inexplicable appearance of a ghostly hand.

They have told me to-day, with obvious reluctance, and in the kindest fashion, that I am to go to-morrow to the house of a Dr. Schreiber, in whose care I am to remain until I am restored to health. Restored to health!—my God! 

"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, then included in the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1840. The short story, a work of Gothic fiction, includes themes of madness, family, isolation, and metaphysical identities.

"The Room in the Tower" is a short horror story by E. F. Benson, published in 1912. The Room in the Tower and Other Stories is a compilation of stories by Benson. An unnamed young man has a recurring nightmare in which he visits a friend's house in the summer.

Montague Rhodes James was an English medievalist scholar and author who served as provost of King's College, Cambridge, and of Eton College as well as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. James's scholarly work is still highly regarded, but he is best remembered for his ghost stories, which are considered by many critics and authors as the finest in the English language and widely influential on modern horror. "Rats" is a short ghost story first published in At Random magazine (March 23, 1929). It was later included in the anthology The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James (1931).

They Walk Still is a queer historical fiction inspired by the ancient Egyptian figures Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, blending mythology, memory, and resistance. Featuring the radiant figure of Flamma In...