Haunted: Ghost Stories and Their Afterlives

by E. Jay Gilbert

We all know the same it's simply a question of how doggedly they haunt us.


Part-chilling tale, part-memoir, part-cultural exploration, Ghost Stories and Their Afterlives takes us through some of the most chilling and enduring ghost stories, and discusses what they reveal about the listener, the teller and the times we live in.


Jay Gilbert has been collecting tales of the supernatural from her local area (a small village outside of Newcastle) for years and what surprised her most is how universal those not only in terms of recurring spectres that haunt us the world over (I'm looking at you, White Ladies), but also how similar our experience of ghost-telling is, wherever we grew up. The result is a book which explores more widely the ghosts of the British Isles and how they have endured and changed through the how they reflect the communities in which they originate, and how they are similar to and different from similar stories from across the world.


Haunted doesn't just thrill with the tales of the inexplicable, but also asks why are we so fascinated by ghost stories and what do they tell us about the community and people who cultivate them. Why are some tropes universal, while others are very much unique to the place they haunt? Do we actually care about the identity of the ghost? Or are we more concerned about how the alleged sighting made us feel?

Aimed at both believers and sceptics, it's not only for those who are looking to be frightened a little, but also for those interested in the psychology and history of the long tradition of supernatural storytelling.

Genres: Nonfiction, Ghosts, Paranormal, Audiobook, Short Stories

320 pages, Hardcover

Published September 12, 2024

Reviews

[Nailya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let me start by saying that I am very much in the intended audience for this book. I adored Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country by Edward Parnell, I am interested in ghosts, I love a reflective memoir blended with history and/or cultural criticism and, like the author, I am a professional academic in a humanities field. I was so excited to be approved to review it. Sadly, it ended up being quite a disappointment.

The blurb sells it as a 'part-memoir, part cultural exploration', focusing on British ghost stories. I was hoping this would be to Northumbria/the North-East what Ghostland, marketed in a very similar way, was to East Anglia. Let's get some things out of the way - there is no element of 'memoir' to this book; although some stories focus on Northumbria, they are by far not the focus on the book and the 'culture' at the heart of the book is folklore, not popular and/or literary culture as expressed in films, novels, poems and on TV (which is fair enough, but it could have been made clearer in the marketing material). It is a book about the folklore of ghosts. This immediately puts it in quite a different publication category, armed with a much broader existing literature and a different set of comp books. Think A Natural History of Ghosts by Roger Clarke rather than whatever niche Olivia Laing carved for herself by blending musings with criticism. Within this context, Haunted does not work for three reasons: the main argument of the book is unconvincing, it is unclear what it adds to the extensive literature on ghosts and, most importantly, it is not actually focused on ghosts, as we meet witches, Banshees, faerie folk and other elements of broader British folklore.

Let's start with the main argument. Gilbert operates from the presumption that what interests people about ghosts is the personal experience of the contact. I paraphrase, but the gist of it is that we are interested in the person who met the ghost, what exactly they saw and heard, their experience of it, and not the story or even the identity of the ghost itself. This assumption is not supported by referencing any existing research or any substantial data the author collected. It is just stated as a fact. As someone with a lifelong fascination with ghosts, nothing could be further from the truth for me - I don't give a toss about our Jimmy seeing a ghost of a Blue Boy and how it affected him, I want to learn who the Blue Boy was, why they became a ghost and what drives them to still haunt the closet of their family home. Oh, but that's just your experience, you might say. Given that the author provided to evidence to the contrary, at this point it is their word against mine, and my word is more integral to my experience as a reader than the author's is.

This assumption drives the structure and the content of the book. The chapters are loosely connected by certain themes - familiar and intimate ghosts in the first chapter, the archetype of the White Lady in the second, witches and witchcraft in the third, ghosts below ground in the fourth, haunted properties and their value in the fifth and, VERY loosely, hauntings in professional and public setting in the sixth. Most of the chapters are structured around some sort of a balance between retellings of ghost stories collected by the author and her analysis of them and their context. The earlier chapters in particular are very heavy on the stories and very thin on analysis, which makes them functionally useless, as the author did not provide any information on her research methods or research questions. The chapters read like a collection of fire camp legends, with no context or specificity. It is not even 'my friend X told me XYZ', Gilbert might as well have made them all up herself. I do not expect a methods chapter and a literature review in a trade book, but some sort of an explanation of how her data was collected and why and how she intended to use it is sorely missing from the book. She operates from a premise that all the stories were real to the people who told them, which is a heck of a premise (there are lots of reasons as to why someone might want to share a ghost story which allegedly happened to them, none of which bar 'they believed the experience happened' are discussed by Gilbert).

What is the purpose of the book? To provide some raw data for future folklore research (in which case any researcher would need a bit more context than 'this story happened to Kate')? Or is this an anthropology trade book, exploring the world of people who believe in ghosts? In this case, Gilbert needed to drastically cut the (often very boring) stories themselves and provide much more analysis of why people believe certain things. She very rarely managed to achieve a balance between her own voice and the unnecessarily detailed stories - only Chapter 4 really managed to draw me in with its stories of Cornish miners and the London Underground. Even in that chapter, there are much better books on the hauntings of the Tube out there - what is this one adding?

This brings me to my last criticism - the lack of focus. The whole witchcraft chapter and theme seemed completely tacked onto a book about ghosts in an attempt to bulk it up and make the narrative more widely appealing beyond the 'ghost' crowd, pushing the book into the wider 'folklore' market via the 'witches are feminist' trope. The rest of the chapters also jump from topic to topic at the speed of light, never giving any of Gilbert's ideas, let alone the stories she collected, any space to breathe. Chapter 6, technically focused on the theme of 'public ghosts', was the most grievous offender in this respect. It felt like the author threw everything from the archetype of a haunted school swimming pool to the Stone Tape Theory at it to see what sticks (spoiler alert - none of it does).

What a disappointment in so many ways.

Thank you NetGalley and Bonnier Books Ltd for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Gayle (OutsmartYourShelf) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haunted looks at the phenomena of ghosts & hauntings & asks why we are so fascinated by ghost stories & more importantly what do they tell us about us? As someone who has had probably more than their fair share of spooky experiences, I was intrigued by the synopsis for this one.

Now we're talking! Really enjoyed this book about the nature & role of ghosts & hauntings (alongside other beings such as goblins & fairies) in society. I can't say I agree with all the author's conclusions as I am most definitely interested in the actual hauntings & not just the experience, but there were some insightful musings, not least on why an empty or abandoned building seems so eerie to us. Let's face it though - we're all here for the scary stories & the experiences related to the author for the book were very unsettling indeed. I had to read this in the early evening so that as soon as it went dark outside, I could switch to something a little lighter. Fascinating read.

My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Bonnier Books/Manilla Press, for the opportunity t0 read an ARC.

[Magdalena Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a nice mix of research, personal experiences and actual real-life stories. I really enjoyed the introduction which set up the scene, I got hooked on the first chapter and some of the ghost stories were genuinely creepy! I then got lost in the middle when the author begins to talk about witches and fairy folk, which I usually find interesting, but in the book screaming GHOSTS, I felt a bit confused. We then don't get ghosts and stories about spirits and phantoms until a few chapters later when the book picks up in the part about spooky happenings on the London Underground. It would've been a perfect book if the author stuck to the topic of ghosts - as the cover/title/synopsis suggests that's what it is - or if it was treated more like a spooky, folky stories book, if that makes sense. I did find it a bit longer and more repetitive than necessary, but overall did enjoy it and got creeped out by some of the real ghost stories recounted in the book.

I personally also very much enjoyed the comparison of Grey/White ladies to Gandalf ;)

Thanks very much NetGalley and Bonnier UK for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

[Lydia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super enjoyable look at why we tell ghost stories and how they reflect on our communities. Even as a big skeptic, it is so interesting to consider what these stories mean and why people choose to believe them (or choose not to disbelieve them, at least). The writing is easygoing and clearsighted as well, so it's a pleasure to read.

[Kathryn McCarrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another extremely Kat book. This was brilliant as it acts as a perfect mix of academia, speculation, and good old fashioned story telling. There were stories scattered throughout this book which were clearly taken 'from the horses mouth' and I found this the perfect way to break up the book. The recommendations at the end were also invaluable! Permanent place on my shelf well earnt totally recommend...

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should recuse myself as I know the (very lovely) author, but dammit I enjoyed this a lot, so why shouldn't I say so? Many of the yarns took me right back to life oop north, sat around the campfire with the other cubs listening to such tales and then s*^&&^ng bricks all night in a tent in a windswept field whilst something crept outside...

[Jessica Ogram · Rating 2 out of 5]

As someone who has had supernatural experiences and is quite connected to these things, this book intrigued me. I enjoyed the individual stories and experiences told. I also loved seeing all the Northern locations mentioned. But I struggled with the way in which it was all written. I found it hard to read, whether it was the language used, structure, longgg chapters/paragraphs or my dyslexia, I cannot tell. I was waiting for it to be over despite my love for all topics spooky. And overall, I disagreed with the authors overall conclusions on things, while it is about us as people and how we perceive things, I personally believe it is equally important the origins and identities of these supernatural beings are known. Interesting read but not executed the best.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was really excited to read this book and it did not disappoint. The authorial voice is very funny and engaging, the discussions are interesting, and the stories themselves are really intriguing for the most part. They aren’t all about ghosts specifically, but the theme is what haunts us, culturally, and it’s clear that witches and witchcraft, alongside other folklore, slot into this category. I was hooked.

[Alex Sarll]

A ghost story book, but not the sort I usually read, nor even quite the collections of real accounts I used to guzzle as a kid (and then get nervous about come nightfall). Yes, Gilbert, co-founder of The Banshee ('the leading journal for women who scream'), has collected assorted stories of supernatural sightings and uncanny encounters, but her intent is neither to convince us of their chilling truth, nor to debunk them. When it comes to veracity, I'd classify her position as the one so wisely advocated by Ken Campbell: you should never believe anything, but you can suppose everything. That's not the point of the exercise, though. This is an exercise in sociology as much as psychical research; persistent neighbourhood rumours and provably false local legends are as welcome as first-hand accounts, because regardless of your position on the survival of the soul or the stone tape theory, the popularity of the stories that imply them, presented as fact or something like it, is telling in and of itself, and can have real world impacts. I was particularly taken by the comparison with Kwasi Kwarteng's budget, which it's easy to forget, was ultimately never enacted – but for all that it ended up as only a scary story, has still had concrete effects far beyond any local gossip about that house where new buyers always seem to move on again suspiciously soon. Gilbert admits that part of the reason the book exists is simply that she wanted to find out more about her own local house of spooky repute, the one opposite the dentist, and as she explores various categories of spook, from white ladies to witches, her home region, England's North-East, remains at the forefront, though not without forays further afield – even to Naples in the chapter on subterranean spirits. A trip that's well worth it, because I was completely unaware of the city's intriguing 'little monks', the munacielli. Though that chapter did also feature the only point where I feel obliged to disagree with the book: discussing a particularly ominous byway of the Northern Line, Gilbert tells us that since 2021 "the majority of trains that would once have terminated at Kennington will continue instead through Nine Elms", a claim given the lie by quite how often I'm obliged to change from trains terminating at Kennington, the indicator boards in the centre of town suggesting that all those behind them have the same plan. Unless, I suppose, they're all phantom trains? Something to think about, there. Regardless, I enjoyed the novel perspective of a book interested less in literary merit or proof than in the ghost story as commonly experienced: "These are the spirits whispered about at primary schools and playgroups, at the hairdresser's and at the dentist's. We often don't know the origins of the stories, or who the spirits supposedly were in life. We rarely care. We only want to know what Mary's mother's auntie saw in the attic of that house that's been sold nine times in as many years."

(Netgalley ARC)

[Joanne Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

E. Jay Gilbert’s *Haunted: Ghost Stories and Their Afterlives* is a thought-provoking exploration of the supernatural that goes beyond mere ghostly thrills. Part-memoir, part-cultural analysis, the book delves into the universal fascination with ghost stories, blending spine-chilling tales with insightful commentary on why we tell them—and what they reveal about us.

Gilbert, who has spent years collecting local ghost stories from her village near Newcastle, uncovers an intriguing paradox: while many ghosts are unique to their locations, the themes and emotions they evoke are eerily similar across cultures and generations. From the ubiquitous "White Ladies" to tales of haunted roads and spectral apparitions, the book highlights the shared nature of these stories while inviting readers to reflect on why certain tropes persist. In doing so, *Haunted* asks deeper questions: Are we more interested in the identity of the ghost or in how their presence makes us feel? What do these stories tell us about the communities that foster them?

The book is as much about the tellers as it is about the ghosts themselves. Gilbert reflects on how ghost stories act as cultural artifacts, offering glimpses into the fears, desires, and anxieties of the people who share them. She also examines how these tales evolve over time, adapting to new generations and technologies while retaining their core elements of mystery and fear. The book's mix of memoir and cultural analysis enriches the storytelling experience, making it not just a collection of ghost stories but also a meditation on why we are so drawn to the supernatural.

While *Haunted* offers plenty of eerie moments—enough to satisfy readers looking for a bit of a scare—it stands out for its focus on the psychological and social aspects of ghost-telling. Gilbert strikes a careful balance between entertainment and scholarly insight, making the book accessible to both skeptics and believers. Whether you’re fascinated by the paranormal or simply intrigued by why certain stories endure, *Haunted* provides an engaging journey through the eerie, the inexplicable, and the all-too-human.

For those interested in the intersection of folklore, psychology, and history, *Haunted* offers a fresh perspective on the ghost story tradition. It’s a must-read for anyone curious about what our ghosts say about us—and why, no matter where we live, we seem to know the same spectres.

[adela🕯️🌙 · Rating 2 out of 5]

📚i had high expectations and i am disappointed, i have to say. i found it hard to get through, to be completely honest. there was so much irrelevant information about the author herself in there, which i just wasn’t interested in. some of the stories were good but not so well written in the sense i really enjoyed them. the writing was poor, the structure was bad,it was all over the place and i felt like i could never fully get into it. i did love the touch of feminism though. there was a story where there was the quote along the lines of “better to see a dead man in the dark than an alive one.” ain’t that the truth!

[Angrboda Lyndasdottir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunted is a fascinating journey through supernatural domains and characters, viewed primarily through the lens of folklore. This book is an unusual blend of story, memoir, travelogue, and essay, and the author's engaging presentation left me feeling like I'd just enjoyed a long conversation with a group of friends; meandering across a series of related topics and pausing for anecdotes and reflections, before drawing some interesting conclusions at the close. A highly enjoyable book that's unlike anything I've read before - I thoroughly recommend it.

[Lauren Mohammed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunted was a book that I enjoyed reading on the bus, while cooking - waiting for the oven to ping and by my bedside lamp at bed time. It kept me engaged, with a wanting to keep reading to get to the the next chapter. I wasn't looking for an academic book, although I appreciated the research aspects of it. I was looking for a good read - something that could keep my interest but not scare me silly!
This book hit the mark and I really liked the various ghost stories and one of the witches tale was fascinating too. If you want to get someone a book for Christmas, I'd recommend this one.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A blend of supernatural stories and analysis of why belief in ghosts endures. There's exploration of common types of haunting, such as white ladies and knockers in mines. Interesting background into certain jobs and their ghosts, although sometimes the analysis wasn't very conclusive. However, I found it very readable and enjoyable. I must have been engrossed because, one evening, on a quiet shift on the site of the abandoned asylum where I work, I jumped out of my skin when the caretaker came in!

[Andrea Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, picked it up in a local bookshop because the cover was so beautiful and I was not disappointed! The writing style is so engaging, I feel like the author and I have been friends for years now! Every chapter sent me down a new rabbit hole. Learned so much, was generally creeped out, could easily read a sequel!

[Bella · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who has spent a lot of time in some of these places mentioned (in the North East, Wales) and grew up a short 5 minute walk away from the mentioned Newsham Park, I will be recommending this to absolutely anyone fascinated in ghost stories, folklore, witches, or just a little light Halloween season reading.

[Jessica Mather · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was just a good non-fiction that had creepy ghost stories, and posed interesting questions about where they came from. I read Cursed (different author) in the same month, and both of these are fairly similar.
I liked that this explored stories around ghosts, witches, rituals, and all sorts

[Annette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good. An interesting read about ghosts in the North of the U.K, how much people believe in ghosts, even if they say they don’t, different places ghost stories originate be it, pubs, schools, hospitals or even underground. Would recommend particularly now the nights have drawn in.

[Colleen Be · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was an interesting book and personally enjoyed the mix of folklore and ghosts stories. It was a gentle meandering read, one you could easily put down and pick up when the mood strikes. I found it well written and researched.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable exploration of ghosts, witches, fairies and belief in the supernatural. Mix of old stories and those told by those who have encountered such things.

[Johanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good choice for fans of the Uncanny podcast and book by Danny Robins.

[Leticia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pacy and atmospheric collection of ghost stories, all woven together with insight and wit. I love that the stories within almost all occurred within living memory, locally, and that so many of the haunting described were ultimately more benign than threatening; it made the entire book unexpectedly modern and personal, an extension of actual ghost stories that you hear from friends and relatives, rather than some over-wrought Hollywood fantasy.