SOURCE: Penzoldt, Peter. Introduction to The Supernatural in Fiction, pp. 3-12. London: Peter Nevill, 1952.

In the following essay, Penzoldt presents a brief analysis of the rise and development of the ghost story in literature.

Although the short ghost story became a popular form in English literature during the nineteenth century, it only attained its present degree of perfection in the past fifty years.

The course of the development that the tale of the supernatural has followed is somewhat surprising. In Anglo-Saxon letters, weird fiction belonged first to the drama and then to the novel; but the earliest examples of the supernatural in the world's literature were short tales. It could hardly have been otherwise, for when the Egyptian palimpsests, the Babylonian cuneiform writings, the Book of Enoch and the story of the Witch of Endor were written the tale of the supernatural was nothing more than a record...