The Grey Lady (1883) is an interesting work by Millais in which we see the ghost of a murdered woman. The staircase was taken from St. Mary’s Tower, Birnam, a building that has since been demolished but you can see photographs of it here taken in 1963. The artist’s son described the work in The … Read more
I think Sir John Everett Millais’ painting Speak! Speak! is a perfect Pre-Raphaelite image to share on Halloween. The ghost of a bride appears to her love. He reaches out to her, urging her to speak. It’s a haunting image and the concept had been on the artist’s mind for forty years before he … Read more
Before writing her famous bestseller Chocolat, Joanne Harris penned Sleep, Pale Sister, a provocative 19th-century story of madness, lies, and laudanum. Written in 1994, it was reprinted ten years later and introduced to a broader audience. The recent reprint contains bonus materials in the back for further discussion including an author interview and background information … Read more
“I do not know exactly where to place a class of drawings for which Edward was famous in our closest circle. We called them “Bogey drawings”, and they dealt fearlessly with the fearful subject. We shuddered and laughed as we saw the old fears of our childhood embodied in the march of a Bogey up … Read more
Tim Powers doesn’t write about your run-of-the-mill vampires. His undead may feed upon you, but in return they will inspire words and poetry that you could never have written before. I found Powers’ mythology to be a refreshing twist. In Hide Me Among the Graves, the artistic Rossetti family deals with the vampiric curse of … Read more
When it comes to ghost stories, the Victorians were absolutely the best. It was an era that birthed Industrialism and scientific discovery, yet people held firmly to superstition and folklore. Death closely hovered around every family, regardless of wealth or class. Mourning was so common that there were societal rules about it that were to … Read more