Richard Barnham Middleton's "The Ghost Ship" is one of the best-loved ghost stories in English literature, about which Arthur Machen wrote, "I declare I would not exchange this short, crazy, enchanting fantasy for a whole wilderness of seemly novels." Middleton was one of the most interesting stylists in British ghostly fiction, rich and exuberant in his more traditional ghost stories (especially the humorous ones), lean and concise in his more original psychological tales.