The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Tales

The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Tales by Rudyard Kipling (1888)

Ghost stories set in British India — a dead woman's spectral rickshaw haunts her faithless lover through the streets of Simla, a man is driven mad by his doppelgänger, and a child builds a terrifying "city of the dead." Kipling's early masterpieces of supernatural horror.

Historical Significance:
Kipling published these stories in 1888 when he was just 22 years old, working as a journalist in Lahore and Allahabad. "The Phantom Rickshaw" is considered one of the finest ghost stories in English — the lover who cannot escape his dead mistress's accusing presence even in broad daylight on a crowded street. "The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes" — about a man trapped in a colony of the living dead — prefigures Kafka and the Theater of the Absurd. These early Indian stories show Kipling at his most psychologically complex, before the imperial confidence of his later work. They demonstrate that the master of adventure fiction was equally a master of horror.

This public domain classic was originally published in 1888. Free to read and share.