Ghost Stories was a
pulp magazine which published 64 issues between 1926 and 1932. It was one of the earliest competitors to
Weird Tales, the first magazine to specialize in the fantasy and occult fiction genre. It was a companion magazine to
True Story and
True Detective Stories, and focused almost entirely on stories about ghosts, with many of the stories written by staff writers but presented under pseudonyms in a "true confession" style. These were often accompanied by faked photographs to make the stories appear more believable.
Ghost Stories also ran original and reprinted contributions, including works by
Robert E. Howard,
Carl Jacobi, and
Frank Belknap Long. Among the reprints were
Agatha Christie's "The Last Seance" (under the title "The Woman Who Stole a Ghost"), several stories by
H.G. Wells, and
Charles Dickens' "
The Signalman". The magazine was initially successful, but began to lose readers, and in 1930 was sold to
Harold Hersey. Hersey was unable to reverse the magazine's decline, and
Ghost Stories ceased publication at the start of 1932.