Haunting can happen anywhere

Well, shouldn't read when I'm too tired to remember what I've read, and have to say that the stories in "American Fantastic Tales" (Library of America) begin to blend together (are they supposed to? is that the point of an anthology? to create from many pieces a single composition, like a mosaic? or should each piece remain distinct and unique?). But one other "trope" emerged from last night's reading, from the somewhat disjointed story "The Itinerant House" - the theme of the haunted house (or place). At least on evidence of this anthology, this trope did not emerge till near the 20th century, but we're very familiar with it today, as a haunted location works very well on film, better than in print maybe. The Itinerant House combines the haunted locale with the idea of a curse through the generations (as in the earlier In Olde New England), as well as the theme of the mad scientist/experimenter. A woman, jilted in love, dies; a mad scientist/lodger brings her back to life (using electricity - you can see the early 20th-century fascination with that technology, as we today would write mind control through wireless communication and the like). She doesn't want to live, utters a curse, and the house remains haunted, bringing death on many future inhabitants, and so on. All rather preposterous of course - but it began a cascade of writers trying to outdo one another creating creepy gothic manses inhabited by ghosts and ghouls and other spirits. Until Stephen King turned it all on its head and showed that it's even scarier for these visitations to take place in an ordinary suburban setting. Haunting can happen anywhere - that's what makes it really frightening.