Visions of an Unseen World: Ghost Beliefs and Ghost Stories in Eighteenth Century England

by Sasha Handley

A study of the production, circulation and consumption of English ghost stories during the Age of Reason. This work examines a variety of mediums: ballads and chapbooks, newspapers, sermons, medical treatises and scientific journals, novels and plays. It relates the telling of ghost stories to changes associated with the Enlightenment.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Virginia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new favorite scholarly work. Handley takes a ton of very thorough research and synthesizes it in fascinating ways that have helped me reformulate some of my own arguments and interests regarding this period. I highly recommend this to anyone with a scholarly interest in 18th century religion and literature.

[Leif · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read, oh I don't know, near a hundred books related to the subjects of ghosts. Sasha Handley's is one of the best out there. Her talents of informed summary and her copious research make for an effortless guide through the sometimes familiar and sometimes groundbreaking terrain of hauntings in England over a respectable time period. Handley is careful about her claims and patiently honest about the limitations of her own work, but you'd be hard pressed to find anything near as helpful as her book in one volume. She deserves some kind of medal.