Books 2014 - The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde

His eyes were as red burning coals;long grey hair fell over his shoulders in matter coils; his garments, which were of antique cut, were soiled and ragged, and from his wrists and ankles hung heavy manacles and rusty gyves. "My dear sir," said Mr Otis, "I really must insist on your oiling those chains."

When the practical American Otis family- "I am from a modern country, where we have everything that money can buy; and with all our spry young fellows painting the Old World red, and carrying off your best actors and prima donnas, I reckon that if there were such a thing as a ghost in Europe we'd have it home in a very short time in one of our public museums... - purchase Canterville Chase from Lord Canterville, they take the furniture and the ghost both at valuation. The furniture turns out to be suitable - never mind the blood stain that will not be banished from the floor in the library - but the ghost...

I bought this at the Gothic exhibition at the British Library the other week, feeling that I really should read a classic ghost story or two for the R.I.P. challenge, but not quite being able to face The Mysteries of Udolpho... *g* There's actually more than one story in this rather short book - Lord Arthur Sevile's Crime and The Sphinx without a Secret - and although I hoped I'd like Oscar Wilde's writing, I was rather relieved to find that I actually did. He is indeed witty, and elegant, and apparently of a dark-ish turn of mind sometimes - although I'm not 100% sure he was all that serious about ghosts, you know...

...if he really won't use the Rising Sun Lubricant, we shall have to take his chains away from him... *g*

(Four books, any length, that you feel fit (the very broad definitions) of R.I.P. literature.)
Lord John and the Hand of Devils by Diana Gabaldon
The Bones of Avalon by Phil Rickman
The Magpie Lord by K.J. Charles
The Heresy of Doctor Dee by Phil Rickman
Frost Hollow Hall by Emma Carroll
The Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde