The final chapter in my book The Ghost Wore Black: Ghastly Tales from the Past tells of a little-known 19th-century panic over those mistresses of the dark, The Women in Black. They were the female equivalent of Spring-heeled Jack, without the flames and (sometimes) the leaping, and they terrified communities across the United States from roughly 1865 to 1915.
The Thing in the Cemetery There is a horrific tale called “The Croglin Grange Vampire” told by Augustus Hare in The Story of My Life (1896/1900). The hideous Thing in this story from Van Wert, Ohio is strongly reminiscent of Hare’s unearthly creature found in a churchyard vault.
Introducing The Victorian Book of the Dead A shamelessly commercial post today: Kestrel Publications is draping itself in black in celebration–The Victorian Book of the Dead has arrived!
A Visceral Haunting An unusual haunting: the ghost of a murdered man haunts a suitcase filled with his viscera, used as evidence at his doctor’s trial.
A Glorified Vision of Julia To whet your appetite for The Victorian Book of the Dead, an excerpt from that book about a strange Marian-type apparition seen by multiple witnesses at a wake.
Being of a morbid temperament, I’ve taken special notice of stories of pale and sickly spirits, so here are a few tales of pallid phantoms. Obviously a ghost is traditionally pale, but these particular sickly-white spirits seem to be associated with a crisis apparition or a death-bed appearance.
The Stiff of Dreams Dreams revealing the location of dead bodies–was that the only way the dead could communicate and make sure their corpses were found?
