How often do ghost storues, which circulate, owe their origin to a writer?
I was thinking about this after finding a writer's contribution involved in following up
the Hinton Ampner story yesterday.
There's the story in Lord Halifax's ghost book, for instance, about
The train passenger, who finds his fellow passenger to be a ghost,
and solves a crime as a result.
It's peculiar, as i know that story, which passes as true in Lord Halifax's collection, was written by a very excellent, now mostly forgotten contemporary of Dickens,
Amelia B Edwards.
Some of the lesser known contributers to Dickens Christmas tales were generally better at writing ghost stories than Dickens was, in my opinion,
Although Christmas Carol is a classic.
Anyway, that story came from her pen, Berkeley Square from Rhoda Broughton.
Who says that ghost stories are a lesser art form in writing?
What has happened for them to be dismissed?
They have had such a major impact on our culture.
I wish that culture's morbid fascination with gore and violence
Could disappear, and we could go back to a time
When bookshops were not full of horror and mayhem stories.
To a time of writers and imagination.
And reawaken that culture.
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