The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula


Eric Nuzum - 2007
    They're not just in movies and books, but in commercials, fetish clubs, and even in your breakfast cereal. If you look, you'll discover that bloodsuckers have gone from guest spots in rural folk tales to becoming some of the most recognizable bad guys in the modern world. Eric Nuzum wanted to find out why and how this happened. And he found the answer in Goth clubs, darkened parks, haunted houses, and… chain restaurants.  Nuzum was willing to do whatever it took to better understand the vampire phenomenon. He traveled across Transylvania on a tour hosted by Butch Patrick (a.k.a. Eddie Munster), sat through Las Vegas' only topless vampire revue, hung out with assorted shady characters, and spent hours in a coffin. He even drank his own blood --just one more step in his quest to understand the weird, offbeat world of vampires and the people who love them. The Dead Travel Fast is the hilarious result of this bloody, gory, and often foolhardy journey. With his unmatched firsthand experience, Eric Nuzum delivers a far-reaching look at vampires in pop culture, from Bram to Bela to Buffy, and at what vampires and vampirism have come to mean to us today.  And the blood? Let's just say it doesn't go with eggs.

Weird Virginia: Your Travel Guide to Virginia's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets


Jeff Bahr - 2007
    And it's precisely this offbeat sense of curiosity that led the duo to create Weird N.J. and the successful series that followed. The NOT shocking result? Every Weird book has become a best seller in its region! This best-selling series has sold more than one million copies...and counting! Thirty volumes of the Weird series have been published to great success since Weird New Jersey's 2003 debut.

The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories


Michael Cox - 1991
    In an age of rapid scientific progress, the idea of a vindictive past able to reach out and violate the present held a special potential for terror. Throughout the nineteenth century, fictional ghost stories developed in parallel with the more general Victorian fascination with death and what lay beyond it. Though they were as much a part of the cultural and literary fabric of the age as imperial confidence, the best of the stories still retain their original power to surprise and unsettle. In Victorian Ghost Stories, the editors map out the development of the ghost story from 1850 to the early years of the twentieth century and demonstrate the importance of this form of short fiction in Victorian popular culture. As well as reprinting stories by supernatural specialists such as J. S. Le Fanu and M. R. James, this selection emphasizes the key role played by women writers--including Elizabeth Gaskell, Rhoda Broughton, and Charlotte Riddell--and offers one or two genuine rarities. Other writers represented include Charles Dickens, Henry James, Wilkie Collins, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and R. L. Stevenson. There is also a fascinating Introduction and a chronological list of ghost story collections from 1850 to 1910.Includes:The old nurse's story by Elizabeth GaskellAn account of some strange disturbances in Aungier Street by J.S. Le FanuThe miniature by J.Y. AkermanThe last house in C-Street by Dinah MulockTo be taken with a grain of salt by Charles DickensThe Botathen ghost by R.S. HawkerThe truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth by Rhoda BroughtonThe romance of certain old clothes by Henry JamesPichon & Sons, of the Croix Rousse by AnonymousReality or delusion? by Mrs Henry WoodUncle Cornelius, his story by George MacDonaldThe shadow of a shade by Tom HoodAt Chrighton Abbey by Mary Elizabeth BraddonNo living voice by Thomas Street MillingtonMiss Jéromette and the clergyman by Wilkie CollinsThe story of Clifford House by AnonymousWas it an illusion? by Amelia B. EdwardsThe open door by Charlotte RiddellThe captain of the "Pole-star" by Sir Arthur Conan DoyleThe body-snatcher by Robert Louis StevensonThe story of the rippling train by Mary Louisa MolesworthAt the end of the passage by Rudyard Kipling"To let" by B.M. CrokerJohn Charrington's wedding by E. NesbitThe haunted organist of Hurly Burly by Rosa MulhollandThe man of science by Jerome K. JeromeCanon Alberic's scrap-book by M.R. JamesJerry Bundler by W.W. JacobsAn Eddy on the floor by Bernard CapesThe tomb of Sarah by F.G. LoringThe case of Vincent Pyrwhit by Barry PainThe shadows on the wall by Mary E. WilkinsFather Macclesfield's tale by R.H. BensonThurnley Abbey by Perceval LandonThe kit-bag by Algernon Blackwood

Ghosts by Gaslight


Jack DannRobert Silverberg - 2011
    Seventeen all-new stories illuminate the steampunk world of fog and fear!Modern masters of the supernatural weave their magic to revitalize the chilling Victorian and Edwardian ghostly tale: here are haunted houses, arcane inventions, spirits reaching across the centuries, ghosts in the machine, fateful revelations, gaslit streets scarcely keeping the dark at bay, and other twisted variations on the immortal classics that frighten us still.

Great Ghost Stories


John GraftonE.F. Benson - 1992
    Featuring a gallery of ghostly characters, forbidding landscapes, gloomy country manors, and occult occurrences, this spine-tingling collection features works by such masters of the macabre as Bram Stoker (the creator of Dracula), J. S. LeFanu, Ambrose Bierce, and M. R. James.The ten classics included in this volume are: "The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. Jacobs, E. G. Swain's "Bone to His Bone," "The Rose Garden" by M. R. James, Dickens's "To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt," LeFanu's "Dickon the Devil," Stoker's "The Judge's Salt," "The Moonlit Road" by Ambrose Bierce, Amelia B. Edwards's "The Phantom Coach," "A Ghost Story" by Jerome K. Jerome, and E. F. Benson's "The Confession of Charles Linkworth."

Cops' True Stories of the Paranormal: Ghosts, UFOs, and Other Shivers


Loren W. Christensen - 2016
    Christensen asked men and women in uniform—police officers, sheriff deputies, SWAT, command, correction officers, and MPs—to convey their experiences with the paranormal. These are veteran officers that have been there and done that, but on one occasion they were confronted with the unexplained ... Here are some of the stories told within: Close Encounters of the Second Kind Vanished Trapped Eyes Dead Man Walking Dead Man's Cane A Touch of Thanks The Snitch The Warning The Light The Couple Wrong Number Ghost Prisoner Tower 7 Hospital Morgue Coffee and Cups The Stabber The Faceless Mannequin White Eagle The Man in the Window Strange Place Forest Lawn Cemetery Scratches A Sign in Twisted Metal He Pulled The Trigger Four Times

The World's Greatest Ghosts


Nigel Blundell - 1984
    Other titles available include "The World's Greatest Secrets" and "The World's Greatest Crimes of Passion".

Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah


Colm A. Kelleher - 2005
    Vanishing and mutilated cattle. Unidentified Flying Objects. The appearance of huge, otherworldly creatures. Invisible objects emitting magnetic fields with the power to spark a cattle stampede. Flying orbs of light with dazzling maneuverability and lethal consequences. For one family, life on the Skinwalker Ranch had become a life under siege by an unknown enemy or enemies. Nothing else could explain the horrors that surrounded them -- perhaps science could. Leading a first-class team of research scientists on a disturbing odyssey into the unknown, Colm Kelleher spent hundreds of days and nights on the Skinwalker property and experienced firsthand many of its haunting mysteries. With investigative reporter George Knapp -- the only journalist allowed to witness and document the team's work -- Kelleher chronicles in superb detail the spectacular happenings the team observed personally, and the theories of modern physics behind the phenomena. Far from the coldly detached findings one might expect, their conclusions are utterly hair-raising in their implications. Opening a door to the unseen world around us, Hunt for the Skinwalker is a clarion call to expand our vision far beyond what we know.

True Singapore Ghost Stories : Book 10


Russell Lee - 1998
    The most exciting book yet! More "special" stories, an all-new 'Russell Lee Interview' section and over 50 stories inside! A must-read, extra-special 10th book!

The Ghost: A Cultural History


Susan Owens - 2017
    All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.” —Samuel Johnson   Ghosts are woven into the very fabric of life. In Britain, every town, village, and great house has a spectral resident, and their enduring popularity in literature, art, folklore, and film attests to their continuing power to fascinate, terrify, and inspire. Our conceptions of ghosts—the fears they provoke, the forms they take—are connected to the conventions and beliefs of each particular era, from the marauding undead of the Middle Ages to the psychologically charged presences of our own age. The ghost is no less than the mirror of the times.   Organized chronologically, this new cultural history features a dazzling range of artists and writers, including William Hogarth, William Blake, Henry Fuseli, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, Susan Hiller and Jeremy Deller; John Donne, William Shakespeare, Samuel Pepys, Daniel Defoe, Percy and Mary Shelley, Emily Bronte, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Henry James, Thomas Hardy, Muriel Spark, Hilary Mantel, and Sarah Waters.

Lily Dale: The True Story of the Town That Talks to the Dead


Christine Wicker - 2003
    Instead, they flit among the elms and stroll along the streets. According to Spiritualists who have ruled this community for five generations, the spirits never go away -- and they stay anything but quiet. Every summer twenty-thousand guests come to consult the town's mediums in hopes of communicating with their dead relatives or catching a glimpse of the future. Weaving past and present, the living and the dead, award-winning journalist and bestselling author Christine Wicker investigates a religion that attracted millions of Americans since the 1800s. She reveals the longings for love and connection that draw the people to "the Dale," introducing us to a colorful cast of characters along the way -- including famous visitors such as Susan B. Anthony, Harry Houdini, and Mae West. Laugh out loud funny at times, this honest portrayal shows us that it ultimately doesn't matter what we believe; it is belief itself that can transform us all.

Night Stalks the Mansion: A True Story of One Family's Ghostly Adventure


Constance Westbie - 1977
    After experiencing footsteps at night, opening doors, strange sounds and activity that centered around the library, they investigate, unearthing the mansion's tragic past and changing their beliefs about the supernatural world.

Demons: True stories of demonic possessions & demonic attacks


Stephen Young - 2014
    Demons & Deadly Encounters. A Journey into the ultimate Heart of Darkness. Excerpts; ‘It’s the middle of the night and he thinks he’s been asleep for a while but he’s wide awake now. Something is pushing down on his chest, hard. He’s fighting to breathe and he tries to move, to get it off him, but his body won’t move. He’s paralysed and filled with panic. He tries to scream but nothing comes out...’ ‘They told her they were going to kill her and she didn't have a chance; they were too many...’ ‘Stood in the hall was a dark figure. The presence was finally showing itself to me...’ ‘The children’s eyes were rolling in their heads, blood pouring from their ears and mouths, talking in strange languages, and being thrown involuntarily across rooms...’ ‘Marks appeared on the neck of our three year old son. They were purple. They looked like strangulation marks.’ ‘Her eyes, which had moments before looked lacklustre and vacant, suddenly blazed with inhuman light.' ‘As the Doctor looked down at the blood in the bowl, he saw it swirling around in a most unnatural way, before rearing up in a solid column and leaping out of the bowl on to the floor. At this point the bowl shattered into a hundred pieces. The doctor fled in terror.’ ‘There are practitioners who have attempted to summon demons, and have been found with every bone in their body broken the next day.’ “I wake to see a tall, dark, hooded figure, standing still, right by my bed; his face covered by his hood, but watching me. I know he was real; I could hear his breathing...” “Her eyes rolled in the back of her head, her face contorted and she would tell him ‘they’ were going to kill her, that she belonged to Satan. It was a deep man’s voice that came out of her. The voice said, “We can kill her at any time we want...” “I’d lie in bed and feel someone’s arms around me. It wasn’t a safe feeling but a menacing one, as if someone was showing me that I belonged to them.” ‘According to the police report, one of the women had killed herself after she’d told friends she’d been hearing a voice that kept telling her to kill herself.’ “A creature appeared in the room, its eyes were glowing red. This creature was physical; at least after it had entered into our reality. It was naked, no hair, extremely muscular. I estimate his height about six foot five but his bone structure was bigger than in a human. His mouth was huge. There was no way to describe it other than as a demon.” "It was just supposed to be fun; we were asking it questions, and then it asked if it could visit us, so I said yes, thinking it was one of the children doing it; but it wasn’t one of the kids. And that’s when the horror started...” ‘Suddenly it was like a stake pierced my chest and gradually, I felt the sensation of it pulling open my ribs. I thought I would die...’ “I saw a boy sat at a table. He called me over to him and started talking to me. He spoke as if he knew all my thoughts. He finished my sentences for me. He promised me everything I always wanted. But there was one condition; I give my soul over to Satan.” “As I lay there I would see demons appearing in different forms; the most hideous faces, covered with blood, with sharp teeth and claws." “When I opened my eyes there was a black shadowed figure. It loomed over me, then took hold of me. I tried to get out of its grip but its strength was overpowering.

A Haunting In Wisconsin


Michael Richan - 2017
    They soon discover that sleeping in the building unearths the spirits of people long dead, reviving a haunted mystery that has waited many decades to be solved. Eliza and Robert’s plans to relax are put on hold while they try to help the owner of the B&B salvage his business.Eliza and Robert both have the “gift,” but using it is difficult in the old building; something is wrong here, something that obscures their ability to see what’s truly happening. They discover a fiendish child who has taken diabolical secrets to the grave, intent on harming others. Their harrowing search for her — and the surprises buried with her — is filled with danger, as they discover much more evil and malevolent forces at work. A Haunting in Wisconsin is a fast-paced paranormal mystery with an enjoyable cast of characters. It is full of twists and turns, as Eliza and Robert fight to save the B&B — and themselves. It is a stand-alone novel. No prior reading is necessary to enjoy this title.

Chasing Ghosts: A Tour of Our Fascination with Spirits and the Supernatural


Marc Hartzman - 2021
    Every town has its local legends, and countless books, movies, and TV shows are haunted by their presence. But our obsession with ghosts runs deeper than we know—and is embedded in the very fabric of American history. Writer and historian Marc Hartzman dons the mantle of tour guide, taking readers on a fascinating journey through supernatural history, including: • The Fox Sisters and the rise of Spiritualism • The supernatural obsessions of famous figures like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle • Famous haunted sites like the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia and the LaLaurie House in New Orleans • Famous ghosts like the Bell Witch of Tennessee and the Greenbrier Ghost of West Virginia • Paranormal investigators like Ed and Lorraine Warren Deeply researched and highly entertaining, with archival images and black and white illustrations, Chasing Ghosts will satisfy believers and skeptics alike.