Tales for Twilight

SELECTED BY ALISTAIR KERR

POLYGON

£10.00 ★★★★★

It’s perhaps not surprising that a country with a history as long and often bloody as Scotland’s, is home to a raft of myths and legends centred around things that go bump in the night.

This collection of spooky tales gathered by Alistair Kerr focuses on the vivid imaginations of some of the country’s best fiction writers spanning the last two centuries. These authors have undoubtedly been inspired by the many tales of ghosts and ghouls that have been passed down through generations of Scots and are now part of the national narrative.

From the golden age of ghost stories in the Victorian and Edwardian period there are chilling tales from the likes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Margaret Oliphant and Robert Louis Stevenson. Representing the spooky skills of our modern-day exponents of tartan noir are favourites James Robertson and Ian Rankin.

As recommended by the great Sir Walter Scott in his entry, The Tapestried Chamber, or, The Lady in the Sacque, these are tales that are best narrated in a low voice by candlelight on a winter’s evening. I’m game if you are!