SOURCE: Stewart, J. I. M. “Of Supernatural Causes.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 3990 (22 September 1978): 1056.

In the following essay, Stewart gives a negative opinion on the Wakefield tales collected in The Best Ghost Stories.

The author of these weird tales (orthodox ghosts are rather scarce in them, but supernaturally occasioned fatalities abound) was born in 1888, the son of a future Bishop of Birmingham. Educated at Marlborough, where he distinguished himself in cricket and rugger, and University College, Oxford, where he played golf for the University, he became personal private secretary to Lord North cliffe in 1911, and later fought on the Western Front and in Macedonia. Thereafter he worked for a time as a publisher, and during the remainder of his life wrote studies in criminology, several detective novels, and a great many stories such as are here collected. The last batch of these to be brought together in this country...