Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist, and short story writer, best known for his masterly and uncanny ghost stories.

The Terror by Night describes a strange and uncanny haunting which is simultaneously experienced by multiple different witnesses in entirely separate ways... each of them receiving a part of the whole picture, but none able to understand its import individually. When the various pieces are put together, the meaning is terrifying.