Ghosts | Free Book
A Natural History: 500 Years of Seaching for Proof
A comprehensive history of the evolution of the ghost in the west,
examining the behavior of the subject in the stories we tell each
other.
A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice
No matter how rationally we order our lives, few of us are completely immune to the suggestion of the uncanny and the fear of the dark. What explains sightings of ghosts? Why do they fascinate us? What exactly do those who have been haunted see? What did they believe? And what proof is there?
Taking us through the key hauntings that have obsessed the world, from the true events that inspired Henry James’s classic The Turn of the Screw right up to the present day, Roger Clarke unfolds a story of class conflict, charlatans, and true believers. The cast list includes royalty and prime ministers, Samuel Johnson, John Wesley, Harry Houdini, and Adolf Hitler. The chapters cover everything from religious beliefs to modern developments in neuroscience, the medicine of ghosts, and the technology of ghosthunting. There are haunted WWI submarines, houses so blighted by phantoms they are demolished, a seventeenth-century Ghost Hunter General, and the emergence of the Victorian flash mob, where hundreds would stand outside rumored sites all night waiting to catch sight of a dead face at a window.
Written as grippingly as the best ghost fiction, Ghosts: A Natural History takes us on an unforgettable hunt through the most haunted places of the last five hundred years and our longing to believe.
Praise for Ghosts: A Natural History
“Clarke tells this [the story that inspired Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw] and many other gloriously weird stories with real verve, and also a kind of narrative authority that tends to constrain the skeptical voice within . . . [An] erudite and richly entertaining book.” —New York Times Book Review
“A fascinating social history . . . exceptionally well written and researched.” —Starburst Magazine
“Ghost-hunting gets a gentlemanly makeover in this meticulous history of hauntings.
Clarke indulges his lifelong interest in the paranormal in this well-documented look at ghost stories and the people who have told them throughout history.” —Kirkus Reviews
A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice
No matter how rationally we order our lives, few of us are completely immune to the suggestion of the uncanny and the fear of the dark. What explains sightings of ghosts? Why do they fascinate us? What exactly do those who have been haunted see? What did they believe? And what proof is there?
Taking us through the key hauntings that have obsessed the world, from the true events that inspired Henry James’s classic The Turn of the Screw right up to the present day, Roger Clarke unfolds a story of class conflict, charlatans, and true believers. The cast list includes royalty and prime ministers, Samuel Johnson, John Wesley, Harry Houdini, and Adolf Hitler. The chapters cover everything from religious beliefs to modern developments in neuroscience, the medicine of ghosts, and the technology of ghosthunting. There are haunted WWI submarines, houses so blighted by phantoms they are demolished, a seventeenth-century Ghost Hunter General, and the emergence of the Victorian flash mob, where hundreds would stand outside rumored sites all night waiting to catch sight of a dead face at a window.
Written as grippingly as the best ghost fiction, Ghosts: A Natural History takes us on an unforgettable hunt through the most haunted places of the last five hundred years and our longing to believe.
Praise for Ghosts: A Natural History
“Clarke tells this [the story that inspired Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw] and many other gloriously weird stories with real verve, and also a kind of narrative authority that tends to constrain the skeptical voice within . . . [An] erudite and richly entertaining book.” —New York Times Book Review
“A fascinating social history . . . exceptionally well written and researched.” —Starburst Magazine
“Ghost-hunting gets a gentlemanly makeover in this meticulous history of hauntings.
Clarke indulges his lifelong interest in the paranormal in this well-documented look at ghost stories and the people who have told them throughout history.” —Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
ROGER CLARKE is best known as a film-writer for the Independent newspaper and more recently Sight & Sound. Inspired by a childhood spent in two haunted houses, Roger Clarke has spent much of his life trying to see a ghost. He was the youngest person ever to join the Society for Psychical Research in the 1980s and was getting his ghost stories published by The Pan & Fontana series of horror books at just 15, when Roald Dahl asked his agent to take him on as a client.
- Title: Ghosts | Free Book
- Author: Steven
- Created at : 2024-10-23 01:26:44
- Updated at : 2024-10-27 04:58:41
- Link: https://novels-ebooks.techidaily.com/211334267-9781466857865-ghosts/
- License: This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.