Either ghosts are a metaphor for history, or history is a metaphor for ghosts.
– Jack Cady
Multo — the Tagalog word for ghost.
This is a blog about ghosts — literal, fictional, and metaphorical. It’s also a blog about whatever I want it to be about, so sometimes, the connection to ghosts may be a bit tenuous… .
I absolutely love your blog! My first novel was tangled up with a re-imagined versions of Scottish folk tales (and minor histories), and included visitations from ‘fairies’ – sith or ‘schie’, which in Scotland aren’t exactly the same as the little creatures with wings, but are something like ghosts or spirits of place. I was quite unacademic in this area, so it’s very inspiring to read all of the various myths you recount here.
Thanks! It’s so nice to know that I am reaching other people with similar interests. I like your blog too, and I definitely plan to find your first novel. Good luck with the work on your next one!
The first novel isn’t published yet – my lovely agent is in negotiations with a small press at the moment, though details will be up whenever I have them.
Keep up the good work here!
Good luck getting the first novel out, then — and please let us know when you do!
I’ll have to add a ghost story/novel to the winter break reading list. Any suggestions??
I read mostly short stories, so my first thought is Ghost Stories of An Antiquary, by M. R. James. It’s in Project Gutenberg.
Turn of the Screw, Henry James. That’s a classic, and when he wrote it his style hadn’t gotten quite as roundabout and elliptical as it eventually got. I don’t think it’s in Gutenberg, but I have an e-copy of it, so there must be e-versions available (free). Also, a new annotated print edition came out last year, I think. I’ve been meaning to go pick it up.
Speaking of Henry James, “The Romance of Certain Old Clothes” is my favorite short story of his — and it’s a ghost story. Etext available (free).
“Afterward” by Edith Wharton. Short story — my favorite of her ghost stories. Etext available, free. There is a print collection of her ghost stories out, as well: “The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton”
H.P. Lovecraft himself recommends House of Seven Gables, by Hawthorne. I picked up the Gutenberg edition (or maybe the Feedbooks one), but I haven’t started it. Lovecraft’s taste isn’t necessarily mine, but I like the Hawthorne that I’ve read…
And incidentally, Lovecraft’s criticism of the field, Supernatural Horror in Literature, is in Gutenberg, too…
Ghost Stories of Chapelizod is a short collection by Sheridan Le Fanu that’s pretty good. Most Le Fanu is pretty good, actually. In Gutenberg or Feedbooks.
If you can find Jack Cady collections, check him out. And I really liked Elwin Cotman’s Jack Daniels Sessions — those are two authors I wrote about in my post “Ghosts, History, Tradition”.
Ok. That should get you started
Thanks for all of the suggestions. I have read Turn of the Screw before but not any of the others you have suggested, so I’ll get right on that in January. Hawthorne has written one of my favorite short stories of all time so perhaps I will start with him.