The Penguin Book of Ghosts
The study of history and its less serious but much prettier sister, the creation of historical fiction, is on one level always a conversation with ghosts. Some ghosts we have to spend a lot of time and effort digging up; some are more than happy to make themselves available.
Westwood and Simpson’s compendium of English ghostly legends is an invaluable guide to our ghosts, to when and where they appear and speculations as to why. An excellent introduction classifies the various kinds of spectral apparitions and their variations and reflects, in a scholarly but accessible way on the interpretation of their strange behaviour and manner of appearance.
A useful source for authors in search of a plot and an entertaining and fascinating read. My own county of Suffolk is clearly so packed with black dogs, headless horsemen and ghostly carriages it’s a wonder there is any room for the rest of us.
