"Rushing to the door he wrenched it open, and plunged forward into a red vacancy," from Ghosts, Being the Experiences of Flaxman Low by Kate O'Brien Prichard and illustrated by B. E. Minns, 1899.

"A lean shape with a shrunken head leapt out into the passage after him."  From Ghosts, Being the Experiences of Flaxman Low by Kate O'Brien Prichard and illustrated by B. E. Minns, 1899.

From The Ingoldsby Legends by Thomas Ingoldsby, 1881.

From Ghosts, Being the Experiences of Flaxman Low by Kate O'Brien Prichard and illustrated by B. E. Minns, 1899.

Here's a classic sheet ghost from Buffalo Bill's Rough Riders, 1890.

"The ghost's narrative," from The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices, 1890.

"Basil!  I have seen it—I have seen the ghost!"  From My Brother Basil by Elizabeth Neal, 1891.

"Rising, she threw away the knife," from Ghostly Tales by Wilhelmina Fitzclarence, 1896.

"Sir Herbert alarms Scrimp with the ghost story," from Phoebe or the Miller's Maid, 1854.

"He stood quite still and looked at me," from Ghostly Tales by Wilhelmina Fitzclarence, Countess of Munster, 1896.

"My eye was caught by the appearance of an extraordinary figure." From Ghostly Tales by Wilhelmina Fitzclarence, 1896.

"It seemed to cling to the wall, then to spread over it," from Ghostly Tales by Wilhelmina Fitzclarence, 1896.

There's so much to love in this first page of William De Morgan's When Ghost Meets Ghost (1914).

The first chapter is very rightly numbered zero.  Shouldn't all ghost stories begin with chapter zero?

The chapter summary is playfully honest about what it amounts to, and it mentions a "somewhere that is now nowhere."

In the first paragraph, there's a withering mention of several young ladies having "lost their individuality."

The third paragraph exposes a great truth: a story can do without accuracy.