Holy Ghosts

Fiona Snailham

ISBN 10: 0712354131 / ISBN 13: 9780712354134

Published by British Library Publishing, GB, 2023

About this Item

"I confess I have a particular dislike to remain in a church after dusk; it recalls to my mind the most painful story I ever heard."A festering evil lurks in the grotesque carvings of a cathedral's hallowed inner sanctum; sheltering in an Alpine chapel, a young libertine confronts his eerie monastic doppelganger; locked in a Spanish cathedral, a honeymooning couple bears witness to a fatal procession. Churches and other sacred sites have inspired writers of the weird and uncanny for centuries as spaces in which death and the afterlife are within touching distance - where ghosts, demons and possessed effigies remain to haunt the living. Through eleven stories published between 1851 and 1935, this new anthology revives a throng of undying spirits from a host of unsung and classic authors including Elizabeth Gaskell, M. R. James, John Wyndham, and Edith Wharton.

Seller Inventory # LU-9780712354134

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Holy Ghosts
• Publisher: British Library Publishing, GB
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0712354131
• ISBN 13: 9780712354134
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

A couple witnesses a ghostly procession from centuries past; a tourist confesses her sins to a priest long since dead; cursed statues torment a sinning Archdeacon.

Churches, monasteries and convents have long been associated with sanctuary: sacred spaces should offer protection from evil in all its forms. This new anthology raises questions about the protection offered by faith, bringing together a collection of tales in which holy places are filled with horror; where stone effigies come to life and believers are tormented by terrifying apparitions.

In a host of uncanny stories published between 1855 and 1935, Holy Ghosts uncovers sacrilegious specters and the ecclesiastically eerie. Reincarnating forgotten authors, from Mrs Henry Wood to Ada Buisson, Robert Hichens to M R James; Amelia B Edwards to Vernon Lee, the anthology exhumes stories buried deep in the British Library stacks.

About the Author

Fiona Snailham is an academic based at the University of Greenwich, whose research and published work explores nineteenth-century literature and culture, and the intersection between Christian theology and Victorian mediumship and spiritualism. She is also a contributor to BBC History Extra and History Today.