Chill tidings : dark tales of the Christmas season

'The tiles of the hall floor were as pretty as ever, as cold as ever, and bore, as always on Christmas Eve, the trickling pattern of dark blood.'The gifts are unwrapped, the feast has been consumed and the fire is well fed - but the ghosts are still hungry.

The ghosts are at the door. Welcome to a new collection of Christmas nightmares, ushering in a fresh host of ghastly phantoms and otherworldly intruders bent on ruining, or partaking in, the most wonderful time of the year.

With classic tales from Algernon Blackwood, Elizabeth Bowen, Charlotte Riddell and L.

P. Hartley jostling with rare pieces from the sleeping periodicals and literary magazines of the British Library collections, it's time to open the door and let the real festivities begin.