The Penguin Book of the Undead: Fifteen Hundred Years of Supernatural Encounters

The Penguin Book of... (Penguin Classics)

by Scott G. Bruce (editor)

Since ancient times, accounts of supernatural activity have mystified us. Ghost stories as we know them did not develop until the late nineteenth century, but the restless dead haunted the premodern imagination in many forms, as recorded in historical narratives, theological texts, and personal letters. The Penguin Book of the Undead teems with roving hordes of dead warriors, corpses trailed by packs of barking dogs, moaning phantoms haunting deserted ruins, evil spirits emerging from burning carcasses in the form of crows, and zombies with pestilential breath.

Spanning from the Hebrew scriptures to the Roman Empire, the Scandinavian sagas to medieval Europe, the Protestant Reformation to the Renaissance, this beguiling array of accounts charts our relationship with spirits and apparitions, wraiths and demons over fifteen hundred years, showing the evolution in our thinking about the ability of dead souls to return to the realm of the living--and to warn us about what awaits us in the afterlife.

Genres: Horror, Nonfiction, History, Classics, Short Stories, Anthologies, Religion

320 pages, Paperback

First published October 6, 2016

About the author

Scott G. Bruce is an historian of religion and culture in the early and central Middle Ages (c. 400-1200). He teaches in the Department of History at the University of Colorado at Boulder, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Classics. His research interests include monasticism, hagiography and Latin poetry. He is a specialist on the history of the abbey of Cluny. His work has been funded by the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation.

SGB is the author of Silence and Sign Language in Medieval Monasticism: The Cluniac Tradition (c. 900-1200) (Cambridge, 2007) and the editor of Ecologies and Economies in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Studies in Environmental History for Richard C. Hoffmann (Leiden, 2010). His articles have appeared in Revue bénédictine, Cîteaux: Commentarii cistercienses, The Journal of Medieval Latin, and Early Medieval Europe.

SGB is an enthusiastic participant in the Medieval Academy of America (MAA). He is recently served a two-year term on the MAA Nominating Committee (2012-14) and is currently serving a three-year term on the MAA AHA Program Committee (2013-17).

SGB is Director of the University of Colorado's Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (CMEMS) for a three-year term (2013-2016).

Reviews

[Lee Foust · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I'm no longer doing serious research, writing, or publishing in the scholarly terrordrome, I try to keep up with topics of interest from my former life and things that might be applicable to the courses that I still teach--Dante's Commedia, Medieval Italian lit., and Gothic lit. I've long been interested in Medieval Christian visionary literature (my Ph.D. dissertation posited that that tradition, much more than the classical descensi of Odysseus and Aeneas, were the real models for the Commedia) and Purgatorial ghost stories, believing them ultimately to be the roots of the Victorian ghost story and certain other elements of eighteenth century Gothic literature.

This anthology of translated mostly medieval Latin texts dealing with interactions between the world of the living and that of the dead was a welcome publication, then--especially in my new lay life, in which I no longer have the time to wade through medieval Latin texts in the original. The problem with this anthology, though, for me, was that in my studies I have seen less the "interactions between the living and the dead" and more succinct literary traditions--so, for me a scene of Catabasis or the descent into Hades, and a Purgatorial visitation are really quite different things and it somehow irked me to see them mashed together here. This collection's super broad strokes both in terms of literary traditions/genres and time (from 700 BCE to 1600 in fewer than 300 pp just seemed too sketchy. I would have much preferred a more narrow focus, slightly more developed interpretation of the types of interactions with the dead presented and their effect on literary traditions, and--at the risk of some repetition perhaps--more texts in each genre for comparison.

I know, you just can't please everyone.

On the upside, I'm glad to have a translation of "Borontus' Vision," as it was left out of Eileen Gardiner's collection Visions of Heaven and Hell Before Dante, I also enjoyed the ghostly tales which, up to now, I knew mainly from The Golden Legend (oddly absent here but fine for me since I have the complete Ryan translation). I also greatly appreciated the thoughtful analysis of Shakespeare's creation of Hamlet's father's ghost as an amalgam of the Protestant and Catholic attitudes toward specters and that really nice bit of critical interpretation, specifically, made me yearn for a bit more criticism/digestion of the texts throughout and a more thorough tracing of what I call medieval Christian folklore and its effect upon later, more self-cosciously literary works of poetry and fiction.

And a shout out to the great cover art by Anton Semenov. Nice.

[Claude Bouchard · Rating 1 out of 5]

OMG, if there was ever an award for most deceptive description on the back cover of a book, this would win it!

The book allegedly "teems with roving hordes of dead warriors, corpses trailed by packs of barking dogs, moaning phantoms haunting deserted ruins, evil spirits emerging from burning carcasses in the form of crows, and zombies with pestilential breath." Instead of fun and chilling stories of the undead, you get bone-dry historical and (mostly) religious texts spanning from the Dark Ages to the Protestant Reformation regarding apparitions and restless souls, most of which are written in a very matter-of-fact way. It's like reading a religious historical textbook. Complete waste of $17.

[Nina Dreyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes! YES!! Primary sources about walking revenants, disease-spreading ghouls and resentful ghosts, right back from classical times? What's not to love! This nifty volume has enough to interest anyone from the student of history to the devoted fan of popular culture, and is, of course, a super useful reference book for the writer of gloomy fiction.

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too many of the samey kind of stories where it's ghosts coming back to haunt monks etc to ask for intercessory prayers like...once you have read a few of those they all start sounding the same. Needed more of the Norse ghosts which included one making an apparition of a seal just slowly appear through the floorboards.

Other highlights:
The lesbian ghost who went to hell because she actually did go to confession in life to confess all her sins but casually forgot to mention her Sinful Gay Deeds (TM) so that is what did her in. BUT DON'T WORRY. The Queen of Heaven Mary HERSELF actually rescued her soul b/c let's be real she knows what's up.

A guy in ancient Greece bought a notably haunted house, waited up for this chain rattling ghost to appear then gave him The Hand & told him to wait because he was in the middle of writing something.

The petty ghost who went to the next town over from where he was laid to rest just so he could blow SPECIFICALLY on one woman's eye.

[L A · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do you like cool books about the undead and other creepy stories? Then this is not the book for you. If you are into very dry, boring stories about the near death experience of medieval monks however then you'll be in hog heaven.

[L · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Penguin Book of the Undead is selection of works which presents many different accounts relating to abnormal and supernatural spectres that have risen from the dead. Most of these are ghosts which have risen for the dead for some purpose or another. That is what the collection is attempting to show: for what reason ghosts appear rather than how the image of the undead has developed over time.

A large issue with the texts provided is the lack of depth within the texts, usually being only around 5 or 6 pages if generous, which results in there not being a large amount of distinction between the numerous texts. The stories are separated by categories ranging from ‘The Ghosts of War’ to ‘Haunting the Wings’ which contain around 2 to 3 stories. The fact that there is such limited information within each text coupled with the abundance of works results in a sense of fatigue when reading due it seeming as though the same texts are being repeated but by differing authors.
Some of the stories certainly are both entertaining and informative on the topic of the undead, however a significant portion are merely iterative.

Stories that I recommend to read, ignoring the others, are:
Pliny Contemplates the Existence of Ghosts
A Mistress of the Graves
Speaking with the Dead in the Hebrew Scriptures
A Ghost Upon the Waters
Dreaming of the Dead
The Discernment of the Saints
Evodius’s Inquiry: Going Forth from the Body, Who Are We?
Augustine’s Rejection of Ghosts
Pope Gregory the Great: How Can the Living Help the Dead?
The Vision of Barontus
A Lesbian Ghost
Warnings to the Living
The Evil Welshman
Terror in Tonnerre
Of Ghostes and Spirites Walking by Nyght
When Night Draws Swiftly Darkling On
The Torments of Tantalus

[Colby Mcmurry · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars; while the book is informative and the various excerpts and stories included are entertaining, I couldn't help but leave this book feeling a little disappointed. As the book and many of its selections state, the undead are varied and every culture has its own versions of spirits, ghosts, zombies, etc. However, this book concentrates far too much on the Western and Christian traditions in my opinion. Again, this content is engaging, but considering the pervasiveness of the undead throughout the globe, I find it stupefying that more variety was not included. Overall, if you are looking for a solid reference book for spooky stories pertaining to spirits and the undead I would consider this one, but only if you are using it as a companion to another book.

[Rachel Moyes · Rating 5 out of 5]

The hardest job* you'll ever love**

*book to get through
**give 5 stars

I loved reading this and learning more about religious thought and action in the Middle Ages. It really makes you wonder--if seeing ghosts is so prevalent across cultures and time, what is really happening? I want to see a ghost but I don't believe I can see a ghost, and maybe that's the only reason I haven't seen one.

I kept having to relisten to parts because I'd zone out but this is the second compilation of primary sources that I've read this year and I am enjoying this new (to me) form of nonfiction reading for pleasure.

Also, listening to this in between reading the first four Percy Jackson books was very fun.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

While generally interesting, I found the large amount of Christian sources to be fairly uninteresting, just as a matter of personal taste. Unfortunately, Christian doctrine and storytelling had a large part in shaping the perception and history of ghosts and apparitions in the European, English-speaking world. I'd be much more interested in reading about ghosts and ghouls found in other cultures and religions.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought it was cool, but I love medieval studies and history.

A lot of reviews I read were complaining about its Euro-centered and mostly Christian focus, but I kinda feel like, get over it, that's what informs much of Western society. Not long after I read this, I watched an episode of Expedition Unknown, where they are in Eastern Europe tracking down claims of vampires and looking at its origin. They interviewed a Bulgarian guy that honestly could have come straight out of one of these medieval tales. He and his village friends not only believed some of the exact same things about people coming back from the dead, but they also practiced some of the same, or similar rituals. Many other elements of these stories persist in American and other European cultures today, and possibly in other cultures. Of course at times I rolled my eyes, but I thought it was a fascinating look into the origins and history of Western beliefs about death, and also how we have used these types of stories to give moral lessons (sort of scaring people straight).

The other thing this anthology maybe did not intend to show is how morally corrupt the practice of selling indulgences was, on the part of the Catholic Church, particularly the Monastery of Cluny. It was a shockingly corrupt and hypocritical practice of telling people their dead loved ones were suffering in Hell or Purgatory, and that if you just paid the monks to say mass and perform other holy acts for them, that you could increase your own chance of going to Heaven as well as getting them in. The sad thing is that these people were often illiterate and even so most couldn't have read Latin anyway, so it was easy for greedy or corrupt church leaders to make things up. Worth the read, in my view.

[Scott]

Bookended with excerpts from the Odyssey & Hamlet & featuring a few excerpts of the Sagas, this collection consists largely of accounts, letters & testaments concerning the undead. With a few exceptions of "rampaging revenants" the collection is largely concerned with spirits, friendly & malevolent. Scott Bruce, the editor of the collection & a professor of medieval history makes a compelling argument for the Catholic Church having taken the Old Testament story of the Witch of Endor, plus pagan beliefs & essentially inventing the ghost story as a way of encouraging profitable intercessions & to expand & solidify power. Despite the dubious motives of some of the authors, there are some real gems in here, such as Hellequin's Horde which predates Dante's imaginative rendering of The Inferno & the utter strangeness surrounding many of the events in the section Spectral Servants of the Church both come to mind. This is a book to read in fragments over several days, but the historical "accounts" with nice turns of phrases, plus the more literary works makes for a compelling collection. 

[Emma Melling]

This is an anthology that I am using for one of my university essays, so I don't really feel like I can rate it, but if I was I would give it 4 stars. I think it is a well put together anthology that covers a far-reaching time period and does a good job of explaining the progression of attitudes towards ghosts and the undead. I would have liked a little more annotation and commentary, but still, it was very useful for its purpose. Obviously very academic so not really something I recommend unless you're very passionate about the topic.

[Blair Hodgkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of stories from medieval chronicles offers insight into the early ghost story tradition, particularly in the ways in which it intertwines with Christian theology. Very interesting anthology. Recommended if one is interested in the medieval period, to which it adds a fascinating dimension.

[Martyna · Rating 4 out of 5]

fascynujący zbiór pełen historii o duchach i nieumarłych. jedyne do czego muszę się przyczepić to to, jak bardzo katolicko-centryczny był zbiór, ponieważ spora jego część dotyczy chrześcijańskich historii o nieumarłych, a ja jestem pewna, że inne religie mają równie fascynujące historie, które warto byłoby zamieścić w tym zbiorze.

[elemsr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting, my only complaint is that it only had stories from Europe.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a dense book on translated texts from the ancient to early modern period. Probably of some use to writers wanting to get background for historical ghost stories but fairly tough going for the casual reader.

[Ray Campbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love creepy books in the fall. This was not a creepy book. I thought it might explore the undead in literature, legends and folk tales - perhaps a bit of history of the origins of our modern zombies, vampires and ghouls. That's how it was promoted anyway. The introduction even explains that the popularity of these themes in modern pop culture is an ancient tradition. So, when the book began with the undead and necromancy in the ancient world, I thought we were going in the right direction. This was not the case.

The book is well written and interesting, but it draws from sacred writings mixing angels and demons with spiritual encounters. There is nothing frightening about monks recounting miracles or mythological characters meeting gods. Very light on culture or folktales that might illuminate the origins of today's popular undead manifestations. Again, well written and scholarly, but way more oriented toward spiritual/religious and less toward the creepy.

[Yvette · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's sooo church-y. The reader they had did a great job for the audiobook but I found myself zoning out pretty often once I realized it was another story of a monk or another case of "hey pray more oooooo". And zoning out during my commute is the opposite of what I want to do.

Like I wasn't expecting a delicious selection of modern ghost stories but I was expecting a broader range of stories.

And on a specific gripe for the audiobook I wish they'd have some sort of marker at the beginning of tracks so when you start getting bored to tears by another haunted monk it's easier to skip forward to find the next story.

[Lucy Barnhouse · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this as a potential teaching resource, and am looking forward to using it as such. It would fit nicely either in a medieval course (mine's "The Living and the Dead in Medieval Literature") or in a longitudinal survey of the supernatural, perhaps more selectively used. The readable translations would, I think, also be appreciated by fans of the mysterious and the macabre, the gothic and the ghostly. I don't anticipate having much luck getting undergrads to read the apparatus, but it's useful, and Bruce's framing material should be appreciated by the student and the enthusiast alike.

[DC Allen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Undead myths are something I've begun to take an interest in and I was hoping that this book would introduce me to a lot of new information. I was disappointed with what I found. Even with my limited knowledge I was surprised that several Undead stories that I was already familiar with were nowhere to be found in this book, such as the Red Riders of Da Derga, the Fear Gorta, or the Cauldron of Rebirth from the Mabinogion. That last one is so well known that Disney made a cartoon about it.

This book contains very little analysis or exploration. Each story is prefaced with a brief description, followed by the original text, or a summary of it, and that's it. There is no follow up discussion or exploration of the themes, significance, inspirations, further historical context, etc. I was vey disappointed after reading the Witch of Endor text, hoping for an explanation of that bizarre incident, only to find the end of the chapter.

Another big gripe: there's nothing in the title or description to indicate this, but the vast majority of the myths it covers are European. I was hoping to compare undead myths from around the world. Instead the author provides a lot of very similar accounts from Europeans monks being urged by undead sinners to pray for them. What about Africa, Asia, or the Americas? What interests me most about myths is the similarities and differences we find in different cultures around the world.

In summary: A disappointing treatment of a fascinating subject. To truly cover 1500 years of undead mythology would require much more than the scant ~300 pages this book contains, but even with that consideration it still feels like it barely scratches the surface. I don't think it is useful even as an introduction.

[Mark Keleghan · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's not that this book is bad. As an idea for an anthology it's interesting, it's just that it's very brief. Too brief to be possessed of any considerable depth. It definitely reads as something compiled by an academic, and while Professor Bruce may find this fascinating, that interest doesn't transfer when reading. This is probably due to a lack of context we as readers would have about the time period; a context which Bruce would have. One which would, indeed, make clear the value of these tales insofar as they underscore/highlight attitudes within the historico-cultutal situation from which they spring. As they are presented, we get mere snippets of this. While the book did climax somewhat by deepening the understanding of Hamlet, and some stories were interesting in and of themselves, for the most part this work is nothing remarkable. It is a collection of curious, one which is by no means worthless, but only of niche appeal.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to this one on Audible. It was one of those books that I could only consume in small, incremental installments. I got bored a few times is what I'm saying.

Most of the book shared stories told through a religious lens as the storyteller was often a member of the Church, be that a monk or some other official. Some stories were shared in-house among the members of the Church community - monk to monk. Others were written down and mailed off for the wisdom, insight, and guidance of someone higher ranking or more well-known for their theological and philosophical knowledge.

There were a few stories as shared by the common folk, but they seemed fleeting in comparison to the numerous stories in the earlier section.

Finally, the collection addresses one of the most famous fictional ghosts from Shakespeare's library: Hamlet's father. And there, the book ended.

[Matthew Gurteen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have not got much to say about this one, and the fact that it took me so long to finish speaks volumes. As far as 'The Penguin Book of...' series goes, Scott G. Bruce's edition on the undead pales when compared to others. Parts were certainly interesting, but I learnt nothing new from this book. It was way too short to give proper attention to any of the periods it often glosses over. On top of this, the introduction by Bruce was tiny. It has been over a month since I read it, and I can still remember what little information was in it. If you have an intense interest in early Christian theology on the undead, then I would recommend this book. I would not recommend it to the average reader, however. Katherine Howe's The Penguin Book of Witches remains the best in the series.

[rob Bee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointed to say the least.

The book is really one historical bullet point after the other. Which can be ok, I was just reading this to get ideas and some backstory for any horror rpg's I play.

But here is where is gets bad, when you get to the last chapter, the author brings up Shakespeare. Ok, I am thinking we are going to go over all of the "undead" in his works. Nope. Does nothing more than takes 4 scene of Hamlet, and then abruptly ends the book. Arghhhhhhh!

The sad part, the author has a lot of knowledge and resources which could be dispensed. I got the over all feeling, he had book commitment to make and just tossed out some facts, added a little bit of Shakespeare and said "done".

[Moony Ramos · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Penguin Book of the Undead provides the reader with fifteen hundred years of supernatural encounters. It's an interesting read at first, but soon grows tiresome as one discovers that most of the stories are actually the same. Someone (usually a priest or fellow religious man) sees a ghosts, asks it what it wants, does the thing he requires, and the soul is allowed to go to heaven. All in all a decent read if you are into this sort of thing, but not necessarily a must read in the horror/ghost genre.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice companion pies to The Penguin Book of Hell that, sadly, suffers a bit (ha!) by being of similar subject and compiled by the same person. An interesting survey of supernatural being in Western history, this is not simply a collection of ghost stories. It gives theories, extrapolations and commentary on the very idea of ghosts and the undead and their meaning in the (at the time) known world.

A bit dry at times, but ultimately a satisfying and interesting survey of historical writings on a ghoulish subject.

[ConfusedMagpie · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you are into the Middle Ages, this book is for you. since like 75% of it has stories on medieval ghosts and such. However, the book promises stories from all over the western world and throughout history, which it does not deliver. Sure, there are some stories on the undead of the ANcient World and og Scandinavia, but there could have been so much more, and the modern times could have been explored where it not for all the time and space taken by the Middle Ages, which in my opinion did not have particularly interesting stories. So, all in all, my expectations were not met.

[Sophie Marzan · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the beginning, I found the book interesting. When it talked about Greek and Roman beliefs, my interest was at full peak. However, once the book started getting into writings from the Catholic Church, is when I lost interest. I still found it interesting, but by not being religious or part of the Catholic religion it didn't click with me. I feel that if at the end it talked more about modern hauntings it would've been more interesting, or the infamous exorcism that took place in St Louis, Missouri 1949.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a lot about the history of man's relationship with death and, more specifically, beliefs as they have evolved over time concerning what we've thought possible in the realm of the afterlife. Sometimes entertaining, sometimes rather slow, but all in all a great collection of historical records and accounts of experiences with the supernatural. I think I expected a little more horror, a little less history, but that isn't the books fault.

[Jake Underwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite poorly edited. Includes well over 100 pages of repetitive, and poorly told, stories from monks and priests. Who tell stories of restless ghosts being punished in purgatory or hell. The solution to their misery, 100% of the time, is giving alms to the poor and giving mass. Over 100 pages of that.

There are some great stories told from outside the Christian tradition though, seek those out elsewhere.