Haunted Places in England

In presenting this volume to the public, the author wishes to emphasize the fact that all the names of the people and houses mentioned in it (with the exception of the Syderstone hauntings), in connection with the hauntings, are fictitious. Contents: the chair; the head; cupboard; empty leash; dressing room; reticule; coombe; trunk, cough, Syderstone hauntings; green vapor; stepping stones; pines.

Elliott O'Donnell (27 February 1872 - 8 May 1965) was an author known primarily for his books about ghosts. He was said to have seen a ghost when he was five years of age, and to have also been strangled by a mysterious phantom in Dublin.

He was born in Clifton, Bristol, England, the son of an Irishman, Reverend Henry O’Donnell, who later travelled to Abyssinia while awaiting preferment to a new parish and was attacked by a gang, robbed and murdered.

Elliott O'Donnell was educated at Clifton College in Bristol, England, and later at Queen's Service Academy, Dublin, Ireland. After originally intending to take his entry exams at Sandhurst with a view to joining the Royal Irish Constabulary, he later became a ghost hunter, but first travelled in America, working on a range in Oregon and becoming a policeman during the Chicago Railway Strike of 1894. Returning to England, he worked as a schoolmaster and trained for the theatre. He served in the British army in World War I, and later acted on stage and in movies.

His first book, written in his spare time, was a psychic thriller For Satan's Sake (1904). From this point onward, he became a writer, specializing in true stories of ghosts and hauntings, which were immensely popular. He became known as an authority on the supernatural and was called upon as a ghost hunter. He also lectured and broadcast (radio and television) on the paranormal in Britain and the United States. On 8 May 1965, he died aged 93 at the Grosvenor Nursing Home, Clevedon, North Somerset, England.